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The ecological footprint must be shrunk to preserve ecological capacity

Author  :  Pan Jiahua     Source  :    CSSN     2013-09-26

The ecological footprint is a measure of the human demand on the earth’s ecosystem, which represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to supply the resources a human population consumes and to assimilate associated waste. Therefore the ecological footprint is equivalent to ecological demand, and it has a supply and demand relationship with the production capacity of an ecosystem or with its ecological carrying capacity, known as ecological supply.

China’s fragile ecosystem is under pressure

The ecological supply is largely subject to the limitations in nature’s capacity, and even though it can be increased to a certain extent through investment and technology, it cannot be fundamentally altered. The ecological footprint however is something quite different, which is determined by the human demand on the earth’s ecosystems.

As we all known, China’s fragile ecosystem has been under huge pressure from population and development. According to statistics published by the World Wide Fund for Nature (an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment), China’s ecological footprint per capita was 2.1 global hectares (gha) in 2008, equivalent to 80% of the global average. China’s ecosystem is however relatively fragile, with almost half of it made up of plateaus, mountains, deserts and the Gobi, and thus China’s ecosystem productivity is far below the global average. At present, China’s per capita ecological footprint has already surpassed the double of the ecosystem’s productivity, something reflected in the massive imports of natural resources such as oil and iron ore which have taken place since the start of the 21st century. Moreover, China should fully achieve the goal of building a well-off society by 2020, something which will mean a higher level of urbanization and a higher quality of consumption. The current lifestyle and production mode has led to long-term over-consumption of the ecosystem’s resources, leading to a development model of ecological debt which has already threatened the safety of the ecosystem as the basis of economic and social development.

Adjust the production/consumption mode to preserve the ecological foundation for “a beautiful China”

In order to build a beautiful China, it will be necessary to adjust and change the mode of consumption, shrink the ecological footprint and limit the demands on the ecosystem to within its capacity, so as to preserve the natural foundation for a beautiful China. If the ecosystem’s productivity is disturbed by human factors, this goal will become impossible. In order to preserve the ecosystem’s productivity, it is necessary to follow the principles of ecological civilization and live in harmony with nature, rather than opposing and destroying nature in the name of transforming it.

Since the reform and opening up, China has shifted its focus from economy and labor employment to industrial manufacturing during its process of rapid industrialization, largely exploiting and consuming mineral resources and fossil energy, the result of which is that a large amount of industrial waste has damaged the environment. While on the one hand agricultural productivity and the per unit output have increased and the production of material goods has multiplied, on the other hand water sources have been polluted, the air is no longer clean and food products are no longer safe. Pollutants such as heavy metals in the soil, pesticide residues and the atmospheric particulates PM10 and PM2.5 not only affect the ecosystem’s material production, but also poison its products, influencing the health of the ecosystem and of human beings themselves. In comparison with a degraded ecosystem, a poisoned ecosystem has an even more serious influence on ecosystem productivity and ecological safety.

The essence of building an ecological civilization is to establish a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly society based on the environmental carrying capacity, in accordance with the laws of nature and aiming at a sustainable development, as well as preserving the ecosystem’s productivity. China is a large country with considerable variations in climate and obvious differences in the regional ecosystems’ productivity, which creates the basic social-economic pattern. The productivity of the eastern region’s ecosystem undoubtedly surpasses that of the western region in proportion to size. In order to live in harmony with nature, it is therefore necessary to assess the environmental carrying capacity, rather than the balanced development of regional socio-economy.

 

(The author is the director of the Institute of Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)

 

Translated by Chen Meina

Editor: 

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