Ecological footprint and grazing lands
The ecological footprint measures the human demand for goods originated from nature and compares the human consumption of natural resources with the ecological capacity or bio-capacity of the land to reproduce these resources. Both, the ecological footprint and the bio-capacity are measured in global hectares. The global hectare is a hectare which designates the average productivity of the overall biologically productive hectares upon the earth. For instance, for the year 2003, there were totally 11,2 billions of global hectares of available land and in the same year the human needs for products and services amounted to 14,1 billions global hectares (overshoot: 25%). Obviously, if this overshoot goes on, the various terrestrial ecosystems would continuously deteriorate and at the end maybe they will collapse. The procedure of measuring the ecological footprint and the bio-capacity could concern a person, an enterprise, a city, a country or even the whole planet (land and sea). However, what is valid today for the entire planet but also specifically for our country by these two meanings (ecological footprint and bio-capacity) in relation to the grazing lands? The human needs in meat, hides, wool and milk are increased all the time. The respective, for the grazing of animals, pasture lands are overgrazed. Would the improvements in the bio-capacity of ecosystems be able to reduce the gap between their supply and the respective human demand? And if so, in what way?
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment Department of Planning and Development of Natural Resources Laboratory of Forest Economics
Keywords:ecological footprint, bio-capacity, global hectare, pasture lands, Greece
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Book:RANGE SCIENCE AND PROTECTED AREAS - Proceedings of the 6th Panhellenic Rangeland Congress in Leonidio Arcadia Peloponnesus, 2-4 October 2008 (Edited by: Konstantinos Th. Mantzanas, Vasillios P. Papanastasis)