Nature's capital running out, warns WWF

Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels, the spread of cities, the destruction of natural habitats for farmland and over-exploitation of the oceans are destroying Earth's ability to sustain life, the environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has warned in a new report.

The biggest consumers of non-renewable natural resources are the United Arab Emirates, the US, Kuwait, Australia and Sweden, who leave the biggest "ecological footprint," WWF said in its regular Living Planet Report released on Thursday.

Humans currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the Earth can produce, the report said.

"We are spending nature's capital faster than it can regenerate," WWF chief Claude Martin said. "We are running up an ecological debt which we won't be able to pay off unless governments restore the balance between our consumption of natural resources and the Earth's ability to renew them."

But Fred Smith, president of the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute and a former official of the US Environmental Protection Agency during the Nixon and Ford administrations, said he was skeptical. In a telephone interview, Smith said the WWF view is "static" and fails to take into account the benefits many people get from resource use.

Use of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil increased by almost 700 percent between 1961 and 2001, the study said.

Burning fossil fuels -- in power plants and automobiles, for example -- releases carbon dioxide, which experts say contributes to global warming. The planet is unable to keep pace and absorb the emissions, WWF said.

Populations of land, freshwater and marine species fell on average by 40 percent between 1970 and 2000. The report cited urbanization, forest clearance, pollution, over-fishing and the introduction by humans of non-native animals, such as cats and rats, which often drive out indigenous species.

"The question is how the world's entire population can live with the resources of one planet," said Jonathan Loh, one of the report's authors.

The study, WWF's fifth since 1998, examined the "ecological footprint" of the planet's entire population.

Most of a person's footprint is caused by the space needed to absorb the waste from energy consumption, including carbon dioxide. WWF also measured the total area of cities, roads and other infrastructure and the space required to produce food and fiber -- for clothing, for example.

"We don't just live on local resources," so the footprint is not confined to the country where consumers live, said Mathis Wacknagel, head of the Global Footprint Network, which includes WWF.

For example, Western demand for Asian palm oil and South American soybeans has wrecked natural habitats in those regions, so the des-truction is considered part of the footprint of importing nations. The same applies to Arab oil consumed in the US.

The findings are similar to those in WWF's 2002 report, which covered the period up to 1999. But the latest study contains more detailed data stretching to 2001. It shows the situation has changed little in most countries and is now more worrying in fast-growing China and India.

The world's 6.1 billion people leave a collective footprint of 13.5 billion hectares, or just over two hectares per person. To allow the Earth to regenerate, the average per person should be no more than 1.8 hectares, WWF said.