Sustainability and the environment p217

Environmental sustainability- meeting the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs:
Encompasses keeping populations densities below the carrying capacity
of a region
Facilitating the renewal of renewable resources
Conserving and establishing priorities for the use of non-renewable
resources, conserving and establishing priorities for the use of nonrenewable resources
Keeping environmental impact below the level required to allow affected
systems to recover and continue to evolve
How concept could be applied to an individual person:
Low-carbon bus
Electric cars
Bike-hire schemes
Public transport improvements
Better insulated homes
Brownfield as opposed to greenfield development
Planting more trees
Tourism, agriculture and forestry
Each sector has its own impact on the environment which can be
modified by careful management
Describe the scenarios shown in Figure 1a and 1b
Business as usual scenario and ecological debt
o The ecological debt will steadily increase (y=x) with no biocapacity
reserve
o Limited efforts are made in terms of environmental sustainability
and the problem gets steadily worse
o Human populations in the most marginal areas will be affected
first but gradually environmental problems will encompass more
and more regions and their populations
Return to sustainability
o With environmental sustainability at the forefront of policymaking
o Graph shows ecological debt being gradually reduced until once
again the planet has a biocapacity reserve and it is living within its
means
o Requires political will by governments on national and
international basis
o Demands limits on the actions of individuals and organizations
whose behavior damages the environment for personal and
organizational gain
o Sustainability need not require a reduction in the quality of life,
does not require a change in attitudes and values toward less
consumptive lifestyles
o Maintaining social capital including that devoted to health,
education, housing and the rule of law

Environmental Sustainability Index

Benchmark the ability of nations to protect the environment over the next
several decades
Integrates 76 data sets into 21 indicators of environmental sustainability :
o Tracking natural resource endowments, past and present pollution
levels, environmental management efforts and the capacity of a
society to improve its environmental performance
o 5 broad categories
o Environmental systems
o Reducing environmental stresses
o Reducing human vulnerability to environmental stresses
o Societal and institutional capacity to respond to environmental
challenges
o Global stewardship
Higher the ESI score, the better the situation with regard to
environmental sustainability
But the ESI does not include a number of important measures because of
a lack of comprehensive data at present
They do not consider waste management, wetlands destruction and
exposure to heavy metals
Difference in ESI:
The HICs tend to have a higher ESI score compared to LICs.
Countries such as Brazil, Canada, Australia and Finland have rather high
ESI score (Finland ESI of 75.1)
LICs have rather low ESI scores of around 29.2 such as North Korea
Countries in Africa are in the middle quartile with Gabon with 61.7
The Role of National Parks and other protected areas:
To preserve the unspoilt natural condition of habitats
Analysis of Figure 3 Development and environmental sustainability: