While Turkey’s average per capita Ecological Footprint has remained fairly stable since 1961, population growth pushed the Mediterranean country from ecological creditor to debtor status 38 years ago, according to a new report that Global Footprint Network and WWF-Turkey presented on March 6 at Istanbul’s historic SALT Galata research and exhibition center.
Today, Turkey demands more than twice the renewable resources than its ecosystems can sustainably produce, or biocapacity. The balance of countries’ resource needs are met by eating into their own natural capital or by accessing biocapacity from elsewhere. Running such biocapacity deficits is becoming risky as the world as a whole is already in ecological overshoot.
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In the past 50 years, the biocapacity deficit of the Mediterranean basin has increased eight-fold, WWF-Turkey’s Conservation Director Sedat Kalem said in Turkey’s Ecological Footprint Report. “Turkey’s Ecological Footprint is twice the national biocapacity.”
The report is an in-depth study of the variables behind the change to Turkey’s Ecological Footprint from 1961 to 2007, including the daily activities and the segments of Turkey’s population that contribute the most to the size of its national Footprint. The report provides the scientific background for further strategic decisions on natural resource management, while offering concrete recommendations on how to tackle ecological overshoot.
Global Footprint Network’s President Mathis Wackernagel and Senior Scientist Alessandro Galli joined Sedat Kalem and WWF-Turkey’s Chair Ugur Bayar at the launch event, which was attended by representatives from the government, academia, civil society and the private sector.
“Ecological Footprint calculations, which present ecological balance sheets of the countries, can help us achieve a sustainable future,” Bayar said. The report, he said, presents recommendations to make Turkey’s Ecological Footprint fit within the country’s biocapacity budget. “We hope that the decision makers and the business sector leaders will take the necessary steps to ensure that our consumption stays within the ecological limits.”
The Turkish report is available here. Click on the hyperlink view the English translation of the
Turkey Ecological Footprint Report.
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