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HUMAN IMPACT: ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT Dr Susan Bliss, Educational Consultant Ecological Footprint: Oil Spill #12 by Daniel Beltrá is an aerial image showing the environmental degradation caused by oil spills. His aim, through his work is to protect the environment from further harm. Source: https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/daniel-beltra/ SYLLABUS CONNECTIONS YEAR 7 TO YEAR 12 (STAGES 4, 5 & 6) STAGE 4 STAGE 5 STAGE 6 Place and Liveability Sustainable Biomes Global challenges • Challenges and strategies to • Urbanisation – consequences • Spatial patterns in distribution and enhance liveability/human and sustainable management to consumption of natural resources wellbeing improve human wellbeing and (bio-capacity) • Future liveability-reducing reduce the ecological footprint. • Place and human activity- urban ecological footprints • Creating sustainable cities-eco- country; urban/rural; slums versus • Sustainable places cities skyscrapers-human wellbeing and ecological footprint Water in the World Environmental Change and Management-Urban Senior Geography Project • Availability and access to clean water essential for human • Urban management –r educe • Ecological footprint at a variety wellbeing (water footprint) ecological footprint and improve of scales: personal, local, regional, human wellbeing state, national and global. • Water management-towards sustainability-reducing • Sustainable eco-cities • Interactions, challenges, responses ecological/water footprint Human Wellbeing • Proposing individual and collective action Interconnections • Human wellbeing and ecological • Production and consumption footprint Urban places • Sustainable wellbeing indexes- • challenges aff ecting places, and SSI, WSI, GPI and IWI. actions for sustainability. • Ecological footprint threatens • Study a large city human wellbeing • Megacities Urban places • Sustainability Geography Bulletin Vol 51, No 3 2019 43 HUMAN IMPACT: ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT KEY QUESTIONS At the end of this article students will acquire knowledge and understanding to answer the following Think, Explore and Puzzle questions. THINK EXPLORE PUZZLE What is the ecological footprint? How does a country or city track how How can responsible citizens, much biocapacity it possesses, and organisations and governments How do you measure the ecological how much it uses? reduce the ecological footprint? footprint? What are the connections between What measures can be undertaken What are the connections between the natural environment and human to reduce inequality in human the ecological footprint and wellbeing? wellbeing between settlements-in sustainability? a country? What is the relationship between high What are the diff erent liveability and the ecological footprint How can the Human measurements used to determine in diff erent settlements? Sustainability Index (HSI) and the human wellbeing? Sustainability Society Index (SSI) What settlements have a small What are the main infl uences be useful indexes for measuring ecological footprint and high human on human wellbeing in your environmental and human wellbeing? settlement? wellbeing? What are eco-cities and eco-villages, What are the diff erences in human What were the impacts on and how do they combine the wellbeing between urban and rural liveability and human wellbeing ecological footprint with human settlements in diff erent countries? from the following incidents on wellbeing? What are the diff erences in human settlements: What indicators are the most suitable wellbeing between and within cities • Cancer villages in Yanglingang measurements combining human and in diff erent countries? China? ecosystem wellbeing? What are the links between the • Fukushima villages and cities in Is there a relationship between large ecological footprint and GDP? Japan? megacities and huge ecological • Chernobyl nuclear disaster What are the basic environmental footprints in developed and impacting on farming villages human rights which aff ect human developing countries? wellbeing? and Pripyat? How can the benefi ts of urbanisation • Disappearing indigenous What are the advantages and improve human wellbeing? fi shing villages in coastal Asian disadvantages of shrinking cities on Can benefi ts be equally shared to countries? human wellbeing? ensure access to infrastructure and Some of the fastest-growing What is the importance of the City social services, focusing on the needs cities have fewer than 1 million Wellbeing Program? of the urban poor and vulnerable inhabitants-many of them Are sustainable cities ‘happy cities’? groups for housing, education, located in Asia and Africa. What health care, decent work and a safe are some eff ective sustainable What is the signifi cance of environment? management practices that have Sustainable Development Goal 11 been implemented in Asian cities? (2016) concerning sustainable cities (Green City Index) and how can it be implemented? SEE APPENDIX 3 & 4 for student activities in PDF and WORD formats, linked to each of the following content sections 44 Geography Bulletin Vol 51, No 3 2019 HUMAN IMPACT: ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT TEACHING RESOURCES https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-013- 9499-0 YouTube • Harnessing urbanisation for human wellbeing and • The Ecological Footprint Explained planetary health – https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fACkb2u1ULY journals/lanplh/PIIS2542-5196(17)30005-0.pdf • What is Human Development? • Projections suggest cities will swell at an astonishing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwgZQ1DqG3w pace – but whether that means our salvation or an &list=PLH1VK0IdT8whMsE_DdL_-XimRjN7_vOH0 eco-disaster is by no means certain? – • What does Liveability mean? https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/19/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n0DUAr_6eI urban-explosion-kinshasa-el-alto-growth-mexico- • How to Make Cities Liveable city-bangalore-lagos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-S5TWkLeyk • What Is Sustainability? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmQby7adocM • Sustainability explained through animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5NiTN0chj0 • What is sustainable development? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V8oFI4GYMY Weblinks • The environment of human settlements human well- being in cities – https://www.elsevier.com/books/ the-environment-of-human-settlements-human-well- being-in-cities/laconte/978-0-08-020978-4 • Are sustainable cities “happy” cities? Associations between sustainable development and human well- Stomach contents of a Laysan albatross fl edgling, being in urban areas of the United States – Midway Island, by Chris Jordan Source: https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/earth-day-network- featured-tour-2018/ Ecological Footprint: Too Too-Much Much by Thomas Hirschhorn is a symbol of society’s big appetite. In our daily lives, we have the luxury of stashing, hiding and discarding things, but in Hirschhorn’s world, we are forced to heed the artist’s warning about our collective demands on nature. Source: https://www.artworksforchange.org/ portfolio/thomas-hirschhorn/ Geography Bulletin Vol 51, No 3 2019 45 HUMAN IMPACT: ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT A. WHAT IS THE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT (EF)? The Ecological Footprint (EF), a widely recognised measure of sustainability, is an account-based system of indicators that tracks the use of natural resources, and its impacts on ecosystems. The EF acknowledges that Earth has a fi nite amount of biological production that supports all life. Source: https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/ Cartoon: Jon Lawrence, Epping Boys’ High School (retired) Archaeologists discovered fossil footprints of humans Humans originally lived by hunting and gathering who walked in the sand near Laetoli in Tanzania but major changes occurred that gave humans more Africa, about 3.7 million years ago. These people used energy and new technologies to alter and control rudimentary implements that had a minimal impact on more of Earth to meet basic needs and increasing the environment. Their small ecological footprint (EF) wants. For example: was similar to traditional indigenous communities living • Agricultural revolution (about 10,000 –12,000 years in the Indonesian, Brazilian and Papua New Guinea ago) rainforests and Namibian deserts, compared to the larger EF of loggers, miners, hunters, agriculturalists and • Industrial revolution (about 275 years ago) urbanites. Most traditional indigenous communities, • Information and technology revolution and demonstrate values that promote conservation and the globalisation (about 50 years ago). sustainable use of resources. However the culmination of their nomadic and subsistence lifestyles threatens Everything you do from fl ushing the toilet, buying a sustainability. mobile phone, watching TV, travelling by car to school and disposing of single use plastic bags – all contribute For at least 60,000 years, traditional Australian Aboriginal to your EF. and Torres Strait Islander Peoples maintained a special connection to and responsibility for Country, and as a Over the last century, massive growth in population result have a small EF. Their few implements, belongings (83 million a year), high rates of urbanisation, vast and clothes were made from rocks, wood, plants and technological changes and high consumption of animals. Their intimate knowledge of seasonal patterns natural resources have increased human’s EF, and secured their ongoing supply of food, medicines and created an ecological imbalance on Earth, referred other resources. Scientists
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