Sharing Nature's Interest. - Review - book review

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS AS AN INDICATOR OF SUSTAINABILITY

By Nicky Chambers, Craig Simmons and Mathis Wackernagel EARTHSCAN 2000 [pound]13.95

Asked to explain the environmental crisis in terms everyone would understand, the 'green' business guru Paul Hawken put it like this: 'All our planetary systems are declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. What more do you need to know?'

Measuring the rate and kind of decline, and assessing the impact of various measures that may stem or even reverse the trend, has grown into quite an industry since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 helped put 'indicators of sustainability' on the agenda for many concerned about the environment and the human future.

Sharing Nature's Interest pushes the case for ecological footprinting, a technique developed in the mid '90s. The technique aims to provide a way of calculating 'sustainable earth shares' for an individual, town, region or nation. This is done by measuring how much productive land and sea is needed to support current lifestyles and comparing it to the amount actually available if everyone lived equally and in a way that did not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

The authors, who have developed and now promote software and other products that employ footprinting, say it is one of new generation of indicators that goes beyond being 'librarians', which organise information in categories, to being 'plumbers', which focus on how different categories are interconnected and what the trade-offs might be.

This book is an up to date guide to footprinting's whys, wherefores and how to's. There's a useful chapter answering questions people usually ask about the technique, and insightful commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of other approaches.

Intentionally, footprinting says nothing about peoples' quality of life. Rather, it provides a utilitarian view of nature -- as a big bucket filled with resources -- and measures who takes what. But, the authors argue, using such a crude simplification will broaden the model's appeal both to those reluctant to accept the ideas of ecological constraints and those who are keen on them. Also, they say, the graphic language of footprinting means it's easy to get the message across to 'ordinary' people, and so will help inspire action.

Tools to help make inspirational ideas real should be welcome. Footprinting certainly merits close attention. But some underlying points may not be new: back in 1902 Ebenezer Howard, in his Garden Cities of Tomorrow, proposed reserving five-sixths of the urban area for farming. His ideas were transmogrified in the New Towns programme, culminating in the glory that is Milton Keynes. Better luck this time, perhaps.

COPYRIGHT 2001 MIT Press Journals
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group