Recent ‘Living Planet’ report published by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has stated that the current natural resources depletion is the worst in human history. Many species have extinct in past two decades at an alarming rate. The demand for resources had never been greater before. It cautioned that if the need continued at the current scale, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050. Another interesting fact is if the world populations live the UK’s lifestyle, three planets would be needed to support their needs.

This report was created based on ‘Ecological Footprint’, an indicator based on measure of human demand on the natural world. Living Planet Index, assesses the health of the planet’s ecosystems, was another indicator.

For sustainability, the planet is only able to meet consumption levels of 1.8 global hectares per person. Due to the consumption rate, mostly by developed countries, the global footprint exceeded the earth’s biocapacity by 25% in 2003, which meant that the Earth could no longer carry on with the demands being placed upon it.

Looking at the trend of consumption and depletion, if Nepal ever gets her problem sorted and proceeds towards development, there won’t be any resources left to fuel it. Third world countries would never get an opportunity to live a life that people in developed countries are living. It’s hard to imagine the world in that condition; we will see more bloodsheds than ever.

Majority of reports published alarming the ecosystem depletion is generally blamed to be too pessimistic. It is said that they don’t consider the fact that with technological advancements some of these issues can be sorted.

Although, there might be a hope for technological advancements, but no one can debate that we definitely are exerting more pressure on the ecosystem affecting its sustainability. Posted by Picasa