TASK:

A. ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS

If the ecological footprint per person of a country or the world is larger than its
biological capacity per person to replenish its renewable resources and absorb the
resulting waste products and pollution, the country or the world is said to have an
ecological deficit. If the reverse is true, the country or the world has an ecological
credit or reserve.

(Use the data to the right to calculate the ecological deficit or credit for the
countries listed. As an example, this value has been calculated and filled in for the
world)

Place Per Capita Per Capita Ecological

Ecological Biological Capacity credit (+) or
Footprint (hectares per Deficit (-)
(hectares per person) (hectares per
person) person)
World 2.6 1.8 -0.8
United States 6.8 3.8
Canada 7.0 13
Mexico 2.4 1.3
Brazil 2.5 9
South Africa 2.5 1.2
United Arab 8.0 0.7
Emirates
Israel 4.6 0.3
Germany 4.3 1.9
Russian 4.4 6.6
Federation
India 0.9 0.4
China 0.5 0.8
Australia 7.5 15
Bangladesh 0.65 0.35
Denmark 4.0 4.0
Japan 3.7 0.7
United Kingdom 4.0 1.1
Philippines 1.01 0.78

Questions:

1. Which three countries have the largest ecological deficits? For each of these
countries, why do you think it has a deficit?
2. Rank the countries with ecological credits in order from highest to lowest
credit. For each country, why do you think it has an ecological credit?
3. Rank all of the countries in order from the largest to the smallest per capita
ecological footprint.

B. MY ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
Estimate your own ecological footprint by using one of the many estimator
tools available on the internet. Is your ecological footprint larger or smaller
than you thought it would be, according to this estimate? Why do you think?