The Living Planet Report - WWF
Author: Morne Du Plessis
( Article Type: Sustainable Development )
The dire state of our environment is both a threat and an opportunity, says WWF South Africa CEO, Dr Morné du Plessis, of WWF’s Living Planet Report.
WWF’s eighth biennial Living Planet Report (LPR) throws into sharp relief the impact of humankind’s unchecked consumption on the resources that sustain us, with particular relevance for South Africa. As a developing country with pressing social needs, South Africa now faces real threats to its food-, water- and energy-security, but also has an unsurpassed opportunity to forge a green, or low-carbon, economy.
It highlights the fact that each of us has an impact on our planet and that as consumers we don’t operate in isolation from the systems that support us.
We are at a pivotal moment in our country’s energy history, for example, where the need for sustainable choices must be made not only on big business and lawmakers, but also by ordinary people. Urgent action is required, but happily we still have a window of opportunity to make the necessary changes. These changes must focus on catalysing the green economy, which involves renewable energy, investing in our natural capital and other factors, to not only alleviate this crisis but provide a way out of the poverty trap that mires so many of our people.
The LPR highlights the unchecked decline of natural resources in developed countries and the accelerated decline of those resources in developing countries. The overall decline of 30% of the world’s biodiversity since 1970 and the decline of almost 70% in tropical freshwater species can make humankind’s impact seem irreversible. Our Ecological Footprint now exceeds the earth’s Bio-capacity by 50 per cent – meaning it takes 1.5 years for the Earth to produce the resources humanity consumes in a single year. This should leave no doubt as to the urgency with which we need economic thinking that embraces people and the planet.
This report is an enormously powerful document. Its scientific efficacy and the scope of its research should be in the arsenal of anyone wanting to promote sustainable choices in their chosen sphere of interest. It should strengthen the arm, for instance, of those who promote renewable energy over fossil-fuels – making WWF’s call for 50% renewable energy 2030, an achievable and necessary target. It should bolster those promoting good water stewardship in the light of South Africa’s pressing water challenges associated with scarcity, and poor water quality such as acid mine drainage. And it should also encourage major water users to understand more succinctly, their water footprint, both in their operations and supply chains. Sustainability is now way beyond a middle-class preoccupation: it’s a pro-planet, pro-poor issue. Business should use the King III Report to push a green economy agenda in business, driving the emphasis on corporate citizenship and weaving sustainability into audit processes.
Low carbon growth will and must be the foundation for economic and societal transformation. Energy is a tool to embed the green economy notion into our growth as a nation systemically rather than marginally. There has always been a traditional link between energy and mineral resources, but energy’s sinews reach much wider, into water, food and transport. The solution is not only simply to use less energy but to produce more, more cleanly. The Report also identifies sustainable food production and supply as the key challenge, along with energy, of the 21st Century. It calls for decisive action on over-consumption and on malnutrition, the latter which continues to affect the lives of many South Africans including millions of children. Pressures on the natural resources required to produce food will continue to grow; if the current two percent growth trend persists, South Africa’s current population of 48 million will have risen to 82 million by 2035.
The report affirms WWF’s drive to promote the protection of natural ecosystems, which produce the critical goods and services that underpin food security in the country. Our work in the food economy is partly aimed at ensuring consumer choice but primarily at using market forces to drive our conservation agenda.
The big choices we have to make – the hard choices – sit in food, water and energy. But ultimately, it comes down to the individual, to each one of us. We don’t have to wait for politicians or businesses to change the system for us – we have immense power as individuals. We simply need to be willing and committed. Willing to reassess our own dietary footprint, and committed to the way in which we use water and energy.
The Living Planet Report can be accessed online via www.wwf.org.za
