Eight months into 2016, humans have already spent Earth’s eco­log­i­cal bud­get for the year.

Info­graphic depict­ing how many Earths we would need if the world’s pop­u­la­tion lived like the coun­tries indi­cated.
© Global Foot­print Net­work National Foot­print Accounts 2016Earth Over­shoot Day — the approx­i­mate date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regen­er­ate in that year — is on Mon­day, 8 August this year, accord­ing to the Global Foot­print Net­work.

As global con­sump­tion rises, we are emit­ting more car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere than our oceans and forests can absorb, and we are deplet­ing fish­eries and har­vest­ing forests more quickly than they can repro­duce and regrow. Put sim­ply, at its cur­rent rate, the esti­mated level of resources and ecosys­tem ser­vices we require to sup­port human activ­i­ties exceeds what the Earth can pro­vide — to con­tinue liv­ing like this, we would require over 1.6 planets.

“Nature’s ser­vices are cru­cial to our well-​being, pros­per­ity and hap­pi­ness, and to our very sur­vival. So we must shift from being irre­spon­si­ble exploiters to care­ful stew­ards and good man­agers of the planet’s essen­tial, finite resources,” said Marco Lam­ber­tini, Direc­tor Gen­eral, WWF Inter­na­tional in a state­ment pub­lished on over​shoot​day​.org.

WWF’s “One Planet Per­spec­tive” aims to out­line bet­ter choices for man­ag­ing, using and shar­ing nat­ural resources within the planet’s lim­its — to ensure food, water and energy secu­rity for all.

In south­ern Chile for exam­ple, WWF works with local com­mu­ni­ties, organ­i­sa­tions and author­i­ties on a joint con­ser­va­tion strat­egy for the marine ecore­gion. Together, they have helped pro­tect more than 120,000 hectares of marina area, sup­port­ing efforts to pro­tect whales and dol­phins, allow­ing fish stocks to recover and build­ing the ecosystem’s resilience to cli­mate change.

In Indone­sia, WWF works with com­mu­ni­ties to har­vest ‘liq­uid gold’ honey in a bid to pro­tect peat swamp for­est and habi­tat for crit­i­cally endan­gered orang­utans while cre­at­ing sus­tain­able liveli­hoods. “Col­lect­ing honey is part of our cul­tural her­itage. It’s a tra­di­tion,” says Ron­nie Mulyadi, a 31-​year-​old father of two and mem­ber of the Buku Tamu honey pro­duc­ers’ association.

Since the com­mu­nity got involved in honey pro­duc­tion, the for­est is bet­ter pro­tected help­ing cre­ate a pos­i­tive knock-​on effect for all bio­di­ver­sity in the area, includ­ing the orang­utans. “We want orang­utans in the for­est because they dis­perse the seeds for fruit trees. If they are there, we know the for­est is in good con­di­tion, and bees need a for­est in good con­di­tion,” adds Mulyadi.

(Source: WWF Global news release, 07.08.2016)