ecological footprint

The human demand on the earth’s resources as a proportion of the earth’s capacity to renew those resources, expressed as ‘global hectares’ per person, per nation etc. According to the Living planet report (2012) of the World Wildlife Fund (the agency that developed and champions this accounting method), humanity’s footprint in 2008 (latest available data) amounted to about 18.2bn global hectares, or 1.5 earths.

carbon footprint,
ecology,
environmental impact,
natural capital,
polyploid

This definition is abridged from A – Z of tree terms: A companion to British arboriculture.
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