An Indicator of Our Pressure on the Land: New Zealand's Ecological Footprint

Sustainability has become a primary goal for much of the legislation which governs resource management in New Zealand. A major difficulty associated with sustainable development objectives, however, is the absence of reliable indicators to measure progress towards the goal of sustainability. The ‘ecological footprint’ provides an estimate of the amount of ecologically productive land required on a continuous basis to sustain current levels of resource consumption and waste assimilation for a given population. By comparing the ecological footprint of a community with the amount of land available, we can more clearly determine whether our current consumption patterns are likely to be sustainable. This paper explores the use of ecological footprint analysis within a New Zealand context. Modifications to the existing procedure for calculating an ecological footprint are proposed, and estimates based on the modified procedures are presented for New Zealand.