October 19, 2009 / (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- If current population and consumption trends continue, Africa’s Ecological Footprint (a measure of its demand on nature) will exceed its biocapacity within the next twenty years, according to a publication to be released by Global Footprint Network on Tuesday, October 20. A number of countries, including Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania, are set to reach that threshold in less than five years.

The Africa Factbook 2009 reveals that while Africa's population grew from 287 million to 902 million people between 1961 and 2005, the amount of biocapacity (resources that are available on a renewable basis) per person decreased by 67 percent during this same time span. Though this is reflective of a global trend, it is particularly alarming for Africa, a region where ecological deficits can translate most directly into resource conflicts and shortages of food, fuel and other basic necessities for survival.

The Factbook, which reports key indicators on human development and ecological performance for 24 countries, is a culmination of two years of research by Global Footprint Network, the Swiss Agency for Development and local experts, and is published in partnership with UNESCO, the Luxembourg Development Corporation and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).

The Ecological Footprint (the amount of productive land and sea area required to produce the resources a person or population consumes and absorb the carbon dioxide emissions) of the average person in Africa is extremely low, in many cases too small to meet basic needs for food, shelter and sanitation, the Factbook states. If large segments of the population are to move out of poverty, they will require greater access to resources to provide for their basic well-being.

Yet Africa's natural resource stock, which contains 12 percent of the world’s biocapacity, is under increasing pressure both from within the region, by expanding population and the impacts of climate change, and from abroad, as other nations deplete their own resources.

"Development that ignores the limits of our natural resources ultimately ends up imposing disproportionate costs on the most vulnerable," said Mathis Wackernagel, Global Footprint Network president. If Africa’s countries are to make advances in human development that can endure, they will need to find approaches that work with, rather than against the Earth"s ecological budget constraints.

Download the Africa Factbook at http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/uploads/AfricaFactbook_2009.pdf

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