Sustainable Development Ecology Unit

Human Niches & Population Ecological footprint = a measure of the impact of an individual of a population on the environment in terms of energy consumption, land use, and waste production.

Ecosystems are sustainable: they keep themselves functioning indefinitely and require little or no additional materials each year. This is possible because of the continuous recycling of materials.

Many human activities are not sustainable because: they depend upon the constant growth of population and consumption resources are not unlimited, and many are non-renewable wastes enter the nutrient cycles and damage ecosystems

Humans need to take part in sustainable development: development that satisfies the needs of today’s generation without putting the needs of future generations at risk.

How do we accomplish sustainable development? reduce, reuse, recycle and recover materials remediate damaged environments use resources more efficiently conserving and developing substitutes for scarce resources reduce consumption- what we want vs. what we need changing laws to reduce human impact on environments