NOTE: The calculations below were based on the Living Planet Report 2002. See Living Planet Report 2008 for copies of this and previous editions of LPR.

Ecological footprinting and the Living Planet Report

Much of OPT's research concerns the development of Ecological Footprinting, a technique used to measure the ecologically sustainable bioproductivity of Earth and calculate by how much populations are overshooting sustainable levels of renewable resource consumption. When used to measure the carrying capacity of individual countries it is a 'broad brush' treatment and a snapshot picture. Population estimates can be raised by incorporating realistic expectations of improvements in environmental technology, and by the capacity of some nations to live by international trade. Nations which ignore the question of what populations their country can sustain on a warming planet and in a post-fossil fuel world do so at high risk to their citizens and to others. To those who criticise these methods:   we challenge you to argue your case on the basis of scientific fact, for the sake of future generations. Contributions, constructive criticism and analysis are welcome - please e-mail us, giving contact details.

Three Excel spreadsheets to download:   and see comments below *

Click here to download Excel Viewer to see these tables.

Also, to accompany these tables, the following documents can be downloaded (in PDF format):

• Click for Notes and Index to Tables
  (The tables are complex and need careful examination - these notes should help.)



• Click for Questions and Answers
  (A draft paper providing answers to A Plain Person's Questions concerning LPR 2002)

Click here for     to read the two documents above.

* ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTING: THE LIVING PLANET REPORT 2002

In June 2002, WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature) published the Living Planet Report 2002 (LPR 2002). This 36 page booklet is available from WWF, Avenue du Mont-Blanc, 1196 Gland, Switzerland, at a cost of 10 Euros or US$9.00. (Tel: +41 22 364 9111). It was produced in conjunction with an eco-footprinting team from Redefining Progress, Oakland, California, led by co-originator of eco-footprinting, Mathis Wackernagel, who now works with the Global Footprint Network non-profit organisation which he founded in 2004.

If you are not already familiar with ecological footprinting, you are recommended to read the Living Planet Report before studying the tables on this website.

LPR 2002 was a follow up to the earlier LPR 2000 report. In both editions, valuable eco-footprinting data is shown in Table 2. Among other things, that table lists the ecological footprints and biocapacity of 146 nations. The LPR 2002 edition is particularly useful in facilitating OPT carrying capacity calculations, because it contains biocapacity figures separated into their individual components (cropland, pasture, forest and fishing ground).

The report can be downloaded in electronic form from the WWF and from Redefining Progress as a 1.05 Mb file. In the hardcopy edition of the Living Planet Report 2002, the table, Table 2: Ecological Footprints and Biocapacity occupies pages 22-29. Some people will want to make use of the data in the Table 2 spreadsheet, which is why, with the permission of WWF, OPT makes it available here for downloading. The format is such that it can be saved to disk and then used with an Excel spreadsheet programme (from version 4.0).

OPT uses eco-footprinting data to calculate the possible (population) carrying capacities of different countries. So OPT also offers for downloading its extended version of Table 2, referred to above as Table 2E. This has additional columns to the right of Table 2, showing possible sustainable population levels according to the following criteria:

The columns and cells are annotated with explanatory notes. The added cells are mainly 'live'- not just values, so you can inspect the formula used to calculate them. The formulae are often explained in cell notes; these are backed up by a comprehensive explanation of Table 2E. Also available on this site are a more general discussion: Eco-footprint FAQS and an explanation of the Crucial CO2 limit of 9GtC02 a year (see OPT Journal page.

Further to the right on the spreadsheet, the yield factors are shown; these provide background information on biocapacities. Eco-footprinting is normally carried out in terms of global hectares. See Glossary page of this website for an explanation of these terms and of the relationship between local area hectares, worldwide hectares and global hectares.

The written commentary explaining the technical details of OPT's changes to Table 2, making Table 2E, and the more wide-ranging discussion of LPR 2002 are contained in the PDF documents Notes and Index to Tables and Questions and Answers as downloadable from above. Many of the carrying capacity concepts explained in these documents have been developed over several years, and analysed in OPT papers, but this is the first time that OPT has presented on a website a spreadsheet designed to help investigation and exploration by other users.

Nearly 150 countries are covered by our sustainable population estimates. These are:

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Congo, Dem. Rep, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Toto, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Canada, United States of America.

Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Dem. People's Rep, Korea, Rep, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.

Albania, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova Republic, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine, Yugoslavia.

Austria, Belgium & Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom.

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen.

Responsibility for Table 2E (i.e. the extension to Table 2) lies with the Research Co-ordinator for OPT: