Earth’s natural resources are facing immense pressures from growing populations and their exponentially increasing demands. To maintain not just the quality, but the mere sustenance, of these resources for future generations, we need a better understanding of the state of these resources and the extent of the pressures put upon them.

A tool similar to financialaccountingthat looks at income and expenditure in securing financialassets,theEcologicalFootprint (Al Basama Al Beeiya) has been developed as a means of resource accounting in order to secure the quality of life, recognising natural capital constraints. The Ecological Footprint is expressed in ‘global hectares’ (gha), this being a unit of one hectare of biologically productive space, with world average productivity.

According to Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “just 40 years ago, we, humankind, used half of our planet’s resource capacity. Currently, it is estimated that we are consuming at a rate of 1.3 planets.”

In association with the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) the Global Footprint Network presents its Footprint results every two years in the Living Planet Report, calculated from data from over 160 member countries of the United Nations.

In the 2006 Living Planet Report, keeping in mind the available global biocapacity, the Global Footprint Network stated that there were 1.8 global hectares available per capita. The next Living Planet Report, due for release in June 2008, is set to state that the figurehasnowdwindledto1.7 global hectares per capita.

According to the 2006 Living Planet Report, the UAE has the highest ecological footprint in the world with UAE residents averaging 11.9 gha (global hectares) per person in terms of their footprint. If translated globally, this would mean that the resources of seven planets like Earth would be required to support our current lifestyle.

The urgency for the UAE to address its consumption pattern, according to Razan Al Mubarak, Managing Director of Emirates Wildlife Society – WWF, EWS-WWF, lies not just in ensuring that the country is no longer ranked at the top of the list in terms of using depletable resources. It is also in being able, first,to determine with certainty the reality of the UAE Footprint and, secondly and more importantly, in understanding the sustainability of the lifestyle, and, by so doing, enabling a proactive approach being taken to tackling the issues likely to arise soon as a result of current consumption patterns.

In May 2007, the UAE Ministry of Environment and Water, The Abu Dhabi Global Environment Data Initiative (AGEDI) of the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) and the Emirates Wildlife Society (housing the WWF-UAE project office)signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Footprint Network to resolve this issue in a working partnership.

Al Basama Al Beeiya was then launched in October last year as a historic UAE national effort to measure and understand the country’s Ecological Footprint. The initiative upholds the environmental legacy of the late HH Sheikh Zayed and hopes to promote a greater sensitivity on the issues amongst its citizens and residents.

“The Living Planet Reports of 2004 and 2006 brought to us the opportunity to demonstrate to the world the UAE’s determination and commitment to address environmental concerns,” says Al Mubarak.

“Therefore, besides acknowledging the possible reality of the UAE’s Ecological Footprint (as stated in the Living Planet report), we are embarking on the Al Basama Al Beeiya to validate the data that has contributed to the calculation of the UAE’s Ecological Footprint in these reports. We are also taking it a step further, working hand-in-hand with the developers of the Footprint concept - the Global Footprint Network - to contribute to their Footprint calculation methodology. We look to bring to their methodology an understanding of issues peculiar to the those countries which are both hyper-arid and oil-rich.”

The Global Footprint Network recognises that the engagement with researchers in the UAE to improve, complement and strengthen current calculations can result in applications in the UAE and beyond. The Al Basama Al Beeiya partners anticipate that research in the UAE will provide robust models that can be applied to other similar countries, in keeping with the crux of the concept - to live within the budget that our planet provides us.

The Steering Committee of Al Basama Al Beeiya includes senior officialsfromfederal and local governments and key sectors from across the seven emirates, indicating a full commitment at the national level. “It is of crucial importance that we have the full support and cooperation of all the relevant bodies to make this national project a success,” according to the former Minister of Environment and Water, Dr. Mohammed Al Kindi. Data sourcing and verificationin the identifiedpriorityareas,Populationand Energy, is currently under way and the research team is planning to provide input for the 2008 Living Planet report.

Among those consulted have been the Ministries of Energy, Economy and of Federal National Council Affairs, the General Secretariat of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, the Executive Affairs Authority, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), Dolphin Energy, the Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing, the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and the Federal Customs Authority, with meetings also planned with the Environment Protection Authority of Ra’s al-Khaimah and Crescent Petroleum Company, Sharjah, for Energy-related data.

Leena Iyengar works for the Emirates Wildlife Society , EWS-WWF