What is your footprint?

Your ecological footprint is the biologically productive area that is needed to produce the resources you use and absorb the waste you produce.

A footprint is measured in units which corresponds to one hectare of biologically productive space. There are only 2.1 global hectares (5.3 acres) of biologically production space available per person on the Earth.

The ecological footprint of an individual, a city, a country, or humanity is a measure of how much productive land and water they require to produce all the resources they consume and to absorb all the waste they generate, using existing technology.  This land could be anywhere in the world.

In 2008, Australia climbed from sixth to fifth in the World Wide Fund (WWF) of Nature's biennial list of countries with the biggest ecological footprints. Only the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Kuwait and Denmark were rated worse. The Living Planet Report 2008 says each Australian has an ecological footprint of 7.81ha, up from 6.76ha in 2006. Carbon emissions and cropping and grazing practices are the biggest contributions to the country's ecological footprint and account for 86 per cent of the total, the WWF says.

Footprinting can be used as a tool to determine how changes in behaviour or lifestyle can affect the size of this footprint.

What is your footprint?

To find out using a fund quiz visit Earthday Footprint Calculations or Australian Conservation Foundation Green home link http://acfonline.org.au/custom_greenhome/calculator.asp?section_id=86.