Humans Use 83 Percent of Earth's Surface

belloc writes "CNN is reporting on a Wildlife Conservation Society report that states that humans take up 83 percent of the Earth's land surface to live on, farm, mine or fish. The article rerers to a WCS human footprint map, but the WCS site seems to have been CNN'd. Funny: I just got back from a little road trip across the southwest, and from all the nothing you see out there, you would think that 83% is a bit high. I guess Arizona farmlands must look a lot like wild, untouched desert."

Comments

The article (sans pictures)

[Anonymous Coward]

In case of further CNN'ing (a new version of slashdotting?)

The Human Footprint

Human influence is driving conservation crises on a global scale. There is little debate in scientific circles about the importance of human influence on ecosystems. Scientists have shown that we appropriate over 40% of the net primary productivity (the green stuff) produced on Earth each year either taking it directly or keeping other organisms from using it through our agriculture and land use practices (Vitousek et al. 1986, Rojstaczer et al. 2001). We consume 35% of the productivity of the oceanic shelf, are fishing down food webs, and taking 60% of the available freshwater run-off. Although just estimates, these few statistics are testament to the unprecedented escalations in both human population and consumption during the twentieth century, resulting in entirely new environmental crises in the history of humankind and the world. E.O Wilson, the famous naturalist, claims it would now take four Earths to meet the consumption demands of the current human population, if all humans consumed at the rate of the average North American. The influence of human beings on the planet has become so pervasive that it is hard to find an adult person in any country who has not seen the environment around her reduced in natural values during her life time - woodlots converted to agriculture, agricultural lands converted to suburban development, suburban development converted to urban areas. Think of your life, of your neighborhood, of the neighborhood you grew up in -- what it was and what it is now.

The cumulative effect of these many local changes is the global phenomenon of human influence on nature, poorly understood and needlessly destructive. Human influence is arguably the most important factor affecting life of all kinds in today's world. Yet despite the broad consensus among biologists about the importance of human influence on nature, this phenomenon and its implications are less appreciated by the broader human community, which does not recognize them in its economic systems or most of its political decisions.

Formerly it was difficult to visualize this influence across the entire planet, but recent advances in the quality of geographic data now allow us to systematically measure human influence on the land's surface. We used a series of map overlays representing human land uses, power infrastructure (based on lights visible at night to a satellite), settlements, roads and other access points, and human population density to map the "human footprint" on the land's surface.

Click here for a larger version in PDF format
The Last of the Wild

Analysis of the Human Footprint indicates that 83% of the land's surface is directly influenced by human agency. 98% of the areas where it's possible to grow rice or wheat or corn (maize) are similarly influenced. It is within the remaining 17% of the land's surface that some of the best remaining opportunities for conservation lie. We located 568 "last of the wild" places as targets for conservation action. Although these wild places vary enormously in their biological productivity and diversity, they represent the least influenced or "wildest" areas in each of their respective biomes on each continent. As such they provide a promising opportunity to conserve wildlife and wild places while minimizing conflicts with existing human structures and demands.

Meanwhile individuals, institutions and governments must find solutions across the gradient of human influence in order for conservation to succeed. Human influence presents a problem to the co-existence of people and wildlife, and human ingenuity is the key to transform the human footprint and save the last of the wild.

References:

Rojstaczer S, Sterling SM, Moore, NJ. 2001. Human appropriation of photosynthesis products.

Vitousek PM, Ehrlich PR, Ehrlich AH, Matson PA. 1986. Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis. BioScience 36: 368-373.

Wilson EO. 2002. The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Re:Hmmm -- READ THE ARTICLE

[gowen]

ater is on the surface of the earth. how else would you describe where the water is?

But if you look at their map, its pretty clear they're not counting the oceans. And if they were, the figure would be nowhere near 83%, as a moment's thought would have made clear.

I appreciate that this is slashdot and the idea of a moment's thought before a smartass comment is utterly alien.

Re:Hmmm

[Damek]

Well, first, the CNN article directly refers to fishing as part of the footprint, but not the article at the WCS (http://wcs.org/humanfootprint) - it refers to fishing as one of the things humans do, but doesn't say people fish on land.

Second, people do fish on land. Fish farms come to my mind...

But none of this has anything to do with developing nations meeting in New Delhi about the Kyoto protocol http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2349289.stm

The Club of Rome

[theonomist]

Using similar methods, the Club of Rome predicted in the early 1970s that the world would run out of oil by 1992. They and others also predicted that the West would be hopelessly overpopulated by... right around now. Both predictions have proven to be wildly inaccurate, but they got a lot of press at the time, and they were taken seriously by what passes for "intellectuals" (whose only measure of "truth" is how well a given story dovetails with their ideology).

In other words, this kind of nonsense is a great method for people like the WWF to solicit donations and get their names in the paper, but you shouldn't mistake it for meaningful information.

This was covered in The Economist already, by the way. Old news. They've got some amusing observations about how slipshod the "study"'s methods are, and how many hidden assumptions it relies on.

Re:While flying it seems this is pretty true..

[Dr Caleb]

I fly quite regularly in a small 6 passenger plane over northern Alberta, BC, the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

I can say there are millions of hectares of untouched forest, rivers, lakes and mountains. No cutlines, no surveying lines, no power lines, *nothing*. Every time I fly over the southern Yukon, I think "I wonder what the fishing is like in that lake. It must be completely untouched." But the pilot never is willing to land for me to check it out. Stupid plane needs a stupid runway bla bla bla. :)