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"Natural resources are vanishing"

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Noting that the world's natural eco-systems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history, a global report released by WWF-India has said that on current projections humanity will be using two planets worth of natural resources by 2050. According to WWF's Living Planet Report-2006, the group's biennial statement on the state of the natural world, already resources are depleting, with vertebrate species' populations having declined by about one-third in the 33 years from 1970 to 2003. At the same time, humanity's ecological footprint -- the demand people place upon the natural world -- has increased to the point where the earth is unable to keep up in the struggle to regenerate.

Citingdata to compile two indicators of the earth's well-being, the report confirms the trend of biodiversity loss. According to Ravi Singh, Secretary-General and CEO of WWF-India, the country's national ecological footprint is more than 50 per cent larger than its bio-capacity. "We are consuming resources faster than the earth can replace them. It is high time we realised our responsibility towards our planet and made efforts to protect and conserve it."

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