Ecological Sustainability

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Written by wujinon

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

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Ecological Sustainability
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Ecological Sustainability concerns about maintaining of the natural capital [1] that consists of water, land, air, minerals and ecosystem services that enable life support system and the biodiversity. The life support system includes climate system and nutrient cycling that provides a healthy geophysiological state. [2]

Daly [3] defines the rules for ecological sustainability as:

Output rule: Waste emissions from a project or action being considered should be kept within the assimilative capacity of the local environment, without unacceptable degradation of its future waste absorptive capacity or other important services.
Input rule:
1. Renewable resources: (e.g., forest, fish) harvest rates of renewable resource inputs must be kept within regenerative capacities of the natural system that generates them.
2. Non-renewables: depletion rates of non-renewable resource inputs should be set below the historical rate at which renewable substitutes were developed by human invention and investment according to the Serafian quasi-sustainability rule. An easily calculable portion of the proceeds from liquidating non-renewables should be allocated to the attainment of sustainable substitutes.

Serafian quasi-sustainability rule states that while consuming the income from liquidating non-renewables, a portion of the income which is the user cost of non-renewable resources must be reinvested to produce income that would continue after the resource has been exhausted. This user cost should not be invested in any asset that would just produce future income, but specifically to produce renewable substitutes for the asset being depleted.

A more easy to understand rules are given by Jones [4], who suggests three broad conditions to achieve ecological sustainability:
1. renewable resources, such as timber and fish, should be used no faster than they are able to be renewed.
2. non-renewable resources like coal and oil should only be used within the rate of substitution by alternatives.

3. wastes should only be produced within the ability to process or assimilate them.
The most important things we should sustain are healthy, functioning ecosystems and their species. Not only do they provide us with life-support services such as food, water and oxygen, they also nourish us aesthetically and spiritually. Furthermore, they have their own right to exist without the threat of human destruction.
However, at present, global warming, pollution, deforestation, erosion, salinisation and acidification of soils, threaten to destroy biodiversity and natural habitats.
The main cause of ecological degradation is that too many people use too many resources and inappropriate technologies, and create too much waste. Sustainability would be enhanced by smaller populations, lower consumption and greener technologies such as solar energy and recycling.

[1] Goodland, R., 2002, Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change. Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
[2] Sutton, P., 2000, Director, Policy and Strategy, Green Innovations Inc.
http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/ecolsust.htm
[3] Daly, H E, 1999, Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics,
E Elgar Publications, Cheltenham.
[4] Jones, A., 2003, Marine Ecology, Australian Museum, http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/ecolsust.htmm

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