Humanity is leaving a large imprint on the world we all live in. This is what we call our footprint on nature.
In the last decades, we have been using more and more of the things we find naturally around us – land, water, wood, animals and other biodiversity. Humanity is ingenious, we’ve found all manner of new ways to make materials we use in our lives and for our homes. But this way of living is not sustainable. Humanity’s demand for natural resources is outpacing Earth’s supply.
If we continue to consume and produce in the same way, we will continue destroying the nature that supports our society and economy, further destabilizing our climate and undermining our health and food security.
This August, WWF released a new report looking at the unsustainable footprint of production and consumption – all those things we are doing that harm our environment – and highlighting the opportunities that would come from changing this activity to nature-positive practices.
Deforestation, overfishing, unsustainable farming and diets, unsustainable resource use and pollution are what we call the main ‘drivers’ of biodiversity loss. These are the main causes of harm to nature. But if we made the economic sectors behind those drivers sustainable, there would be many benefits, for people and the planet.