Ecological footprint initiative on track

Abu Dhabi: The minister of environment and water said that the Ecological Footprint initiative is on the right track after the first steering committee meeting of the Al Basama Al Beeiya Initiative.

"Several milestones have been reached in the roll-out of the project", Dr Mohammad Saeed Al Kindi, the UAE said, thanking government and corporate organisations cooperating with the initiative.

The Al Basama Al Beeiya Initiative, launched on October 18, is the UAE's national effort to cut down the ecological footprint and to ensure a sustainable future.

The meeting, chaired by the minister, was attended by number of senior officials from all the emirates.

"I am pleased to note that the steering committee enjoys representation from every emirate in the UAE. This shows that we have commitment at the national level. It is absolutely important that we have the full support and cooperation of all the relevant bodies to make this national project a success," Al Kindi said.

The team also identified three key aspects of Al Basama Al Beeiya mission namely, raising awareness about the project and its mission, facilitating research on vital footprint components and institutional capacity building across the UAE.

Vital national data will be collected according to uniform and proven standards as part of the initiative. Once complete, the data collected would be pivotal in helping policy makers take the right decisions.

Majid Al Mansouri, the Secretary General of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD) and Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and member of the steering committee, presented an overview of the project to participants.

He stated that the project team is currently engaged in the challenging task of sourcing data on Population and Energy, which have been identified as priority areas in the project's current phase.

Indicator: Natural resources

The Ecological Footprint is a sustainability indicator that measures the use of natural resources by the population of a country and is expressed by a unit of bio-productive land called 'global hectare' (gha).

According to the Living Planet Report 2006, the UAE has the highest ecological footprint in the world with UAE residents averaging 11.9 gha (global hectares) per person.

This translates to each UAE resident requiring 7 planets to support his / her current lifestyle.