Science > The Human Footprint and the Last of the Wild

The article is written by a group of scientists working for the Wildlife Conservation Society. It starts out with an interesting analogy of how God made a covenant with Noah to multiply and to replenish the Earth. As the authors point it out, Noah and his children are succeeded, but the results are not so desirable.

Summary: all scientists seem to agree in the fact that the overpopulation of humanity profoundly affects our ecosystem. We consume 40% of the net primary productivity produced on Earth each year, in addition to that we consume 35% of the productivity of the oceans and we use 60% of all freshwater run-off. This boom in human population and the unexpected level of use of our natural resources resulted in a major environmental crisis. The authors cite an interesting fact, according to which it would take four Earths to supply us if everyone in the world would consume at a level people do in the USA.

While it is clear to every biologist that these threats are immediate, there is little effort by the larger community to react to them. According to the article, it is because the common people don’t always understand what scientists are trying to say, or because simply think that people have always inhabited the Earth, and why would this be a problem now. This phenomenon however is unique to our times, with a population of 6 billion people. That is why the authors developed the map of the Human Footprint, thinking that it will make it easier for people to see and understand the dangers and threats we pose to our environment. The next paragraph explains how is it possible to gather all the data and maps that were needed to this enormous project.

As the authors explain it, the name Human Footprint resembles the title Ecological Footprint, which is a “set of techniques for estimating the amount of land or sea necessary to support the consumption habits of one individual, population, product, activity, or service to map human influence in the oceans” (pg2). According to the authors, the Human Footprint represents the sum of ecological footprints in the human population. To map the Human Footprint, the authors used four types of data: population density, land transformation, accessibility, and electrical power infrastructure. After summing the scores, they came to the following conclusion: 83% of the land’s surface and 98% of the area where it is possible to grow rice, wheat, or maize, is directly influenced by human beings. The top 10% of the highest scoring areas are the world’s largest cities, while the lowest scoring ones are large tracts of land in the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, in the desert regions of Africa and Central Australia, in the Arctic tundra, and in the Amazon Basin.

Weaknesses: I think the article, even though the authors’ intention was to create an easily comprehendible piece, is still a little difficult to read. It starts out a little confusing, but when they get to discussing the main points, it gets really interesting. The maps they created are a little confusing too; it’s not easy to see what’s going on where. They dedicate too little time to explaining the actual results, while giving vague ideas as to how we supposed to conserve our existing last of our wilds, and how to better restore the ones we destroyed. I don’t really understand what they are trying to demonstrate with Table 2 “Summary of the human influence index scores by realm and biome”. Once again, what the authors’ claim was about easy understanding is not true. I was just thinking that there should be more articles or books written for the public about the importance of environmental protection, so people would realize the significance of it. This article, I don’t think does a good job about it. The final map they created is cool, but the other maps again, I’m not very clear about what they represent. Also I wish they would give more solutions as to what we can do about the Earth. I think a lot of us realize it these days that something has to be done, but the authors don’t say what those things are. What the authors focused on in this project was how human infrastructure and population directly affect the wildlife and wild lands. But there might be other factors as well, I think, that have a direct or indirect effect on the wild life.

Strengths: I think the major strength of the article is the unique view point they applied to their subject. We all heard about how the wild life is shrinking, and the undisturbed territories are becoming extinct, but to put it all in one map, it’s really cool. True, we are all familiar with maps; we can all understand what they show, so to use it for this purpose is a good idea. We can see clearly the areas that are unaffected by humans and those that are so highly populated and used that there are virtually no wild life present. But as an interesting contrast, even in NY, there is still wildlife that can be conserved and protected. As the authors point out it is our responsibility to do this. One of the four criteria they use is the population density, which is easy to see how it’s effecting the human footprint we leave. They cite many other scientists to support their arguments, making it easier for us to accept them. It is always a good idea to support our opinions with others’ and this is especially true in the world of science.

All in one, the article is very well built up to introduce its subject, but as I mentioned before, it can be hard to understand it at places. It requires a very close reading, which I think is important given the importance of the subject. The authors paint a scary picture of the future of the Earth. But if this problem is so urgent, how come it is only biologists that realize and understand it. Why the wider public is so uninformed on these questions. It would be the job of these scientists to open up our eyes, but in order to do that they’d have to see with eyes of the common people, and think the way we think. They have to publish studies like this for the scientific community, but write in a different way if they want to teach and influence the rest of us.

To map the human footprint, we used four types of data as proxies for human influence: population density, land transformation, accessibility, and electrical power infrastructure. For this analysis we focused on the direct measures of human infrastructure and population that have the most immediate impact on wildlife and wild lands and for which geographic data were readily available. Effects of pollution, global warming, increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and other global phenomena, although they have important consequences for terrestrial ecosystems, are not included. Nine datasets that represent these four data types (table 1) were selected for their coverage, consistency, availability, and relevance, but they provide only an incomplete description of human influence on nature. scores that reflected their estimated contribution to human influence on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 for low human influence, 10 for high).

Human population density. The number of people in a given area is frequently cited as a primary cause of declines in species and ecosystems (Cincotta and Engelman 2000), with higher human densities leading to higher levels of influence on nature.

Land transformation. Called the single greatest threat to biological diversity, land transformation has resulted in loss and fragmentation of habitat in many different ecosystem presence of roads is highly correlated with changes in species composition, including increases in nonnative invasive species, processes that shape aquatic and riparian systems

Human access. Roads,major rivers, and coastlines provide opportunities for hunting and extraction of other resources, pollution and waste disposal, and disruption of natural systems, as well as social and economic gain (Gucinski et al. 2001). As a result, designating areas of remoteness is a common element of many wilderness-mapping exercises

Power infrastructure. Many of the dramatic changes in human influence that are due to land use change and access during the 20th century have literally been fueled by fossil energy. The result is the human footprint (figure 3). The humanfootprint expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in every biome on the land’s surface. influence.
We propose that this geography of human influence is roughly the inverse of the geography of natural processes and patterns in the region. Given what we know about the effects of the input factors on nature, we expect that where human influence is highest, ecosystems will be most modified and species under the most pressure from human activity. Where the human footprint values are lower, we expect more intact and functional natural communities.

Finding the last of the wild It follows from mapping the human footprint that it is also possible to map the least influenced, or “wildest,” areas in each biome. because such large, intact tracts of relatively undisturbed ecosystems are particularly important for conserving biological diversity In total, we selected 568 last-of-the-wild areas, representing all biomes in all the realms. There are many ways of using the human footprint to define areas of interest for conservation, depending on the desired conservation objectives. Although area size is often important, for some applications, it may be useful to identify the wildest areas in each biome, regardless of size, for example, the wildest 1% of areas (“seeds of wildness”). Others might use the human footprint to find the areas facing the greatest threat, although those areas may already have lost much of what made them biologically distinct.

 

 

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