Lesson 14 September 15 th, 2010

 An estimate of how much land and water is needed to support a person’s lifestyle  Includes the land and water needed to produce the resources as well as wastes produced.  The average Canadian requires 8.9ha (17 football fields) to maintain their lifestyle.  If everyone on earth lived like this we would need 5.7 earths.

 Calculating ecological footprints enables us see how much we need to change or evaluate progress.  Can be calculated for a person, building, town, province, country, or continent.

 As populations and consumption increases the World’s ecological footprint will eventually equal all the available land and water on Earth.  It is believed that we reached this point in 1990.

Country Footprint (ha/person) India0.86 Pakistan0.64 Japan4.77 United States9.57

 Environmental steward - taking care of our natural resources to ensure that they are used in sustainable ways for current and future generations.  Stewardship includes activities such as:  Reducing the amount of resources we use  Reusing items instead of throwing them away  Renew /recycling used items.  Conserving existing ecosystems and restoring damaged ones.

 In the 1980’s the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) was created.  The EFP is a tool that farmers can use to identify environmental problems on their farms and develop action plans to address these problems  Example: pesticides have been reduced by 50 percent on Ontario farms since the EFP started.

 Integrated pest management - method of pest control that uses knowledge about a pest’s biology and habitats.  Uses common sense methods to control pests, not eliminate them.  Rotating crops can help as many pests only eat one kind of plant.

 Soil is a limited resource. It takes hundreds of years to form  Soil conservation - using farming methods that protect the soil from erosion and loss of nutrients.  Example: No-till farming leaves roots from previous year’s crops. The roots help to prevent erosion. Not all plants can be planted this way.

 Organic farming - organic farms do not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides.  Reduces water pollution. However  Cannot produce the same amount of food as a non- organic farm.

 Centralized production of food is more efficient because one plant ships everything.  This is possible due to modern refrigeration and efficient transportation networks.  But if contamination occurs all the food must be recalled, and this is very expensive. Currently, in North America, many foods are grown and processed on a very large scale. It is very efficient, but.....

 Decentralized food production can help reduce this problem  And locally grown food takes less energy to bring to a store.  Sustainable agriculture and eating locally produced foods are connected.  Buying locally supports local farmers – farmers continue to farm  Locally grown produce tends to be fresher

 Questions 1-7 hand in  + read page