title: Accounting for "land-grabbing" from a biocapacity viewpoint.
abstract: The comparison of the Ecological Footprint and its counterpart (i.e. biocapacity) allow for a classification of the world's countries as ecological creditors (Ecological Footprint lower than biocapacity) or debtors (Ecological Footprint higher than biocapacity). This classification is a national scale assessment on an annual time scale that provides a view of the ecological assets appropriated by the local population versus the natural ecological endowment of a country. We show that GDP per capita over a certain threshold is related with the worsening of the footprint balance in countries classified as ecological debtors. On the other hand, this correlation is lost when ecological creditor nations are considered. There is evidence that governments and investors from high GDP countries are playing a crucial role in impacting the environment at the global scale which is significantly affecting the geography of sustainability and preventing equal opportunities for development. In particular, international market dynamics and the concentration of economic power facilitate the transfer of biocapacity related to “land grabbing”, i.e. large scale acquisition of agricultural land. This transfer mainly occurs from low to high GDP countries, regardless of the actual need of foreign biocapacity, as expressed by the national footprint balance. A first estimation of the amount of biocapacity involved in this phenomenon is provided in this paper in order to better understand its implications on global sustainability and national and international land use policy.
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences, Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland. Electronic address: coscieml@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Coscieme
authors.affiliation: Ecodynamics Group, Department of Earth, Environmental and Physical Sciences, University of Siena, Pian dei Mantellini 44, 53100 Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Pulselli
authors.affiliation: Ecodynamics Group, Department of Earth, Environmental and Physical Sciences, University of Siena, Pian dei Mantellini 44, 53100 Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Niccolucci
authors.affiliation: Ecodynamics Group, Department of Earth, Environmental and Physical Sciences, University of Siena, Pian dei Mantellini 44, 53100 Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicoletta
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Patrizi
authors.affiliation: School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Mawson, Lakes Campus, Adelaide, SA 5095, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Sutton
keywords: Ecological Footprint; biocapacity; gross domestic product; land-grabbing; sustainability