Darwin, Northern Territory has Higher Environmental Footprint than the World's Average
Wednesday February 25, 2009
Residents of Darwin currently use four times as much energy than the world average, according to a Charles Darwin University report.
Professor Stephen Garnett, head of the Charles Darwin University's environmental research school says that people in the Northern Territory also need about 8.3 hectares of land to live, instead of the global 2.2 average.
The survey also shows that Darwin's impact on the environment is somewhat due to the amount of long-distance car travel Darwin citizens do, as well their need for imported goods and lack of an abbotoir.
"Meats has a big footprint partly because all the beef has to go somewhere else to get butchered and sent back to us. There's a lot more we could do to be self reliant that will make a difference," Mr Garnett told ABC Darwin Online news.
In addition he believes that government services contribute to 50 per cent of Northern Territory's large environmental footprint.
The survey also found Aborigines people living in remote areas have the lowest ecological footprint of any demographic in Australia.
And Professor Garnett says that non-indigenous people in Darwin should learn to reduce their footprint from the knowledge that indigenous Australians who possess the lowest footprint in the nation.
"They have sustained themselves for many thousands of years on this land. We've come in, we're using a lot of the resources, and we have a terrific way of life at the moment but one wonders in the long term whether we can actually sustain that," Garnett said in the ABC Darwin report.
