Activist group says Utahns are living beyond ecological means

An activist group says Utahns are living beyond their means, or beyond its "ecological footprint."

As recently as 1990, residents were within the state's footprint, but by 2003, they were in "ecological overshoot."

The group Utah Vital Signs examined the amount of the world's resources used by residents in a nine-month study. The study, "Utah Vital Signs 2007: The Ecological Footprint of Utah" was released on Wednesday. It is posted on the Internet at utahpop.org/vitalsigns.

Utah Vital Signs, which is a project of the Utah Population and Environment Coalition, released the report Tuesday during a press conference at This Is the Place Heritage Park, where a pioneer village re-creates the early days of Utah settlement when pioneers were self-sufficient.

The ecological footprint involves measuring the state's self-sufficiency. Among factors considered, according to the report, are capacity to grow food, grazing, forest products, fishing, housing and the ability of the land to absorb waste such as carbon dioxide that is converted to oxygen by trees.

"In 2003, the global ecological footprint was 14.1 billion global hectares, or 2.2 global hectares per persons," the report says.

In Utah, said Helen Peters, who helped assemble the report, "we are using 9.9 global hectares per person." This area was described as equal to about 20 football fields without end zones, needed to supply each Utahn's consumption of food, housing, energy, goods and services.

However, the report and presenters said, Utah's land supplies only the amount of goods produced on 8.9 hectares per person. The group calculated that Utah is in "overshoot" by the difference between those amounts.

In other words, the group contends, Utahns use 11 percent more than the state's land can provided on a renewable basis.

"Utah is using more of nature's resources than nature provides," said Peters. "We are drawing down resources that future generations make take advantage of."

"The state has gone into ecological default," said Sandra McIntyre, project director. "We are in an overshoot situation as of 2003."

Figures from 1990 show the state was living within its ecological means, the group said. But by 2003, the population of Utah grew from 1.7 million to 2.4 million. Members pointed to the 40-percent population increase as involved in the change of the state's ecological footprint.

Part of the increase was because Utahns had the highest reproduction rate in the country, the group said.

What wasn't mentioned was how in-migration from other states might affect Utah's ecological footprint, whether that change reduces the other states' footprints or if Utah should get an ecological footprint credit for taking in people from other states.