The Human Footprint and the Last of the Wild

作者：Eric W. Sanderson, Malanding Jaiteh, Marc A. Levy, Kent H. Redford, Antoinette Wannebo, Gillian Woolmer · 发表于：BioScience · 年份：2002 · DOI：10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0891:thfatl]2.0.co;2 · 被引用次数：2488 · 研究领域：Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management、Geographies of human-animal interactions

In Genesis, God blesses human beings and bids us to take dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and every other living thing. We are entreated to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). The bad news, and the good news, is that we have almost succeeded. There is little debate in scientific circles about the importance of human influence on ecosystems. According to scientists' reports, we appropriate over 40% of the net primary productivity (the green material) produced on Earth each year (Vitousek et al. 1986, Rojstaczer et al. 2001). We consume 35% of the productivity of the oceanic shelf (Pauly and Christensen 1995), and we use 60% of freshwater run-off (Postel et al. 1996). The unprecedented escalation in both human population and consumption in the 20th century has resulted in environmental crises never before encountered in the history of humankind and the world (McNeill 2000). E. O. Wilson (2002) claims it would now take four Earths to meet the consumption demands of the current human population, if every human consumed at the level of the average US inhabitant. The influence of human beings on the planet has become so pervasive that it is hard to find adults in any country who have not seen the environment around them reduced in natural values during their lifetimes—woodlots converted to agriculture, agricultural lands converted to suburban development, suburban development converted to urban areas. The cumulative effect...