China using up natural resources fast: report

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - China is drawing on natural resources such as farm land, timber and water twice as fast as they can be renewed in its drive for development, a report from Chinese and international environmentalists said on Tuesday.

The report said the next 20 years would be critical to correct the situation and put the Asian giant's burgeoning economy, with a rapidly growing population, on to a sustainable path.

"China's average ecological footprint has doubled since the 1960s and now demands more than two times what the country's ecosystems can sustainably supply," said a summary of the report, issued by the Swiss-based WWF International.

It said China's "footprint" -- a measure of how much productive land and inland water resources are used up to satisfy the average current lifestyle of each member of the population -- was running at 1.6 hectares per person.

This suggested that for China's current 1.2 billion people -- one sixth of the world population -- to sustain this rate, it would need to either double the land and water area it uses or cut back to nearer the available 0.8 hectares per person.

The report was commissioned jointly by the WWF, formerly the World Wide Fund for Nature, and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) in Beijing.

CHINESE EXPERTS

It was drawn up with the help of Chinese experts by a U.S.-based group, the Global Footprint Network, which works with the WWF to produce reports on the global, regional and national ecological impact of use of resources.