Survival Options: Ecological Footprint of Arab Countries

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APPENDIX C

Sudan

TUNISIA

SYRIA

LEBANON PALESTINIAN TERR. JORDAN

MOROCCO

(Includes South Sudan)*

ALGERIA

IRAQ KUWAIT

LIBYA

EGYPT

SAUDI

BAHRAIN QATAR

ARABIA

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

MAURITANIA

OMAN YEMEN

SUDAN DJIBOUTI

SOMALIA

S

udan occupies 224.4 million hectares of productive land and water. Of those, 70.1 million are forest, 20.9 million are cropland, 117 million are grazing land, and 1.7 million support the country’s built infrastructure. Sudan also has 14.6 million hectares of continental shelf and inland water to support fisheries. As this survey covers the period 1961-2008, the figures include Sudan and South Sudan. Taking into account differences between average regional yields for cropland, grazing land, forest, and fisheries as compared with corresponding global yields, Sudan’s total biocapacity is 96.8 million gha. This is greater than its total Ecological Footprint of 67.5 million gha.

Sudan’s average Ecological Footprint per person is 1.6 gha, slightly greater than half the global average footprint of 2.7 gha. Compared to the rest of the world, the average footprint of an inhabitant in Sudan is small, and for many, it is too small to meet

COMOROS

basic food, shelter, health, and sanitation needs. In order to make vital quality of life improvements, large segments of the country’s population must have greater access to natural resources. Meeting this need must involve more equitable distribution of resources and their better utilization through improved resource efficiency and expansion of biocapacity without resource intensive production. As indicated in Figure 36, Sudan’s Ecological Footprint per person is smaller than the country’s 2.3 global hectares of biocapacity available per person. However, the surplus biocapacity is rapidly decreasing due to a high rate of population growth. The country’s population grew from 11.8 million to 41.4 million between 1961 and 2008. Over the same time period, the biocapacity available per person decreased by 33 percent.

* Data was collected for former Sudan, before South Sudan was accepted into the United Nations.


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