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Biocapacity

Map No. 321

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Biocapacity measures how biologically productive land is. It is measured in ‘global hectares’: a hectare with the world average biocapacity. Biologically productive land includes cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries. 16% of the world’s biocapacity is in Brazil.

The biocapicity of a territory is affected by physical conditions and people’s actions. A pertinent example of this is Iraq, the Mesopotamian marshes were once part of the fertile crescent. Much of this marshland has been drained and become desert. Trade sanctions and social upheavals also reduce people’s ability to use land productively. Iraq’s land is now estimated to be the least productive in the world.

"... land is ‘not only’ the ground, it is ‘not only’ a means of production and it is ‘not only’ the material reality that one knows ..." Claudia Briones, 2006

Territory size shows the proportion of all biocapacity that is found there.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page