Radio Mundo Real

Friends of the Earth Europe launched a new report, titled “The true cost of consumption: the EU’s land footprint”, which highlights that in 2010 the amount of land used to satisfy the block’s consumption, solely of agricultural goods and services, amounted to 269 million hectares. “Almost 40% of this land is outside Europe, an area the size of Italy and France combined”, said Friends of the Earth Europe in its web site.

The report, released in the end of July, underlines that the European Union (EU) uses more than its fair share of global land, with high environmental and social impacts. The new paper shows why the EU has a responsibility in putting efforts towards measuring, monitoring and reducing its global Land Footprint, and how this could be supported by using policy tools and other initiatives. (See the full report attached).

To know more about the findings of this new publication, Real World Radio interviewed activist George Thurley, Resource Use Campaigner of Friends of the Earth Europe. Thurley told us about the main conclusions of the paper, the impacts of the excessive use of lands by the EU outside the continent and potential measures to stop this process, among other things.