Some cities across the province need for resources and absorb waste. As examples, Bilbao requires a territory 100 times larger than is needed to supply 2.19 Badajoz and its extension to meet their basic needs.

If a 100 times each year spend more than you'd think that any win is clearly destined to crash. Nobody can maintain that lifestyle indefinitely without being doomed to failure. And yet, something similar is what we do as a society to live well beyond our means.

The latest report of the Observatory of Sustainability in Spain (OSE) said that most of the capital consumed more resources and produces more waste incurred by the province.

Most large cities in Spain exceeds biocapacity available in their surrounding territories, which means that its citizens consume more resources and generate more waste for which the province is able to assume.

Examples: Bilbao need 100 times the municipality to meet its needs; Barcelona require a territory 83 times larger than that of his term if he wanted to be self-sufficient. They are two of the cities in record unsustainability.

At the other extreme, Teruel, which 'only' needs 5 times more than its own municipality, or Badajoz, which requires an area 2.19 times greater than it deserves. In any event, the 100 de Bilbao as 2.19 Badajoz are above what is required, which should not be greater than 1.

These calculations have to do with what is called ecological footprint, an indicator is obtained by relating what is consumed and what is soiled with the territory of which states to do so. That division should result in a 1 to ensure that things are balanced. However, the global average is 1.8 and in the case of Spain, remains at 2.6, which means that our country needs most 'countries' like him to stand.

The report entitled 'Local Sustainability, an urban and rural approximation' was introduced yesterday by the director of the SBI, Luis Jiménez Herrero, in the presence of the Minister for the Environment and Rural Affairs and Marino, Elena Espinosa.

The study is to analyze something like "metabolism" of our civilization. Like any body, we consume resources such as water, energy, soil and food and generate waste, they need a place to settle. And our social metabolism is clearly the clouds.

The study points out that all cities need more of the occupied territory, highlighting cases such as Madrid and Barcelona, Bilbao, Cadiz, Pamplona, Santander and La Coruña. By contrast, cities with better ecological footprint are Cáceres, Cuenca, Badajoz, Albacete, Cordoba, Jaen and Teruel.

The document also notes that the Spanish half of the ecological footprint in 2005 was 6.4% in global hectares of productive land a year, indicating that on average, each Spanish territorial area that needs a year to meet its consumption and absorb its waste . Of the total, 67.61% for energy consumption, 15.7% in agriculture, 5.6% in livestock and 5.4% in fishing.

The report aims to show the dysfunctions that take place in Spain between urban and rural areas. Thus, while the large inhabited areas are a major drain of population and resources, most of the territory is a vacuum. Spain in the rural areas cover 90% of the territory, but they live only 20% of the population and the ecological footprint is comparable.

Balancing these tensions and strengthen regional harmonious development of all the territories is one of the objectives that the situation analysis can help achieve the authors of the report of the SBI.

The World 18/02/2009