The residents of Welsh cities will plunge into ecological debt over the next month having already exceeded their fair share of the Earth's natural resources for 2008, new research from WWF-UK shows.

The WWF-UK 'ecological debt' index has shown that Winchester residents are the first to over-exploit their ecological credit card on 10 April and residents of Plymouth and Newport will be the last.

Despite again having the lowest ecological footprint in the UK, Newport will still have used up its entire fair share of the worlds resources by May 11th. For the rest of the year Newport and other cities in Wales such as Bangor, St Davids, Cardiff and Swansea will in affect be consuming the resources and ecological services of a country such as Somalia for example, which consumes 14 times less that the UK.

Our current lifestyles in the UK are depleting the earth's natural resources quicker than it can replace them and driving rapid changes in the world including climate change, deforestation and the near extinction of many species.

If everyone consumed natural resources and generated carbon emissions at the rate we do in the Wales we would need three planets to support us.

City challenge

"The battle for the environment will be won or lost in our cities. They have the highest potential for eco-living due to local facilities, public transport links, dense housing and shared public resources," said Morgan Parry, Head of WWF Cymru.

"The solution lies, in part, to addressing the way we have carelessly consumed energy up to now. However, the challenge is not just about consumers though - government and business must also play their part if we are to live within the earth's natural resources and avoid the worst impacts on our environment. WWF Cymru urges local authority councillors across Wales to take up the challenge of making city living sustainable for their residents." he added.

Ecological footprint

The data comes from a WWF-UK report, Ecological Footprint of British City Residents, which calculated the average ecological footprint of cities' residents and shows that the average Welsh person requires three planets to sustain their lifestyles and this is the equivalent land area of six rugby pitches per person.

WWF Cymru is this summer launching a Welsh speaking ecological footprint calculator which will be available online.

An individual's ecological footprint relates to the land and sea area required to provide food, resources and energy, as well as absorb waste and pollution. The main factors affecting this are housing, food, consumer goods, public and private services and transport.

The WWF Cymru footprint calculator not only assesses your impact on the planet but advises on how people can make choices that benefit their health and the environment, and take affordable, simple measures to reduce their energy consumption – making huge savings on their energy bills. The calculator also works out how many planets we'd need to support your lifestyle.

WWF recommends steps that individuals can take to reduce their footprint. These include: calculate your ecological footprint and devise a plan to reduce it, holiday closer to home and try to reduce energy use in your home and save money on bills in the process.

Living Planet Report 2006 is the sixth in a series of Living Planet publications. It is co-produced by WWF, Global Footprint Network (GFN) www.footprintnetwork.org and Zoological Society of London (ZSL) www.zsl.org.