Carrying capacity

From EcoReality

What is Carrying Capacity? An environment's carrying capacity is its maximum persistently supportable load (Catton 1986).

Carrying capacity is usually defined as the maximum population of a given species that can be supported indefinitely in a defined habitat without permanently impairing the productivity of that habitat. However, because humans tend to demonstrate the trend of seeking to increase our own carrying capacity by eliminating competing species, by importing locally scarce resources, and through technology, this definition can seem (incorrectly) to be irrelevant to humans.

According to Garrett Hardin (1991), "carrying capacity is the fundamental basis for demographic accounting." However, the current conventional vision for economic and human planning and development often functions under the assumption that resources are infinitely accessible. Increases in output, energy and capital are assumed in this model, which is shortsighted with regard to the ecological reality that all energy and matter flows demonstrate in our living and non-living systems.

As Daly (1986) observes, the conventional vision assumes a world "in which carrying capacity is infinitely expandable".

Therefore, Ecoreality members have co-created a value on the "true" ecological carrying capacity as determined by the maximum persistently supportable load that is sustained through the natural capital (ecological resources of the combined living and non-living systems functioning in an integrated manner in a defined volume of land/water/air).