This report summarizes an Ecological Footprint and biocapacity analysis of Canada and the province of Ontario, conducted by Global Footprint Network for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (OMNRF). The results in this report are based on an analysis using the 2014 edition of the National Footprint Accounts (NFA). These results differ from those using NFA 2008. As such, for consistency of comparison, we compared the 2005 and 2010 figures using the NFA 2015 Edition. Refer to Annex B for description of applied changes and improvements between the 2008 and 2014 NFA editions for Canada.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and the Nature Conservancy of Canada collaborated on the Conservation Blueprint for Biodiversity, a shared vision for natural heritage conservation in the Great Lakes region. The Conservation Blueprint assembles, catalogues, classifies, maps and analyzes the aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity in the Great Lakes region, and identifies high quality aquatic and terrestrial areas that can support a broad range of natural biodiversity. Summary reports of the tertiary watersheds and eco-districts include data and maps.

The Ecological Footprint is a tool that assesses the demand for natural resources and provides information on whether our collective consumption levels are approaching or exceeding the Earth’s ecological limits. It can be directly compared to biocapacity, a metric that accounts for available resource supply of specific products (food, fibre, timber and carbon storage) that are provided by ecosystems. The Ecological Footprint and biocapacity provide a partial ecological balance sheet for the world. This report calculates humanity’s and Canada’s Ecological Footprint, as well as the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of Ontario.