As a means by which uneven development is created and reproduced, international trade has received much attention. Foreign trade leads to a draw on natural resources and an interference with regenerative capacities of ecosystems that extend far beyond the borders of the importing country or region. Next to the structural and/or systemic evidence which can be cited, a method for the quantification of the redistribution of ecological burden which occurs through international trade is needed. The ecological footprint (EF) proposes to translate human societies demand for natural resources into a bioproductive area requirement expressed in global hectares. The latter figure can be compared to the locally or globally available bioproductive area, in order to verify whether or not a given society is consuming natural resources within or beyond local or global limits. In communicating the draw of countries on biocapacity outside their borders through trade, ecological footprint analysis is a powerful tool. At the same time, it does not permit straightforward conclusions as to the sustainability of these trade relations. This paper outlines the ecological footprint methodology and, more specifically, examines how trade is accounted for in EF analysis in order to gauge the utility of the ecological footprint as a tool for quantifying ecological distribution conflicts.
