I wanna go to Vanuatu

What does it take to get a spring in your step, a sparkle in your eye and a song on your lip? Ask the Ni-Vanuatu, residents of the tiny South Pacific atoll that perches happily atop the 178-nation ‘Happy Planet Index’, and they’ll tell you that happiness doesn’t cost the earth. These 209,000-odd lotus-eaters apparently thrive on tropical surf, sunshine, and rum-n-coca-cola, taking a break now and then to earn some dough from small-scale agriculture and tourism. As do their kindred souls in the Central American nations that take up the top 10 places in the index.

The index, compiled by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) on the basis of consumptions levels, life expectancy and happiness – and not national economic parameters like GDP – suggests that people can live long and happy lives without consuming vast quantities of the earth’s resources. Take the US, for instance – the resource-guzzler gets the 150th rank. And yes, money doesn’t have much to do with it either – Japan, the world’s second-largest economy which ranks 11th on the UNDP Human Development Index 2005, gets the 95th place in the present survey. On the bottom 10 places are African and Eastern European countries, where extreme poverty and political turmoil seem to be taking its toll.

The survey clearly makes a case for living within our ecological means, which should gladden the hearts of Greens and Gaia theorists who warn that to enable people around the world to consume as much as the rich, industrialised economies, several Earths would be required. The NEF offers a cocktail of steps to a happier humankind – eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, recognition of the contribution of unpaid work, and economic polices that work within environmental limits.