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Population, urbanization and environment
Pressing global challenges such as climate change, poverty and food insecurity are essentially human-induced problems
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ressing global challenges such as climate change, poverty and food insecurity are essentially human-induced problems. There are approximately 6.77 billion people in the world today, and the global population is still growing at a rate of 1.14 percent annually.
That equates to nearly 80 million new individuals on this planet
every year. At the current rate, projections indicate that by 2015 there will be 7.2 billion people inhabiting earth.
Southeast Asia, including East Timor, is home to more than 574 million people. Indonesia is theworld’s fourth most populous country, largest Muslim country and the third biggest democracy.
It alone makes up more than a third of the entire population of the region. Four members of the ASEAN are in the top 24 most populous countries, while most have higher birth rates and greater population densities (bar Laos) than the global average.
Today, urban areas comprise of more than half the world’s population. Urbanization has been a global phenomenon that transforms not only land use but people’s values and lifestyles. The influx of people for rural areas into the city in search of a better life is too astounding to put into figures.
By 2015, according to UN Population Fund (UNFPA), there will be three cities in Southeast Asia with more than 10 million inhabitants, known as mega cities Jakarta (17.3 million), Metro Manila (14.8 million) and Bangkok (10.1 million).
These sprawling urban areas and enormous populations exert a tremendous amount of stress on the environment. Resources are heavily concentrated in urban areas, causing major challenges in waste disposal, noise, air and water pollution, soil erosion, deforestation and many others.
As a result the environment, particularly biodiversity, is under constant threat. Mega cities are a major source of greenhouse gases emissions, which cause global warming.
Human activities and consumption patterns, coupled with industrial and commercial concentrations in these cities, drain resources found in urban and neighbouring areas. They also compromise the environmental conditions of these areas.
The current population trend is definitely bearing an adverse impact on the quality of natural resources, such as water, food, forest and air. There is a global shortage of potable water and food.
The world’s forest areas are shrinking. The quality of air in some cities is leading to health problems in certain people. The current condition of the environment is barely sustainable enough to maintain a decent human existence.
Despite all the challenges we face, it is humans who are ultimately responsible for this destruction to our natural environment. Constantly increasing the global population is not a good step toward tackling this issue. It may help win an election, but it will not win the struggle for a better life on earth.
Population trends, urbanization and environmental challenges demand comprehensive and long-term policy responses from concerned governments.
Policies cannot change the past, but they can shape the future by providing direction toward a better scenario. With the support of international and local NGOs and donors, governments recognizing the extent of these pressing global challenges can act on measures disrupting population trends and declining birth rates.
To do this, there is a need to expand the access and choices of women in education, economic opportunities, political participation and social integration. Studies show that women with higher education tend to have fewer children. Women enjoying economic, political and social freedom tend to give birth later in life. Men too need to be given responsibility to better manage this reproductive power.
Another measure that can be taken by governments is the distribution of economic opportunities to rural areas. The myth that a better life can only be found in the city should be squashed. This measure will halt the influx of rural people to urban areas. Moreover, development planning and process should not be heavily concentrated on urban areas.
These measures could relieve the environmental conditions from degeneration. With population and urbanization being checked, global challenges such as climate change, poverty and food insecurity can be tackled effectively. The question is, are our world’s leaders up to the challenge? We, as those solely responsible for the problem, should be proactive in encouraging our leaders to respond to these problems. Otherwise the future generations will blame us forever.
The writer is a fellow of the Building a Better Asia Program and a Research Associate of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity.
