Question

6. Give reasons.

a) Population statistics have often been used to draw various policies for the nation.​

Answer 1

Answer:

Human consumption is depleting the Earth's natural resources and impairing the capacity of life-supporting ecosystems. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than during any other period, primarily to meet increasing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel. Such consumption, together with world population increasing from 2.6 billion in 1950 to 6.8 billion in 2009, are major contributors to environmental damage. Strengthening family-planning services is crucial to slowing population growth, now 78 million annually, and limiting population size to 9.2 billion by 2050. Otherwise, birth rates could remain unchanged, and world population would grow to 11 billion. Of particular concern are the 80 million annual pregnancies (38% of all pregnancies) that are unintended. More than 200 million women in developing countries prefer to delay their pregnancy, or stop bearing children altogether, but rely on traditional, less-effective methods of contraception or use no method because they lack access or face other barriers to using contraception. Family-planning programmes have a successful track record of reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby slowing population growth. An estimated $15 billion per year is needed for family-planning programmes in developing countries and donors should provide at least $5 billion of the total, however, current donor assistance is less than a quarter of this funding target.

Keywords: population, environment, family planning, natural resources, reproductive health

1. OVERVIEW

Population gained acceptance as an environmental issue in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following the publication of Paul Erlich's book The Population Bomb (Ehrlich 1968) and the celebration of the first ‘Earth Day’. Yet, more than 30 years later, population seems to have largely dropped off the environmental movement's agenda, owing at least in part to three factors: (i) uncertainty and controversy around population and reproductive health and rights issues, such as those relating to family planning, abortion and various governmental population policies; (ii) the political dominance of a largely anti-environmental White House and Congress in the USA; and (iii) a shifting of priorities within the US environmental movement in response to immediate threats such as loss of biodiversity and climate change.

Parallel to these developments, activists and foreign-aid donors concerned about population policies and programmes increasingly have focused their attention on reproductive health, especially HIV/AIDS, and on ensuring that family planning and other reproductive health programmes respond to the individual needs of women and men and are fully voluntary (Germain & Kyte 1995). Less attention has been focused on the demographic rationale or consequences of population programmes and, consequently, their environmental implications. Like their environmentalist colleagues, family planning and reproductive health advocates in the USA face determined opposition from social and other ideological conservatives, who try to minimize the significance of continued population growth or to limit the medical options of those seeking to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.