----- Original Message -----
From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Africa has is just now reached its physical limits and is beginning a
>>massive dieoff -- population control by increasing death rate instead of
>>decreasing birth rate
>
>Is this really true? (see simultaneous article, Will Humans Overwhelm
>the Earth?
Yes.
HOLD FOR RELEASE
06:00 PM EDT
Saturday, September 26, 1998
Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments
Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several
decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue, researchers at the
Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental research
organization, announced today.
Countries struggling with the simultaneous challenge of educating
growing numbers of children, creating jobs for swelling ranks of young
job seekers, and dealing with the environmental effects of population
growth, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and falling water tables,
are stretched to the limit. When a major new threat arises-such as AIDS
or aquifer depletion-governments often cannot cope.
Problems routinely managed in industrial societies are becoming
full-scale humanitarian crises in many developing ones. As a result,
some developing countries with rapidly growing populations are headed
for population stability in a matter of years, not because of falling
birth rates, but because of rapidly rising death rates.
"This reversal in the death rate trend marks a tragic new development in
world demography," said Lester Brown, President of Worldwatch and
co-author with Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil of Beyond Malthus: Sixteen
Dimensions of the Population Problem. In the absence of a concerted
effort by national governments and the international community to
quickly shift to smaller families, events in many countries could spiral
out of control, leading to spreading political instability and economic
decline, concludes the study funded by the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation.
Marking the bicentennial of Thomas Malthus' legendary essay on the
tendency for population to grow more rapidly than the food supply, this
study chronicles the stakes in another half-century of massive
population growth. The United Nations projects world population to grow
from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.4 billion in 2050, with all of the
additional 3.3 billion coming in the developing countries. However, this
study raises doubts as to whether these projections will materialize.
Today, two centuries after Malthus, we find ourselves in a
demographically divided world, one where national projections of
population growth vary more widely than at any time in history. In some
countries, population has stabilized or is declining; but in others,
population is projected to double or even triple before stabilizing.
In 32 countries, containing 14 percent of world population, population
growth has stopped. By contrast, Ethiopia's population of 62 million is
projected to more than triple to 213 million in 2050. Pakistan will go
from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing the U.S. population before
2050. Nigeria, meanwhile, is projected to go from 122 million today to
339 million, giving it more people in 2050 than there were in all of
Africa in 1950. The largest absolute increase is anticipated for India,
which is projected to add another 600 million by 2050, thus overtaking
China as the most populous country.
To understand these widely varying population growth rates among
countries, demographers use a three-stage model of how these rates
change over time as modernization proceeds. In the first stage, there
are high birth and high death rates, resulting in little or no
population growth. In the second stage, as modernization begins, death
rates fall while birth rates remain high, leading to rapid growth. In
the third stage, birth rates fall to a low level, balancing low death
rates and again leading to population stability, offering greater
possibilities for comfort and dignity than in stage one. It is assumed
that countries will move gradually from stage one to stage three. Today
there are no countries in stage one; all are either in stage two or
stage three. However, this analysis concludes that instead of
progressing to stage three as expected, some countries are in fact
falling back into stage one as the historic fall in death rates is
reversed, leading the world into a new demographic era.
After several decades of rapid population growth, many societies are
showing signs of demographic fatigue, a result of the struggle to deal
with the multiple stresses caused by high fertility. As recent
experience with AIDS in Africa shows, some countries in stage two are
simply overwhelmed when a new threat appears. While industrial countries
have held HIV infection rates among their adult populations under
1percent or less, a 1998 World Health Organization survey reports that
in Zimbabwe, for example, 26 percent of the adult population is HIV
positive. In Botswana it is 25 percent, Zambia 20 percent, Namibia 19
percent, and Swaziland 18 percent.
Barring a miracle, these societies will lose one fifth or more of their
adult population within the next decade from AIDS alone. These adult
deaths, the deaths of infants infected with the virus, and high
mortality among the millions of AIDS orphans, along with the usual
deaths, will bring population growth to a halt or even into decline.
With these high mortality trends, more reminiscent of the Dark Ages than
the bright new millennium so many had hoped for, these countries are
falling back to stage one.
New diseases are not the only threat to demographically fatigued stage
two countries. Because population growth affects so many dimensions of a
society, any of several different stresses can force a country back into
stage one.
For example, in many developing countries food supplies are threatened
by aquifer depletion. A forthcoming study by the International Water
Management Institute (IWMI) reports that in India, a country heavily
dependent on irrigation, recent growth in food production and population
has been based partly on the unsustainable use of water. Nationwide,
withdrawals of underground water are at least double the rate of
recharge and water tables are falling by 1 to 3 meters per year. IWMI
authors estimate that as India's aquifers are depleted, its grain
harvest could fall by as much as one fifth.
In a country where food and population are precariously balanced and
which is adding 18 million people per year, such a huge drop in food
output could create economic chaos.
"The question is not whether population growth will slow in the
developing countries," said Brown, "but whether it will slow because
societies quickly shift to smaller families or because ecological
collapse and social disintegration cause death rates to rise. The
challenge for national governments is to assess their land and water
resources, determine how many people they will support at the desired
level of consumption, and then formulate a population policy to reach
that goal."
At the international level, the challenge is to quickly expand
international family planning assistance, so that the millions of
couples who want to limit family size but lack access to family planning
services will be able to do so. Beyond this aid, investing in the
education of young people in the third world, especially females, is a
key to shifting to smaller families. In every society where data are
available, the more education women have the fewer children they bear.
As the world enters the new millennium, it faces many challenges, but
perhaps none so important-or as urgent-as the need to quickly slow
population growth.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Lester Brown, Author, President Worldwatch Institute, (202) 452-1999
Brian Halweil, Co-Author, Staff Researcher, (202) 452-1992 ext. 538
Mary Caron, Press Officer, (202) 452-1992 ext. 527
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or check our website www.worldwatch.org
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