What does Population
have to do with
deforestation
Forests cover about 27 percent of the world’s land
area. At the global level, net deforestation (gross or
total deforestation minus reforestation, natural
growth, and plantation growth) in the 1990s was
nearly 9.4 million hectares or 2.4 percent of total forests. Net deforestation rates were highest in South
America and Africa, while high rates of gross deforestation in Asia were offset by expanding forest plantations. Substantial forest loss is particularly damaging since forests contain about half of Earth’s
biodiversity and have the highest species diversity of
any terrestrial ecosystem. In addition, deforestation
has harmful, even deadly consequences. These include greater flooding,
less safe water for human consumption, and higher global temperatures.
The potential for new medicines will also be greatly reduced as biodiversity
is lost. While the specific patterns of deforestation vary by region, four
terms describe the interrelated causes:
the Environment?
TWENTY-FIVE AFRICAN COUNTRIES WILL FACE
WATER STRESS OR SCARCITY BY 2025
POPULATION AND FRESH WATER DECLINE
Even though water covers more than twothirds of Earth’s surface, only about 3 percent is the fresh water we need for drinking,
bathing, agriculture, and other human consumption. By the middle of the 20th century, some 80 countries, comprising 40 percent of the world’s population, suffered
from serious water shortages due to population growth, industrial development, and
expansion of irrigated agriculture. This situation is particularly acute in Africa where
25 countries will face water stress by 2025
(see map). Population pressures also
threaten the supply of water in the United
States. Cities in the southeastern United
States, like Atlanta, are growing so fast that
the supply of water cannot keep up with
skyrocketing demand. Some of the areas
Individuals drive deforestation through their demand
for food, fuel wood, shelter, and
land.
POVERTY
Poor communities
may clear forest land quicker in
search of needed, but energyinefficient fuel wood or for
subsistence level slash-and-burn
agriculture. Overcrowding may
also displace poor families onto
fragile forest land contributing to
its degradation.
PLUNDER
People living in
countries with a high demand for
forest products can drive deforestation outside their borders, and
other countries may export their
own forest resources at unsustainable levels as they seek hard currency to pay down foreign debts.
POLICY
Government policies
and programs may encourage deforestation by offering financial incentives and subsidies to clear
land and grow certain agricultural
products.
Minimizing the consequences and rates of deforestation requires action
involving all four main causes.
with the fastest population growth between
1990 and 2000 are in the driest parts of the
country, including Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Slowing population
growth in water-poor areas and developing
comprehensive water management schemes
are critical for ensuring adequate and safe
supplies of fresh water worldwide.
SOURCE:
Jonathan Nash, Healthy People Need Healthy Forests: Population and Deforestation
(Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, October 2001). Available at
www.prb.org/environment.
World Resources Institute (WRI), World Resources 2000-2001 (Washington, DC:
WRI, 2000). Available at www.wri.org/wr2000/.
SOURCE:
UNEP, Global Environment Outlook 3 (GEO-3): Past,
Present and Future Perspectives (Nairobi: UNEP, 2002).
Available at http://www.unep.org/Geo/geo3/.
Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN),
“United States Population Growth Ranking,”
(Ann Arbor, MI: SSDAN, 2003). Available at
www.censusscope.org.
AFRICAN WATER SHORTAGES
(less than 1,000 m3/person/year)
Water Stress
World Conservation
Union, IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species. Available
at www.redlist.org.
HUMAN IMPACT
BRUNEI
MALAYSIA
High
Medium - High
Low - Medium
INDONESI
A
UNEP, “Asia and the
Pacific,” Global Methodology for Mapping Human
Impacts on the Biosphere
(GLOBIO) project.
Available at www.globio.
info/region/asia/.
If current trends continue, less than one
percent of orangutan habitat will remain
undisturbed by 2032.
Non Water Scarcity/Stress
Countries
NOTE:
children
Cape Verde and Comoros islands would
face water scarcity; Mauritius would be
water-stressed (islands not shown).
CHILDREN AND ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
Patricia Biermayr-Jenzano, Maximizing Conservation
in Protected Areas: Guidelines for Gender Consideration
(Washington, DC: IUCN and PRB, September 2003).
WOMEN’S AND MEN’S TIME SPENT IN
^
VARIOUS ACTIVITIES, COTE
D’IVOIRE
NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK
Cooking
Housekeeping
Fetching Water
Equipment
Maintenance
SOURCE:
Justine Sass, Women, Men, and Environmental Change:
The Gender Dimensions of Environmental Policies and
Programs (Washington, DC: Population Reference
Bureau, January 2002). Available at www.prb.org/
environment.
2032
SOURCE:
(1,000 to 1,700 m3/person/year)
WOMEN, MEN, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
opinions, needs, and interests. Some of
these strategies are 1) collecting and analyzing data on women’s and men’s resource
use, access to resources, and participation
in environmental decision-making; 2) establishing procedures for incorporating a gender perspective in planning, monitoring, and
evaluating environmental projects; and 3)
strengthening women’s involvement in environmental decision-making at all levels.
Rich and diverse ecosystems improve water
quality, reduce flooding, provide medicines and
food, and absorb and clean pollution. Diverse
ecosystems can also recover more quickly after
natural calamities than regions depleted of genetic and species diversity. Yet over 11,000 plant
and animal species are threatened with extinction,
including 24 percent of mammal species and 12
percent of bird species. In the United States, 236
animals and 17 plants are listed as extinct. The causes
may include harvesting, pollution, and human disturbance, but habitat loss is the main threat to most
species. In the Asia/Pacific region, the plight of the endangered orangutan clearly depicts how habitat loss is a major threat that affects
not only the orangutan but other species as well. The orangutan
population was well over 300,000 in 1900, but now only 27,000
remain, with predictions of even smaller, more isolated groups.
The orangutan’s tropical forest habitat is shrinking as road construction opens access to more remote
2002
forests for logging,
HUMAN IMPACT
mining, far ming,
High
hunting, and building
Medium - High
BRUNEI
Low - Medium
MALAYSIA
human settlements.
Orangutans
and
INDONESI
A
other endangered
species in Malaysia,
Indonesia,
and
Br unei could be
Human activities, like road construction,
saved through better
have encroached upon more than 64 perroad constr uction
cent of the orangutans’ habitat, undermanagement and formining their future.
estry practices.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). “Forest Resources
Assessment (FRA) 2000.” Available at www.fao.org/forestry/fo/fra/index.jsp.
Water Scarcity
gender differences
Understanding how gender roles shape the
environment means reviewing women’s and
men’s roles and responsibilities; their knowledge about, access to, and control over resources; and their authority to make decisions about resource use. In most regions
of the world, men have a larger role in exploiting natural resources for commercial
uses—logging, grazing livestock, fishing,
mining, and extracting various tree products—and women assume the larger share
of domestic responsibilities. Women and
men are also affected differently by the degradation of natural resources. Gender-responsive policies and programs can achieve
better environmental outcomes when they
take into account both women’s and men’s
THREATS TO BIODIVERSITY
DIMENSIONS OF DEFORESTATION
PEOPLE
water
biodiversity
16
0
12
0.4
6
1
1
5
3
Harvesting
Hunting, Fishing,
and Gathering
0.5
Crop Storing
0.5
2
7
Women
Men
2
Environmental hazards kill at least 3 million children under age 5 every year — not
just in developing countries but also in more
developed countries like the United States.
Due to their size, physiology, and behavior,
children are more affected by longstanding
environmental threats. These include unsafe
drinking water, inadequate sanitation, indoor
air pollution, and newer hazards like the un-
SOURCE:
James A. Levine, Robert Weisell, Simon Chevassus, Claudio D.
Martinez, B. Burlingame, and W. Andrew Coward, “The Work Burden
of Women,” Science 294 (2001): 812.
This poster was printed on paper using 10% post consumer waste.
safe use of dangerous chemicals and risks
from global climate change. Children also
have more years of life ahead of them in
which they may suffer long-term effects
from early exposure. The top killers of children worldwide — diarrheal disease, acute
respiratory infections, and malaria — are
closely related to environmental factors and
account for 40 percent of deaths to children under age 5. Asthma, the leading
chronic disease among children in the
United States, has been linked to exposure
to indoor air pollutants like second-hand
tobacco smoke and outdoor ones like
ozone. Asthma afflicts nearly 5 million
Americans under age 18, or one out of every 15 children. To protect children from
environmental threats, we must improve the
measurement of hazards; develop programs
and policies to mitigate the problems; and
strengthen coalitions at the community,
national, and international levels.
SOURCE:
Liz Creel, Children’s Environmental Health: Risks
and Remedies (Washington, DC: Population
Reference Bureau, July 2002). Available at
www.prb.org/environment.
United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), and World Health Organization
(WHO), Children in the New Millennium:
Environmental Impact on Health (Nairobi:
UNEP, 2002). Available at www.unep.org/ceh/.
POPULATION
REFERENCE
BUREAU