EFFECT OF POPULATION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Population size and demographic processes are intricately linked with sustainable development, though population is not the only source of environmental crisis. Mode of social organization and technological development also affect a society's potential to develop in a sustainable manner. High rate of growth of population not only raises the demand for natural resources, it also affects most of those proximate variables which hamper the sustainability of development, e.g. organization of production, innovations, technological developments, politics, values and market forces. Population processes also affect the other indicators of sustainability such as equality, justice, absence of abject poverty, and greater participation of people in development.
In the less developed countries where population growth rates are high, and particularly in those countries where density of population is also high, the possibility of raising carrying capacities of scarce land resources (i.e. the maximum numbers that resources can support) is low, and alternative employment opportunities are limited, people would be forced to exploit natural resources without regard for future. Here people are forced to expand agricultural lands into unsuitable areas, enlarge the size of their herds of livestock, and outmigrate to other areas. Ironically, the less developed countries also have low caring capacity, i.e., “the social, developmental and institutional variables that underpin the ability of institutions to cope with environmental stresses” (UNFPA, 2009).
Population growth leads to fragmentation of land, and causes low productivity, unemployment and reduced supply of fodder. People may respond to low farm productivity by increasing the number of livestock. Then the agricultural expansion and growth of livestock destroy the forests and pastures. They also cause soil erosion and thus ecological imbalance. As a matter of fact population growth, poor economic conditions, deforestation, soil desiccation and ecological imbalance tend to reinforce each other through dynamic multi-cyclic structures.
|
