From my Hide: Population and the environment

IT is an inescapable fact that the size of the world’s human population is the biggest single factor affecting environmental conservation – the more people there are the greater the pressure on the world’s natural resources, like water, for instance.

A United Nations report to hand says that by the end of this century the world’s population will be in the region of 11.2 billion, that would be three billion more than at present, and that is a very conservative estimate.

The report gives some depressing facts. Much of this growth will be in Africa. It says that fertility rates around the world have been in steady decline since the 1960s, with the average woman now having 2.5 children.

This is not the case in Africa, where, although the birthrate is falling slowly, the average woman still has 4.7 children – this will see the continent’s population double by 2050, that’s in just 35 years.

The report says there are at least 11 African countries, some of them among the world’s poorest, that will experience this population explosion. The UN says this situation will make it even harder to eradicate poverty and inequality, not to mention hunger and malnutrition.

Another report to hand says that as it is, with a world population standing at 7.2 billion, one in eight people around the world do not have enough to eat and some two billion are malnourished.

It was a popular saying back in the last century that many of the wars of the 21st century would be around and over the water holes.

Water is the Earth’s most precious resource. Life, all life, simply can’t do without it, yet drought has become a global issue.

South Africa is in the throes of the worst drought in a generation and it is projected that the country will run out of water by 2025, that’s just nine years away.

Agriculture is one of the biggest users of water and South Africa is already importing maize, a staple for both the human population and farm stock, and it is forecast that this year will see huge rises in food prices generally, because of the drought and the weakening rand. So, watch this space.

It’s all very depressing, but to change the subject completely, I stand corrected.

In a recent column on new and tiny frogs discovered in Brazil I suggested our smallest might be the Hogsback frog. Wrong.

South Africa’s smallest frog is apparently the Northern moss frog of the Groot Winterhoek Mountains in the Cape, which chips in at just 14mm, that’s only 1mm bigger than the largest of the new Brazilian frogs.

Thank you, Peter Vos of the South Coast Conservation Forum, who quotes A Complete Guide to the Frogs of Southern Africa, Du Preez & Carruthers, Struik Nature, 2009.

On that froggy note, cheers!

Sources for the population material: Business Essential (Daily Maverick), The Week: The Best of the British and the International Media, Bloomberg News and News24.Com.