UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES SCHOOL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING

Midterm Exam: Looking at Population Growth and its Relationship to the Environment and Natural Resources

Submitted to: Dr. Cresencio Montalbo Professor

Submitted by: Vinson P. Serrano Plan 214

February 2012

Population Growth and the Natural Resources The world is endowed with abundant land, water, agriculture, forestry, and mineral resources. With an existing ecosystem in which people are only playing part of this complexitythe increase of population has resulted to an increase of depletion of these natural resources consumed for the benefit of the human population. Statistics proved that the human population has currently using 25%i more natural resources than the planet can sustain. As a result, habitats and local communities are under pressure or direct threats. As human population dominates the entire system, such domination resulted to a drastic growth of urbanization and further development of human settlements. The need to provide a bigger amount of resources primarily on food and shelter are being extracted from a limited amount of natural resources. As the world population continues to grow, the need for people to secure enough space for settlements- the consumption of land as majority of agricultural lands being converted to settlement areas played a vital issue. Consequently, this occurrence significantly affects other parts of the ecosystem, and thus further to the growth of pollution as climate change highlighted as one of the contributory effects of this change. The ever-increasing human population requires a significant amount of resources for the population to live and thrive. As we extract our limited natural resources, alongside with it is the displacement and invasion of other parts of the ecosystem to their respective natural habitats. The outraging increase of threatened and endangered species is alarming, proving this scenario a manifestation of the effects of environmental imbalance. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a non-government organization that promotes environmental awareness, the biological diversity of the world, humans extract an estimated total of US$33 trillion, that composed of environmental goods and services that includes climate regulation, nutrient and waste management, flood control, coastal protection, provision of food, freshwater, fuel, medicines, building materials, fertile soils and breathable airii among others. Such environmental goods and services provided by our natural resources have estimated to be higher than the entire world gross national product. The biological diversity of the world- which families, communities, nations, and future generations is where we solely depend on. (WWF, 2009). It is the link between all organisms on earth, binding each into an interdependent ecosystem, in which all species have their role. As the world being dominated by the rapid growth of urbanization, this phenomenon causes a greater impact not only to the human population but to the entire ecosystem as a whole. As the world being linked to one another, what human population may have caused to the entire natural resource may have directly affected other complexities of the ecology. As the population increases, the amount of pollution is predicted to increase as more people tend to contribute to carbon consumption. Environmental degradation, as an observed resultant of the overpopulation has become evident in most parts of the world today.

Population Growth and the Environment As humans directly related to the depletion of natural resources stated by the WWFs Living Planet Index which tracks nearly 4,000 populations of wildlife, shows an overall fall in population trends in 27% between 1970 and 2005, the increase of human population has caused drastic effects to the environment as a whole. The WWF stated that in general terms, population growth and our consumption are the reasons for this enormous loss. As a result, the entire biodiversity of the world has declined by more than 25% in the last 35 years.iii This has resulted to the use and abuse of our environment- therefore resulting to pollution and the bigger effects of climate change. Looking on the data, population growth demands a bigger requirement to the environment to extract not only the basic commodities for human consumption, but the services and comforts that it provide for our daily living. The increase of population has resulted to a bigger demand for supply from the environment. In 2009, it is said that humanity has used 40% more resources than nature can regenerate in a year. Such abuse is called ecological overshoot. With a certain number of population, and given with an unprecedented growth, the environment can no longer sustain and replenish itself naturally for it to provide the resources and the services that we need. Such overshooting phenomenon posed a greater threat not on the current population but for the future generations as a whole. Other than pollution and overshoot of natural resources, health and sanitation is another issue on the relationship of population growth and the environment. As population increases, the uncontrolled amount of wastes produced that is not being disposed properly consequently affects the health quality of human population and the entire ecology. The European Commission suggest that it is therefore essential to take into account the scale of human population when analyzing the effects of human density on biodiversity. The effects of urbanization on species richness have been magnified to this.iv And such analysis will therefore contribute to sustainable urban design and human well-being.

Arguments for Protection: Goods and Services. WWF Global. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/protected_areas/arguments_for_protection/goods_services/. 02/18/2012. What are the major reasons why we are losing so much biodiversity?. WWF Global. http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/threatsto_biodiversity/. 02/18/2012.
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How the Scale of Human Population Density affects Biodiversity. European Commission Paper 2009. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/51na4.pdf. 02/18/2012.