Focus On Planet Earth - AFRICA SOCIAL CAUSES

AFRICA SOCIAL CAUSES

The population in Latin America grew from 179 million to 481 million between 1950 and 1995 (UN, 1993). Cuba and a few small Caribbean islands have birth rates below replacement level. Other nations, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, and Uruguay, are growing at less then 3 per cent a year (UN, 1995b). The concentration of population growth in urban areas and marginal agricultural lands is the main factor responsible for pressures exerted by human population on the environment.

An important characteristic of the regional population dynamics in LAC is urbanization. By 1995, 78 per cent of the population of South America and more than 70 per cent of the population of LAC as a whole lived in urban areas; by 2020, this figure is expected to increase to well over 80 per cent (UN, 1995a). The region has seven urban centres with populations of more than 5 million. Mexico City and São Paulo are among the five largest cities in the world and will remain so at the end of the century. (See Table 2.9.) Such concentrations of population put incredible stresses on the immediate environment.

The concentration of human activity affects the environment in three major ways: land use and land cover change, the extraction and depletion of natural resources, and the production of wastes such as untreated wastewater (WRI/UNEP/UNDP, 1994). The infrastructure in urban areas is already stretched to the limit and will, in the future, be unable to support further growth in population unless considerable investments in services are made.

The tropical moist forest regions have also experienced a population growth rate higher than the 3 per cent regional average (CEUR, 1988). The population growth rate has had implications with regard to the expansion of agricultural frontiers and the associated deforestation discussed earlier.

United Nations Environment Programme