Overpopulation: A Burden on the Environment.

                   

 

     One of the greatest changes of the 20th century has been the rapid rate of population growth. As we enter the 21st century the population of the world has continued to increased at a dramatic rate, thus adding to the pressures on environment and it resources. For the phenomenon of population growth to make sense, it must be discussed within a context. Population itself is an integral part of the environment, in terms of the physical, biological and chemical environment.


Rapid population growth is considered a global problem because it brings undue pressures on scarce resources and adversely affects the environment and the well being of the society. (Anijah-Obi 2001). Thomas Malthus propounded the first population theory citing that if you allow population to increase rapidly or indefinitely, it will overwhelm available resources. As the population grows exponentially, it increase the burden that human beings who support it bears and what is consumed. Few Environmentalist supported the views of Malthus. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University and Lester Brown of the world watch institutes also toe Malthus line.

     But developmental Economist opines that every solution to a problem has inherent in it another problem. In other words they claimed that high growth rate will definitely compromise government's ability to provide education, healthcare, housing, employment, food and other securities necessary for maintaining a good government. This gap between numbers and resources is all the more compelling because so much of the population growth is concentrated in low income countries, ecologically disadvantaged regions, and poor households.

     Over population is an endangerment to the environment, it is a point where there is excess or more people depending on available and most often, scarce resources. It occurs as a result of increase in population, depletion of resources, decline in labor demand or a combination of these various factors. Overpopulation impacts on availability of food, energy, land and water resources, environment, education, employment, health and the carrying capacity of the environment.


     From the point of view of environment and development, population pressure on resources is a central problem, and as such must be tackled with a global proposal and a sense of humor. Therefore respective government must formulate a policy frame work that shall assist in the feasibility of such goals.

     Such policy must cover areas of endangerment, like birth control measures that is family planning, creating employment opportunities to curtail rural urban drifts, to promote awareness among the citizenry as to the dangers of rapid population growth, etc. these and many more will go a long way to check the excesses of population growth.