Population policies, programmes and the environment

Human consumption is depleting the Earth's natural resources and impairing the capacity of life-supporting ecosystems. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than during any other period, primarily to meet increasing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel. Such consumption, together with world population increasing from 2.6 billion in 1950 to 6.8 billion in 2009, are major contributors to environmental damage. Strengthening family-planning services is crucial to slowing population growth, now 78 million annually, and limiting population size to 9.2 billion by 2050. Otherwise, birth rates could remain unchanged, and world population would grow to 11 billion. Of particular concern are the 80 million annual pregnancies (38% of all pregnancies) that are unintended. More than 200 million women in developing countries prefer to delay their pregnancy, or stop bearing children altogether, but rely on traditional, less-effective methods of contraception or use no method because they lack access or face other barriers to using contraception. Family-planning programmes have a successful track record of reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby slowing population growth. An estimated $15 billion per year is needed for family-planning programmes in developing countries and donors should provide at least$5 billion of the total, however, current donor assistance is less than a quarter of this funding target

Structural change, economic growth and environmental dynamics with heterogeneous agents

In many developing countries the asset distribution is highly concentrated and the economic agents differ not only by income, but also by their vulnerability to environmental depletion. The poor, especially in rural areas, tend to be more dependent on natural resources and more vulnerable to ecosystem degradation. Three quarters of the poor live in rural areas andmore than half of the rural poor depend on breeding and agricultural activities: cultivation of staple food is the main source of calories, income and job for the rural poor (IFAD 2001). Moreover, it is commonly recognized that the rural poor in developing countries significantly rely on the common pool resources of the community they live in Dasgupta (2001), while according to World Resources Institute (2005) estimates, around 1 billion of the world poor rely in some way on forests (indigenous people wholly dependent on forests, smallholders who grow farm trees or manage remnant forests for subsistence and income). A meta–analysis of 54 case studies in developing countries found that the poor tend to be more dependent on forest environmental income than better–off households (Vedeld et al. 2004). Natural assets and common or free access resources provide the poor with other additional services: regulating production services such as flood, drought and erosion mitigation, soil renewal, soil fertility or the provision of food, fuelwood and energy and fresh water. Microeconomic studies confirm the relevance of the dependence of the rural population on the community or free access resources (Beck and Nesmith 2001;Cavendish 2000; Falconer 1990; Fisher 2004; Jodha 1986; Narain et al. 2005).On the other hand, the rich have a greater ability to substitute private goods for environmental goods. They are thus able to protect themselves from pollution and to face the depletion of natural capital (United Nations Environment Programme 2004)