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Sam Rugaba, PHE Champion
Encouraging Childhood Education and Birth Spacing as an Approach to Conservation
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This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project.
Fifty-one-year-old Sam Rugaba is a dedicated teacher who loves his job at the Bujengwe Community Primary School. The school is the result of a community-based project located in the Bujengwe Parish of the Kayonza subcounty in the Kanungu district of Uganda – just 18 kilometers from the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP). The biodiversity-rich BINP is home to many rare species including the endangered mountain gorilla. Sam is also a Conservation Through Public Health(CTPH) community volunteer and community conservation health worker. -
Watch: Sir John Sulston on the Royal Society’s People and the Planet Study
›March 1, 2011 // By Christina Daggett“At the moment, the agendas of the growing population of people and the environment are too separate – people are thinking about one or the other,” said Sir John Sulston, Nobel laureate and chair of the Royal Society’s People and the Planet working group, in an interview with ECSP. “People argue about, ‘Should we consume less or should we have fewer people?’ The point is it’s both. We need to draw it together. It’s people and their activities.”
Sulston won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on mapping the human genome. He said that experience helped him appreciate the importance of utilizing science to the benefit of the wider public as he advocated for keeping the human genome in the public domain rather than allowing the knowledge to be privatized.
Sulston spoke at the Wilson Center on Febraury 22 on carrying capacity and the Royal Society’s People and the Planet study. He said “what we want to do is to see the issue of population in the open, dispassionately discussed on the environmental agenda, and then we’ll see where it goes.” The study will “draw together the strands, to summarize, and to put it down as a statement of the state of the art of our knowledge and where it’s going.” The study will be released in early 2012 with an eye to informing the UN “Rio+20” conference on sustainable development.
“We have one planet,” Sulston said, and “we have a lot of people, an increasing number of people. Now it’s not straightforward…but I think if you look at the facts dispassionately, you find that actually, because of our sheer numbers and because of our activities, the combination of those two things mean that we are putting an increasing burden on the planet and I think it is something we have to start thinking about.” -
Top 10 Posts for February 2011
›Continuing turmoil in the Middle East helped keep Richard Cincotta’s political-demographic analysis on Tunisia’s chances of achieving democracy at the top this month, with Bryan McDonald’s piece on food price shocks, comments from demographers on “the age of revolution,” and a look at Pew’s latest iteration of its report on Muslim population growth following close behind:
1. Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy: What Demographics and Recent History Tell Us
2. Guest Contributor Bryan McDonald: Food Price Shocks and Instability Highlight Weaknesses in Governance and Markets
3. The Age of Revolution? Demography Experts Comment on Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy
4. Eye on Environmental Security: Mapping Muslim Population Growth
5. Book Preview: The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security6. Book Preview: Environmental Politics: Scale and Power, Shannon O’Lear, University of Kansas
7. Quantifying the Integration of Population, Health, and Environment in Development: When the Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
8. India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency
9. Climate-Induced Migration: Catastrophe or Adaptation Strategy?
10. Guest Contributor Richard A. Matthew: Reading the QDDR: Civilian Power in a Complex, Uncertain World -
‘Dialogue’ Interviews International Reporting Project Fellows on Liberia
›Since 1998, the International Reporting Project has been a pioneer in the “non-profit journalism” movement that seeks to fill the gap left by much of the mainstream media’s reduction in international news coverage. IRP has provided opportunities to more than 300 U.S. journalists to travel to more than 85 countries to produce award-winning reports. This month on the Wilson Center’s Dialogue program, host John Milewski speaks with guests Sunni Khalid, Ed Robbins, and Teresa Wiltz. They recently participated in an intensive fact-finding visit to Liberia under the auspices of the International Reporting Project where they produced stories on the country’s ongoing development and women’s empowerment efforts (among other topics).
Sunni Khalid is managing news editor for WYPR in Baltimore, Maryland. Previously, he worked for Time, The Washington Times, USA Today, Voice of America, and NPR.
Ed Robbins is an independent, multi-award winning director, writer, producer, and videographer. Outlets for his work have included PBS, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, ABC, and the BBC.
Teresa Wiltz is a senior editor for The Root, where she helps oversee the production of the African-American web-magazine. She previously served as a staff writer for The Washington Post’s style section.
The full 30 minute interview is available at the Wilson Center.
To hear more about their projects, see The New Security Beat’s “A Lens Into Liberia: Experiences from IRP Gatekeepers.” -
Choke Point China: Escalating Confrontation Between Water Scarcity and Energy Demand Has Global Implications
›The original version of this article, by J. Carl Ganter, appeared on The Huffington Post. Visit Circle of Blue for the latest articles in the Choke Point: China series.
Water scarcity, rapid economic growth, and soaring energy demand are forming a tightening noose that could choke off China’s modernization.
Writes my colleague Keith Schneider in the first installment of the new report, Choke Point: China, from Circle of Blue:Underlying China’s new standing in the world, like a tectonic fault line, is an increasingly fierce competition between energy and water that threatens to upend China’s progress. Simply put, say Chinese authorities and government reports, China’s demand for energy, particularly for coal, is outpacing its freshwater supply.
The 12-part Choke Point: China series presents powerful evidence of the fierce contest between growth, water, and fuel that is virtually certain to grow more dire over the next decade. The project is produced in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ China Environment Forum.
Tight supplies of fresh water are nothing new in a nation where 80 percent of the rainfall and snowmelt occurs in the south, while just 20 percent of the moisture occurs in the mostly desert regions of the north and west. What’s new is that China’s surging economic growth is prompting the expanding industrial sector, which consumes 70 percent of the nation’s energy, to call on the government to tap new energy supplies, particularly the enormous reserves of coal in the dry north.
The problem, scholars and government officials told us, is that there is not enough water to mine, process, and consume those reserves and still develop the modern cities and manufacturing centers that China envisions for the region. “Water shortage is the most important challenge to China right now, the biggest problem for future growth,” said Wang Yahua, deputy director of the Center for China Study at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “It’s a puzzle that the country has to solve.”
The consequences of diminishing water reserves and rising energy demand have been a special focus of our attention for more than a year. In 2010, in our “Choke Point: U.S.” series, Circle of Blue found that rising energy demand and diminishing freshwater reserves are two trends moving in opposing directions across America. Moreover, the speed and force of the confrontation is occurring in the places where growth is highest and water resources are under the most stress – California, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountain West, and the Southeast.
Stripped to its essence, China’s globally significant choke point is caused by three converging trends:- Production and consumption of coal – the largest industrial consumer of water – has tripled since 2000. Government analysts project that China’s energy companies will need to increase coal production by 30 percent by 2020.
- Fresh water needed for mining, processing, and consuming coal accounts for the largest share of China’s industrial water use, a fifth of all the water consumed nationally. Though national conservation policies have helped to limit increases, water consumption nevertheless has climbed to record highs.
- China’s total water resource, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, has dropped 13 percent since the start of the century. In other words China’s water supply is 350 billion cubic meters (93 trillion gallons) less than it was at the start of the century. That’s as much water lost to China each year as flows through the mouth of the Mississippi River in nine months. Chinese climatologists and hydrologists attribute much of the drop to climate change, which is disrupting patterns of rain and snowfall.
We found a powerful narrative in China in two parts, and never before told: First is how effectively the national and provincial governments enacted and enforced a range of water conservation and efficiency measures that enabled China to progress as far as it has.
Second is that despite the extensive efforts to conserve water, and to develop water-sipping alternatives like wind and solar energy, China still faces an enormous projected shortfall of water this decade to its energy-rich northern and western provinces. How government and industry leaders respond to this critical and unyielding choke point forms the central story line of the next era of China’s unfolding development.
J. Carl Ganter is director and co-founder of Circle of Blue, a leading source of news, science, and data about water issues globally. Choke Point: China is produced in partnership with the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum.
Image Credit: Two tunnels beneath the Yellow River to be completed by mid-decade that will transport more than 35 million cubic meters (9 billion gallons) of water a day from southern China to thirsty cities in the north. Courtesy of Aaron Jaffe and Circle of Blue. -
Mapping Demographics in WWF Priority Conservation Areas
›February 25, 2011 // By Hannah Marqusee“The developing world is urbanizing at a dizzying pace,” yet rural populations living in developing countries are also rapidly increasing, threatening many of the planet’s most biodiverse regions, says a new study, Mapping Population onto Priority Conservation Areas, by David López-Carr, Matthew Erdman, and Alex Zvoleff.
Using comprehensive data from the USAID-sponsored Demographic Health Surveys (DHS), the researchers analyzed population, mortality, and fertility indicators for 10 of the 19 priority places for conservation identified by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). These biological hotspots represent parts of 25 countries throughout South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Madagascar, and Thailand.
Urban vs. Rural
The findings confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis that rural areas within WWF priority regions are at a lower state of demographic transition than their urban counterparts, meaning they have higher fertility and infant mortality rates and a younger age structure due to poor access to primary health care, including family planning. Furthermore, women in these regions desire more children than those in urban, non-priority areas, but experience a greater difference between ideal and actual number of children.
For many of the indicators, the differences between urban and rural, and priority and non-priority, regions of the developing world are striking. In urban Asia, the mean predicted population doubling time is 86.1 years; in rural Africa it is only 24.6 years. Urban Asia and South America also have total fertility rates of 1.8 children per woman, while rural Africa’s is 5.2. Infant mortality also ranged from a low of 20 deaths per every 1,000 births in some developing urban areas, to over 100 in rural parts of Coastal East Africa. In the developed world it is less than 10.
There is also consistently less desire among women in priority areas to limit their childbearing. Worldwide, 49.4 percent of women living within priority areas want to limit childbearing, compared to 56.2 percent outside priority areas.
Rural areas in all regions had the highest unmet need for family planning, with the exception of the Congo Basin, where high infant mortality has persisted and dampened women’s desire to limit childbearing. “If much needed health services were provided in the Congo Basin, along with family planning services, child survival rates would increase, and couples would be more inclined to limit overall births,” the study says.
Lower demand for family planning in priority areas is consistent with Caldwell’s theory of intergenerational wealth flows, the paper noted, which explains how in rural agricultural societies, children are economic assets who move wealth to their parents. As countries develop and people gain access to education, healthcare and female empowerment, wealth flows reverse and children become financial burdens. This transition decreases fertility and increases demand for family planning.
Setting Priorities
As WWF plans to scale up its population, health and environment (PHE) programs, this study will help to prioritize places within priority areas that are most in need of PHE intervention and “are most likely to help alleviate negative environmental and social impacts of rapid population growth.” The results of this study show that many areas are ripe for such intervention:Nearly a quarter of households in Coastal East Africa and the Mesoamerican Reef wish to have access to contraception yet their desire remains unfulfilled. Similarly, households within priority places in Coastal East Africa, the Mesoamerican Reef, Amazon and the Guianas, and the Eastern Himalayas wish to have nearly one child fewer than they currently have.
The findings of this study have already informed the planning of several of WWF’s projects in Madagascar and Namibia.
The limited availability and detail of the DHS data was the primary limitation of the study, the researchers noted. The 25 countries examined did not fully cover all WWF’s priority areas – 17 other countries within the priority areas lacked sufficiently comprehensive data for the study. Furthermore, the district or municipality was the smallest unit of analysis possible with DHS data, making it difficult to exactly pinpoint priority communities.
“Geography matters,” write the authors. “Only with further refined data accompanied by qualitative on-the-ground field research can we credibly answer remaining questions.”
Image Credit:“Family Planning: Unmet Need for Family Planning Services” and “Mortality Rate: Child Mortality Rate (Under Age 5)” courtesy of World Wildlife Fund.
Sources: Population Council, World Wildlife Fund. -
The Middle East’s Demographic Destiny
›February 25, 2011 // By Jennifer Dabbs SciubbaThe original version of this article, by Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, appeared on her blog. Sciubba will be speaking at the Wilson Center on March 14 about her newest book The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security.
The so-called “arc of revolution” sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa has some demographers feeling smug. In Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, and Lebanon the population ages 15-29 – a key group for demographers – is very large, about 41-50 percent of all adults ages 15-59. No matter where you’re born, this life period is significant because during this time young adults expect to finish their education, get a job, get married, maybe start a family, and have some say in the way they are governed. As many have noted, the problem in each of these countries is that the desires of young adults are being dashed as they are shut out of economic, political, and even social opportunities. The result is all over the headlines.
Aside from structural failures like corruption and inattention of politicians to creating jobs, why are young people so disadvantaged? The answer lies in demography. Opportunities for young adults are limited in these countries because of what demographers refer to as “cohort crowding,” a situation that results when an age group, in Tunisia’s case those aged 25-29, is significantly larger than the preceding age group. Generally, jobs cannot be created fast enough to keep pace with this demographic bump, so those in the large cohorts are “crowded” out of the labor market. This situation turns into protest and violence when youth from large cohorts fall short of the living standards of preceding generations, which are smaller. In a 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey, 50 percent of respondents ages 18-29 in Egypt said they thought children born today would be worse off than their parents. In Jordan and Lebanon, 38 and 40 percent, respectively, of respondents had a similarly depressed attitude.
Continue reading on The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security blog.
Sources: Pew Research Center, U.S. Census Bureau.
Photo Credit: “DS-RY028 World Bank,” courtesy of flickr user World Bank Photo Collection (Dana Smillie). -
Watch: Laurie Mazur on a Pivotal Moment for the Global Environment and World Population
›February 24, 2011 // By Hannah Marqusee“It’s increasingly clear that we are living in a pivotal moment,” said Laurie Mazur, director of the Population Justice Project, in this interview with ECSP about her new book, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge. Currently, “nearly half the world’s population – about three billion people – are under the age of 25,” she said, and the choices these young people make, and the choices that are available to them “will determine whether world population grows from the current almost 6.9 billion to anywhere between 8 billion and 11 billion.”
“Numbers do matter,” said Mazur. “Clearly, a world population of 8 billion would be better than 11 billion for both human beings and the environment.” What’s more, “everything we need to do to slow population growth is something we should be doing anyway.”
Investments in family planning, girls’ education, women’s empowerment, and sustainable, equitable development are all means to slowing population growth, as well as being an end in and of themselves. Population growth “is an issue of really broad appeal” and should be of concern to environmental and reproductive health advocates, people of faith, or anyone who cares about development, justice, and eliminating poverty, said Mazur.
A Publication of the Stimson Center.
