A RESEARCH PAPER ON:
THE IMPERATIVES OF POVERTY AND OVERPOPULATION: A
CAUSATIVE EFFECT TO
THE FACTOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION.
WRITTEN BY:
INYANG, UTIBE BASSEY
DEPARTMENT
OF GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR, CALABAR
CROSS
RIVER STATE, NIGERIA
( bassey.utibe22@gmail.com, bassey.utibe22@yahoo.com, basseyenvironment.blogspot.com, +2348133807300, +2348093821827)
PUBLISHED IN:
THE REFINED MAGAZINE
THE IMPERATIVE
OF POVERTY AND OVERPOPULATION: A CAUSATIVE EFFECT TO THE FACTOR OF
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION.
It is expedient that
these two diabolic and extreme cases be placed before the round table of decision makers for
ethical discussions to be made. The imperativeness of these issues makes it
important for decision makers to make adequate decisions that could either be
pernicious or innocuous on the geo-spatial conditioning. Issues of
environmental degradation cannot be discussed without placing a pointer on the
major environmental problems which is the aim of this paper context.
Environmental degradation itself is the deterioration of the environment
through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil. These issues however cannot be overemphasized
because they have been the major factor of environmental ruin and imbalance.
According to the United
Nations statistics on poverty, it is clearly stated that every day, poverty
kills more than 50,000 innocent people and over 18 million in a year. Most environmental
problems are a causative factor of poverty which has in turn stimulated
overpopulation in a particular geographical location. When this is the case,
there is always a struggle for survival (existence) among the inhabitants of
that region. It has been undoubtedly observed that this struggle for survival
is the major pivotal of environmental imbalances. In the words of the English
cleric; Thomas Malthus in his essay on the principle of population, he reasoned
that human population tends to grow at a geometrical progression, while the
ability to produce subsistence increases at an arithmetical progression. In the
views of Malthus, we find ourselves in an ever-deepening spiral of suffering
caused by overpopulation. To him, this process could only be slowed by the
preventive check of decreased fertility or the positive check of increased
mortality. The world’s economic resources are scarce and unlimited, and its
overuse can foster resource depletion. Overpopulation in a particular region
which is mostly inhabited by the poor entails for the struggle for limited
resources such as space, food, clothing, shelter, water, and other
socio-economic amenities.
Basically, there are
two factors that correlate with high birth rates: poverty and lack of education.
Poverty is the state of being poor. It refers to the condition of not having
enough resources to take care of his basic socio-economic needs such as food,
clothing and shelter. Poverty has immensely impacted negatively on the
environment.
Just as it has been
clearly defined, the issue of poverty cannot be overemphasized, it is
everywhere- it knows no bound. Both environmental degradation and poverty are
global environmental issues that need to be resolved. On the other hand,
because majority of the people have not undergone any formal education, or are
not fully educated, they therefore accept ignorance and engages themselves in
an uncontrolled birth. Their ignorance makes them to see child birth as a gift
from God and so it should be done freely. Their offspring are made to suffer
the hurdles of life and could finally end up constituting the lifestyles of
hooligans inhabiting slums and shantytowns.
The case of
overpopulation and poverty is a common stay in the developing societies.
Increase in population in this region has impacted negatively to environmental
degradation. Overpopulation is said to reduce drastically the carrying capacity
of that particular region. The effect of overpopulation has been seen in the
shortages of resources, societal conflict, impaired health on the increasing
poor people, etc.
Recently, it has been
observed that many of our socio-economic resources are strained by rapid
population growth, and this has been seen in food shortages, water shortages,
air quality impairment, habitat fragmentation, farmland loss, local resource
shortages, social problem, etc.
To ameliorate this problem, there must be proper information dissemination, education, governmental policies that guides and governs uncontrolled birth rate. When this is done, overpopulation would reduce. Job opportunities should also be made available for the increasing poor people so as to be able to reduce the level of poverty and the level of environmental degradation.
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