As land and water become scarce, competition for these vital resources intensifies within societies, particularly between the wealthy and those who are poor and dispossessed. The shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person that comes with population growth is threatening to drop the living standards of millions of people below the survival level, leading to potentially unmanageable social tensions.
Access to land is a prime source of social tension. Expanding world population has cut the grainland per person in half, from 0.23 hectares in 1950 to 0.10 hectares in 2007. One-tenth of a hectare is half of a building lot in an affluent U.S. suburb. This ongoing shrinkage of grainland per person makes it difficult for the world’s farmers to feed the 70 million people added to world population each year. The shrinkage in cropland per person not only threatens livelihoods, but in largely subsistence societies, it also threatens survival itself. Tensions within communities begin to build as landholdings shrink below that needed for survival.
The Sahelian zone of Africa, with one of the world’s fastest-growing populations, is an area of spreading conflict. In troubled Sudan, 2 million people have died and over 4 million have been displaced in the long-standing conflict of more than 20 years between the Muslim north and the Christian south. The more recent conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan that began in 2003 illustrates the mounting tensions between two Muslim groups—camel herders and subsistence farmers. Government troops are backing Arab militias, who are engaging in the wholesale slaughter of black Sudanese in an effort to drive them off their land, sending them into refugee camps in neighboring Chad. At least some 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 250,000 have died of hunger and disease in the refugee camps.
The story of Darfur is that of the Sahel, the semiarid region of grassland and dryland farming that stretches across Africa from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east. In the northern Sahel, grassland is turning to desert, forcing herders southward into the farming areas. Declining rainfall and overgrazing are combining to destroy the grasslands.
Well before the rainfall decline the seeds for the conflict were being sown as Sudan’s population climbed from 9 million in 1950 to 39 million in 2007, more than a fourfold rise. Meanwhile, the cattle population increased from fewer than 7 million to 40 million, an increase of nearly sixfold. The number of sheep and goats together increased from fewer than 14 million to 113 million, an eightfold increase. No grasslands can survive such rapid continuous growth in livestock populations.
In Nigeria, where 148 million people are crammed into an area not much larger than Texas, overgrazing and overplowing are converting grassland and cropland into desert, putting farmers and herders in a war for survival. Unfortunately, the division between herders and farmers is also often the division between Muslims and Christians. The competition for land, amplified by religious differences and combined with a large number of frustrated young men with guns, has created a volatile and violent situation where finally, in mid-2004, the government imposed emergency rule.
Rwanda has become a classic case study in how mounting population pressure can translate into political tension, conflict, and social tragedy. James Gasana, who was Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Environment in 1990-92, warned in 1990 that without “profound transformations in its agriculture, [Rwanda] will not be capable of feeding adequately its population under the present growth rate.” Although the country’s demographers projected major future gains in population, Gasana said that he did not see how Rwanda would reach 10 million inhabitants without social disorder “unless important progress in agriculture, as well as other sectors of the economy, were achieved.”
In 1950, Rwanda’s population was 2.4 million. By 1993, it had tripled to 7.5 million, making it the most densely populated country in Africa. As population grew, so did the demand for firewood. By 1991, the demand was more than double the sustainable yield of local forests. As trees disappeared, straw and other crop residues were used for cooking fuel. With less organic matter in the soil, land fertility declined.
As the health of the land deteriorated, so did that of the people dependent on it. Eventually there was simply not enough food to go around. A quiet desperation developed. Like a drought-afflicted countryside, it could be ignited with a single match. That ignition came with the crash of a plane on April 6, 1994, shot down as it approached the capital Kigali, killing President Juvenal Habyarimana. The crash unleashed an organized attack by Hutus, leading to an estimated 800,000 deaths of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.
Many other African countries, largely rural in nature, are on a demographic track similar to Rwanda’s. Tanzania’s population of 40 million in 2007 is projected to increase to 85 million by 2050. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the population is projected to triple from 63 million to 187 million.
Africa is not alone. In India, tension between Hindus and Muslims is never far below the surface. As each successive generation further subdivides already small plots, pressure on the land is intense. The pressure on water resources is even greater. With India’s population projected to grow from 1.2 billion in 2007 to 1.7 billion in 2050, a collision between rising human numbers and shrinking water supplies seems inevitable. The risk is that India could face social conflicts that would dwarf those in Rwanda. The relationship between population and natural systems is a national security issue, one that can spawn conflicts along geographic, tribal, ethnic, or religious lines.
Disagreements over the allocation of water among countries that share river systems is a common source of international political conflict, especially where populations are outgrowing the flow of the river. Nowhere is this potential conflict more stark than among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in the Nile River valley. Agriculture in Egypt, where it rarely rains, is wholly dependent on water from the Nile. Egypt now gets the lion’s share of the Nile’s water, but its population of 75 million is projected to reach 121 million by 2050, thus greatly expanding the demand for grain and water. Sudan, whose 39 million people also depend heavily on food produced with Nile water, is expected to have 73 million by 2050. And the number of Ethiopians, in the country that controls 85 percent of the river’s headwaters, is projected to expand from 83 million to 183 million.
Since there is already little water left in the Nile when it reaches the Mediterranean, if either Sudan or Ethiopia takes more water, then Egypt will get less, making it increasingly difficult to feed an additional 46 million people. Although there is an existing water rights agreement among the three countries, Ethiopia receives only a minuscule share of water. Given its aspirations for a better life, and with the Nile being one of its few natural resources, Ethiopia will undoubtedly want to take more.
In the Aral Sea basin in Central Asia, there is an uneasy arrangement among five countries over the sharing of the two rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, that drain into the sea. The demand for water in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan already exceeds the flow of the two rivers by 25 percent. Turkmenistan, which is upstream on the Amu Darya, is planning to develop another half-million hectares of irrigated agriculture. Racked by insurgencies, the region lacks the cooperation needed to manage its scarce water resources. Geographer Sarah O’Hara of the University of Nottingham who studies the region’s water problems, says, “We talk about the developing world and the developed world, but this is the deteriorating world.”
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Originally published at earthpolicy.org. Adapted from Chapter 6, “Early Signs of Decline,” in Lester R. Brown’s book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008).
Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Tweet for the bees
Soda lobby gets its game on
Comments
View as Flat
waves16 Posted 12:58 am
15 Feb 2009
The turmoin we are seeing with oil is going look like a walk in the part when scarecity hits other mineral resources. Fossil fuels have plenty of relatively inexpensive substitutes. Metal generally have low substitutability.
Everyone needs to check it out.
Keywords: environment and global warming strategies
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Pompey Road Posted 3:14 am
15 Feb 2009
The economic collapse that has encircled the world will be particularly devastating to the starving nations. This kind of desperations will make them grasp for any ideology that offers hope. We have seen it before, maybe not on the scale we will see in the future. If the ideology of 7th Century Fundamentalism offers them food, water or just hope they will follow it. Especially if the dogmatic fundamentalist point to the source of their misery.
The development of sustainable renewable low cost energy for the third world was never more an immediate necessity than it is right now. Bio diversity and environmentally sound food production was never so necessary as it is right now. Desalination and clean water for the third world was never such an immediate emergency as it is right now.
Remember humans have no natural predators to check over population. The only species that kills itself in such mass numbers. Mother nature's little pressure valve for humans overpopulation. The natural innate agression in our old brain is sometimes masked by the cerebral cortex especially in the have nations with government sponsored education systems. Third world populations have a different perspective on the world than what we do here in the U.S. and of course we are so arrogant we can't see it. The basic instincts of survival override any cognitive response to your environment every time.
The situation can either be viewed as a ticking time bomb and a threat to civilization as we know it or mother nature's checks and balance for human overpopulation of the planet.
Renewable, sustainable low cost energy and help the third world feed itself or loose the dogs of war. That always leads to enough starvation and disease beyond the war dead to help mother nature do her job.
I would love to see the developed nations prove Malthus wrong but the smart money is on his solution of the population problem right now.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Wolverine Posted 5:32 am
15 Feb 2009
The biggest problem is that with so many humans covering virtually every inch of the Earth, the rest of the species have nowhere to adequately live, and species that did not evolve to interact with humans are now forced to do so. Humans have caused the sixth great extinction, in large part due to there being far too many of us. There is no other large animal that lives in every ecosystem and on every continent.
It's way past time for humans to move out of some areas and leave them for others. The best place to start is where humans could not even get to before engines were put on ships, namely Antarctica. Humans should be restricted to the lower latitudes and areas with Mediterranean climates sot that they don't do so much destruction by consuming massive amounts of artificial energy just to stay warm. And of course, this goes along with major population reduction, which should be accomplished by mandatory one-child-family policies everywhere except for nations whose human populations are already declining and therefore do not need this incentive (Japan, Russian, much of western Europe, etc.).
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amazingdrx Posted 6:15 am
15 Feb 2009
They like peak, the mass delusional media.
But peak atmosphere, peak ice, peak water, peak biosphere? No they like peak oil, peak coal, peak unemployment.
Is this obsession with peaks peaking. "Mr. President,we can't allow a peak peak mass delusional media gap!"
Meanwhile global climate change represents an unprecedented national security problem, the chaos that is ensuing threatens multiple conflagrations in multiple theaters. Conflicts which will threaten the stability of nations whose interests are intertwined with ours.
Recent pentagon studies and testimomy in congressal hearings have highlighted this global threat. The climate going wrong is wrecking civil stability everywhere. Remember New Orleans after katrina? Mutiply it a million-fold for different kinds of climate change related disasters around the planet.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pangolin Posted 1:19 pm
15 Feb 2009
This is where sometimes commentator Jonas should step in and tell us that Africans just need better tractors and more fertilizers but I can tell you from the heart of California's most productive farmland that a tractor can't buy you rain, fertilizer does not replace healthy soil and all the kings horses and all the kings men do not tell the crops to flower and set fruit on schedule.
It is not reasonable to expect the world to produce more food with a system that destroys productive capacity. At some point, in some areas the system will fail at a time when global resources will not take up the slack. People, somewhere, like in Burma last year, are going to die in job lots.
Until our political leaders learn to believe in mathematics we can do little but promote birth control and better farm practices. True solutions aren't even on the horizon.
Put the Carbon Back
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GonzoDon Posted 2:03 am
16 Feb 2009
How un-trendy of you to point out the elephant in the middle of the room. Better to include another fluff article featuring Bono or Brangelina, don't you think? So much less controversial.
But, controversial or not, the fact remains that we are adding 191,000 new people to the planet EVERY DAY. Think about that. The equivalent of a another Eugene, Oregon or Fort Collins, Colorado -- every single day.
Yeah, we'd better start talking about it. Thanks for this article, Grist.
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Ted Clayton Posted 2:59 am
16 Feb 2009
But genetics will buy you desert-plants that return nitrogen to the soil, and need no irrigation. GMO will get you salinity-tolerance and habitat-stabilization.
Lester Brown knows better than most, that we've been to this movie already. Not to minimize the dangers - they are real - but we have dodged this bullet already. I wish we were not getting set up to try pulling off the stunt yet again, but we are. And yet again, going for the technology-fix - though a compromise & a delay-tactic - is (as LB kbtm) preferable to 'letting nature take its coarse'.
Note that what we can see we can do, best-favors the herder-model, culturally. We can do much better improving the situation for browsing-animals, than we can for row-crops. This time around.
It is beyond foolish to overlook that we know that Ethiopia's (in)famous trials & tribulations are largely energetically created and artfully managed, by humans, in service of human avarice. This is not Mother Nature sighing, "Enough, already". These principles apply far beyond Ethiopia.
You'll notice, we're not quoting Paul Ehrlich, who blazed this trail before us.
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Start Loving Posted 4:39 am
16 Feb 2009
But is he a Prophet or an Auth-Whore?
Where is the ACTION from this man???
"EXAMPLE is not the major thing in influencing people... it is the only thing." Albert Schweitzer.
To Author such a brilliant call-to-action, but then to live such a seemingly comfortable, benign, "safe" life is the greatest possible disservice to his message.
His words shout EMERGENCY.
His "life" shouts - PAY ME TO TALK!
Which is the TRUTH?!!?!?!?
http://HomeearthSecurity.blogspot.com
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Ted Clayton Posted 5:11 am
16 Feb 2009
I bottom-lined my previous comment with a reference to Paul Ehrlich, precisely because he 'gave in' to the impulse that you fault Lester Brown for not indulging.
Ehrlich - arguably the founder of the modern form of population-environment studies - discredited himself by formulating conclusions & predictions that proved dramatically flawed.
There is nothing necessarily wrong in making a set of negative observations, without offering a corresponding set of solutions.
Describing the problem well is a legitimate role. The fact that the bearer of the message delivers the message, and not the solution, is no reason to shoot him.
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Pompey Road Posted 5:15 am
16 Feb 2009
"Social dislocation can be dangerous, too. Failing states tend to spawn refugees, ethnic cleansing, civil wars".
"Failing States open up vacuums for violence and extremism-and it does not take much for this to spill across national boarders."
"There are a lot of reasons for America to be afraid of other countries failing economies and shaky political system."
"America has never been able immune from the violent side of economic turmoil, and there's no reason we will be safe this time either."
Dennis Blair's message to congress last week.
Over population in certain parts of the world make them even more susceptible to destabilization. With the current economic crisis that is effecting every country in the world the fund to help over populated countries survive will be limited. One year into the crisis and the governments of Haiti and Iceland have already collapsed. Even countries such as Greece are on the verge of collapse. Greece owed Britain 4;1 billion and their GNP is only 2.1. The turmoil of the 20's and 30's that led to a World War will be magnified by the powers of 10 when the over population problem is added to the mix.
I think the current financial condition of the developed countries economies will fall short of the amount required to overcome the problems of overpopulation. Politically with the developed nations struggling themselves the will to help will not be there either.
If and the big if is that if the economic recovery plan being attempted here in the U.S. and looked at by the G-8 countries works it will be 12 to 18 months before the developed countries feel the positive effects of the recovery plan. The under developed nations usually lag behind even in the best of times.
I feel we are headed for a population correction!
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Start Loving Posted 11:28 am
16 Feb 2009
Plan B 3.0 is extraordinary because it BOTH identifies the problem in fabulous detail AND lays out the solution brilliantly!
Brown has the right to leave it there.
But I stand by my post that his actions speak far louder than, and in vile opposition to his book - IF I correctly understand his actions CORRECTLY to be just comfortably traveling the speaking circuit - collecting the fees - and living normally while the worst he predicted unfolds - Civilization passes the tipping point and comes to a violent, excruciating end.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. What if instead of fiddling...?
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Ted Clayton Posted 12:25 pm
16 Feb 2009
Now you, me & we all know, Brother/Sister Lovin', that being the mild-mannered, supposedly non-risking messenger is actually by no means a reliably cushy (or even hazard-free) job ... that straddling the fence-top can be hard on delicate portions of the anatomy.
But, in the next little while I'll see about rounding up a few brief run-downs on Brown's Plan B 3.0 so I can have a minimal idea what I'm talking about, next time. ;)
I used to follow the efforts of Paul Ehrlich & Co. in some detail, and weighed the various ideas & predictions they generated, with interest. (Which is why, truth be, I pay little mind to Brown & Co.) It will be good to see how much novelty Lester Brown is able to produce!
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