Earth’s Carrying Capacity Strained by Population Growth By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Earth’s Carrying Capacity Strained by Population Growth

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

New York City---Earth’s renewable resources and carrying capacity is being severely strained to “support with some degree and comfort and individual choice” the world’s human population.

This is due to an overrun of fertility rates since 2000,  that caused a global population swell feared to reach 10 billion before 2050,  the US Council on Environmental Quality and the State Department said in a  three-year study called ”Reconnaissance of the Future Global 2000”. 

“The declines in carrying capacity, already evident in scattered areas around the world point to a phenomenon that is fast spreading”, notes the study.

“Unless nations collectively and individually take bold and imaginative steps toward improved  environmental, social and economic conditions, reduced fertility, better management  of resources and better protection of the environment, the world will expect trouble most of the 21^st century”, warns the study.

Grim Outlook

As excerpted by the Population Reference Bureau in its Intercom publication, “Global 2000” rather gives a grim outlook for the world in this century.

The study details some of the consequences should global population trends continue unchanged in this century this wise:

--Extinction of at least 500,000 plant and animal species by 2050.

--A 40 percent slash in all remaining forests in the less developed countries and loss of several inches of topsoil from croplands the world over.

--Much less arable land per person, only one quarter hectare on the average from the four fifths of a hectare.

--More than half of the world’s 2 billion barrels of original petroleum reserved resources will already be consumed.

--Upsurge in prices of vital resources over the inflation level.

--Declines in per capita water supply by 35 to 47 percent.

--Four fifths of the world population  will live in less developed countries.

--Widening gap between the richest and the poorest with great disparities within countries.

--More deaths from hunger and diseases especially among babies and young children and more mentally and physically-handicapped cases among those surviving infancy.

The most troubling of these outcomes is the drop of productivity of Earth’s renewable resources, according to the study.

Technological Advances Will Not Stop the Inevitable

And more troubling, the study suggests, is that even allowing the technological developments and adoptions, the world’s human population will only be within a few generations of reaching the entire Earth’s carrying capacity.

So what are the chances of stemming the tide and averting the consequences?

Not too good.

As the study bares, there is no silver bullet. “There are no quick or easy solutions, particularly in countries and regions where population pressure is already leading to a reduction of the carrying capacity of the land.”

The assessment stems from observations that living conditions spawned by population-induced environmental deterioration render more difficult reduction of fertility to replacement level (at which the population of a country stops growing).

Some Nations Will be Hard Up in Feeding their Population

As the grim scenario looms, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) bared that at least 28 developing countries would not be able to feed their respective countries by the middle of the century because yields will be adversely affected by climate change and genetic erosion.

Four of the 28 countries are in Asia—Philippines, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam. Seven in Latin America—Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Windward Isles, Guatemala; 17 in Africa—Tunisia, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Benin, Upper Volta, Togo, Mali, Malawi, Namibia, Comoros Isles, Ethiopia, Nigeria Uganda.

The reasons, UNFAO said are inferior planting seeds and genetic resources, increasing desertification, prolonged droughts and diminishing water supply, deteriorating soil quality and global warming.

Loss of Genetic Resources

Biorich areas in the world responsible for food and medical genes important to humanity face erosion most critically in this century, the US Council of Environmental Quality report stresses. As such,  these regions holding potential genetic properties of plants or animals that can be used to develop better varieties of crops in farming or develop better livestock, need  priority conservation efforts if the world is to tame the population boom.

Genetic diversity is being lost as species are becoming extinct; pharmacists are losing raw materials from which new drugs are developed;  agricultural scientists are losing wild relatives of crop plants that can ensure more productive or pest and disease-tolerant food crops, and; wild animal breeds are being lost which could have improved farm animal breeding.

In its September 2018 report, the Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s watchdog of flora and fauna, said an additional 27,000 species are in danger of becoming extinct.

Of the number, 41 percent are amphibians, 5 percent mammals, 34 percent conifers, 13 percent birds,  31 percent sharks and manta rays, 33 percent corals, and 27 percent selected crustaceans.

Wild species are building blocks for the betterment of human life but their loss can mean loss of mankind. The study suggests one way humans may evade the inevitable is by going back to the way of traditional communities.

 “Indigenous peoples or ‘Ecosystem people’ value biodiversity as a part of their livelihood as well as through cultural and religious sentiments. A great variety of crops have been cultivated in traditional agricultural systems and this permitted a wide range of produce to be grown and marketed throughout the year and acted as an insurance against the failure of one crop. In recent years farmers have begun to receive economic incentives to grow cash crops for national or international markets,” the study reminds.

It may be well to learn from them.

26,000 More Species Threatened---IUCN Sept 2018 Report By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

26,000 More Species Threatened---IUCN Sept 2018 Report

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

As the world threatening nears an increase of 1-1.5 degrees C global warming by year 2030, the number of the earth’s lifeforms threatened with extinction has increased, the world’s global watchdog of flora and fauna International Union for the Conservation of  Nature (IUCN) said in its September 2018 report.

IUCN bared in its latest Red List that  an additional 26,000 species are threatened with extinction today, out of the 27% of all assessed species worldwide.

Of the number, 41 percent are amphibians, 5 percent mammals, 34 percent conifers, 13 percent birds,  31 percent sharks and manta rays, 33 percent corals, and 27 percent selected crustaceans.

The IUCN Red List is the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the extinction risk of plant and animal species that started in the 1950s as a card index of species that were considered to be threatened with extinction. Over time, the Red Data Books grew and transformed into the Red List to include more species. The ethos of the program also shifted to incorporate the status of all species, not limiting it to only those threatened with extinction.

Today, The IUCN Red List, regarded as the most influential source of information for species conservation in the world,  holds conservation information for over 93,500 species of plants, animal and fungi, with a mission to increase the list to 160,000 species by 2020. 

Biodiversity Hotspots Around the World

There are thirty five biodiversity hotspots in the world where these threatened life species are located. These areas compose 2.3 percent of the Earth’s surface but have more than half of the world’s endemic plant species.

These are in the California Floristic province, Madrean Pine Oak Woodlands, Mesoamerica of North and Central America; Caribbean Islands; Atlantic Forest, Cerrado,  Chilean Winter Rainfall Valdivian Forest, Tumbes Choco Magdalena, and Tropical Andes in South America; Mediterranean Basin in Europe; Cape Floristc Region,  Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa,  Eastern Afromontane, Guinean Forests of West Africa, Horn of Africa, Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands,  Maputuland Pondoland Albany, Succulent Karoo in Africa; Mountains of Central Asia; Eastern Himalaya Nepal India, Indo-Burma India and Myanmar, Western Ghats and Sri Lanka in South Asia; East Melanesian Islands, Philippines, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Polynesia-Micronesia, Eastern Australian Temperate Forests, Southwest Australia, Sundaland and Nicobar Islands of India, Wallacea all in South East Asia and Asia Pacific; Japan, Mountains of Southwest China in East Asia; Caucasus and Irano-Anatolian in East Asia.

These are considered hotspots because they are biogeographic regions with significant reservoir of biodiversity but threatened with destruction. The purpose of biodiversity hotspots is not simply to identify regions that are of high biodiversity value, but to prioritize conservation spending.

Culprits Behind Ugly Face of Extinction
The worst threat  endangering  biodiversity in the said global hotspots is internal-- citizen-initiated, aggressive, relentless, unethical to a point, God-less --destruction of habitat. As if the future does not matter.

Man has begun to overuse or misuse most of these natural ecosystems. Due to this ‘unsustainable’ resource-use, once productive forests and grasslands have been turned into deserts and wasteland have increased all over the world. Mangroves have been cleared for fuelwood and prawn farming, which has led to a decrease in the habitat essential for breeding of marine fish. 

Wetlands have been drained to increase agricultural land. These changes have grave economic implications in the longer term. The current destruction of the remaining large areas of wilderness habitats, especially in the super diverse tropical forests and coral reefs, is the most important threat worldwide to biodiversity. Scientists have estimated that human activities are likely to eliminate approximately 10 million species by the year 2050.

There are about 1.8 million species of plants and animals, both large and microscopic, known to science in the world at present. The number of species however is likely to be greater by a factor of at least 10. Plants and insects as well as other forms of life not known to science are continually being identified in the worlds’ ‘hotspots’ of diversity.

 Unfortunately at the present rate of extinction about 25% of the worlds’ species will undergo extinction fairly rapidly. This may occur at the rate of 10 to 20 thousand species per year, a thousand to ten thousand times faster than the expected natural rate! Human actions could well exterminate 25% of the world’s species within the next twenty or thirty years. 

Much of this mega extinction spasm is related to human population growth, industrialization and changes in land-use patterns. A major part of these extinctions will occur in ‘biorich’ areas such as tropical forests, wetlands, and coral reefs. The loss of wild habitats due to rapid human population growth and short term economic development are major contributors to the rapid global destruction of biodiversity.

Philippines, 18^th Most Endangered Biodiversity Hotspot

 The Philippines, the world’s second largest archipelago, is one of the few nations that is, in its entirety, both a hotspot and a megadiversity country, placing it among the top priority hotspots for global conservation.

But its unique biodiversity is threatened. Having the highest rates of discovery in the world with sixteen new species of mammals discovered in the last ten years, such endemism however may be lost faster than discovered.

Threatened are 9,250 vascular plant species  which includes gingers, begonias, gesneriads, orchids, pandans, palms, and dipterocarps. Some150 species of palms are included in the hotspot list and 70 percent of the 1,000 species of orchids found in the country.

Among its over 530 bird species, 35 percent or over 60 are threatened. These are found in seven Endemic Bird Area hotspots: Mindoro, Luzon, Negros and Panay, Cebu, Mindanao and the Eastern Visayas, the Sulu archipelago, and Palawan.

The best-known  endangered bird species is the Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi, CR), the second-largest eagle in the world. The Philippine eagle breeds only in primary lowland rain forest. Habitat destruction has extirpated the eagle everywhere except on the islands of Luzon, Mindanao and Samar, where the only large tracts of lowland rain forest remain. Today, the total population is estimated at less than 700 individuals. Captive breeding programs have been largely unsuccessful; habitat protection is the eagle’s only hope for survival.

The other threatened endemic species are the Negros bleeding art (Gallicolumba keayi, CR), Visayan wrinkled hornbill (Aceros waldeni, CR), Scarlet-collared flowerpecker (Dicaeum retrocinctum, VU), Cebu flowerpecker (Dicaeum quadricolor, CR), and Philippine cockatoo (Cacatua haematuropygia, CR).

With regards mammals, the tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis, CR), a dwarf water buffalo that lives only on Mindoro Island is the most threatened. A century ago the population numbered 10,000 individuals; today only a few hundred animals exist in the wild.

Other mammals  are endangered, like the Visayan and Philippine warty pigs (Sus cebifrons, CR and S. philippensis, VU); the Calamianes hog-deer (Axis calamaniensis, EN) and the Visayan spotted deer (Rusa alfredi, EN), which has been reduced to a population of a few hundred on the islands of Negros, Masbate and Panay; and the golden-capped fruit bat (Acerodon jubatus, EN), which, as the world’s largest bat, has a wingspan up to 1.7 meters.

In the reptilian world, the freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis, CR) is considered the most threatened crocodilian in the world. Other unique and threatened reptiles include Gray’s monitor (Varanus olivaceus, VU), the Philippine pond turtle (Heosemys leytensis, CR) and a newly discovered monitor lizard, Varanus mabitang, only the second monitor species known in the world to specialize on a fruit diet.

Among all amphibians, 22 are considered threatened including the Philippine flat-headed frog (Barbourula busuangensis, VU), one of the world’s most primitive frog species.

With regards freshwater fishes, most threatene is Sardinella tawilis, a freshwater sardine found only in Taal Lake. Sadly, Lake Lanao, in Mindanao, seems likely to have become the site of one of the hotspots worst extinction catastrophes, with nearly all of the lakes endemic fish species now almost certainly extinct.

Man’s Destruction of Forests All but Decimated  Most of RP’s Biodiversity

Forests, the Philippines’ leading natural habitat of the country’s biodiversity, are rapidly disappearing. By 2040, there may be no virgin forests, many forestry experts predict. Non-believers scoff at this, saying it is an exaggeration. But the figures cannot be wrong. The effects of deforestation are not figments of imagination.

The rate of deforestation in the country is among the highest in the world. The worst deforestation happened during the period of 1990 to 1999 where 750,000 acres of virgin forest were lost. Today, only 1.75 million acres remain of the nation's virgin forests.

The loss is incredible, the rate of deforestation in that decade was almost 75,000 acres a year. It also came at a time when logging ban was imposed in some selected sites in the country.

As a result, flooding, soil erosion and degradation pegged at 100,000 tons of soil yearly, loss of species diversity and genetic material, loss of human lives and properties and aesthetic and recreational loss were at their worst.

Much of the blame is on  the government that, over the years, have passed laws favorable to logging concessions and implemented forest protection poorly. Government negligence has prompted the devastation of the forests. Today, much of the remaining forests are still being invaded by commercial loggers.

Philippine forestry laws passed since 1930 have failed to provide adequate security provisions for virgin and secondary growth forests, thus the forests had virtually no protection at all. For instance, there is only one forest guard for every 7,500 acres.

But even then, many official policies and strategies from the very start were faulty.

And many polices continue to be faulty.

God’s Garden Heals Wounds That Scar the Soul ......By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

God’s Garden Heals Wounds That Scar the Soul

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Below my house is a small pond where I used to put goldfish for my kids to appreciate. I limped towards it yesterday, the pond is still there, less the small colorful fishes. The pond reflects the day of mist in gray tones. Much like my mood.

When the sky is blue, the pond is blue, the sky staring back down at it. Patterns like icewebs spread across the surface as a water strider hurries. So much so like most of us when we take on the moods of others. All around, I’m surrounded by plum, lemon, wax apples, rambutan, lanzones, guava, Davao pomelo, African tulips, soap nut trees, Arabica coffee, petroleum trees, all draped with three kinds of passion fruits racing at every inch of branch they could hang on.

A few yards away, fallen, lemon, wild strawberries, guavas , coffee berries carpet the ground.., branches bending with heavy laden fruits–all left untouched. It is rare that anyone, except I, comes here.

The pine forest a hundred yards away is touched by the actions of the sky and wind. At night and all through the day, changes take place. Sometimes the sky glitters with wings – sometimes it is softened by the falling pine needles. Man’s soul has a light like that of a lantern that is untroubled in the turmoil of wind and storm.

It is here where I seek shelter when my spirit is broken. Where I many times speak to God. Where he speaks back to me. Here I find comfort in his words “The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail”.(Isaiah 58,  v.11).

Though it is just October, cold nights and chilly dawn have been creeping. The most recent full moon last week lit the land like a night sky — so bright the whole forest silhouette was visible. The spiders chose to stay in the shadows and even the owls seldom call when it gets cold. Only a late Luzon fruit bat braves the breeze hurrying home.

My ancient Igorot headhunting ancestors used the moon to show how everything is in a circle. The shape of our eyes are curved toward round, the world is round and so the moon and stars and many other things. But the best is the circle which is infinity — life everlasting, no beginning and no end.

From my orchard many trails lead to different places–to the pine forest, the highway, a chasm and to neighbors’ homes. Where one follows, it may never be the right trail. Often, my feet wander far for answers to the same questions my grandfathers asked, chanted about and prayed over in the quiet of their own thoughts. What is this life problem that plagues me now? Why am I my worst enemy that tries to rule my thinking and actions?

Here, under the canopy and shadows of my trees I realize so many people especially the have-nots and the powerless, are worthy of thoughts and much-needed prayers. That personal problems and ills are miniscule; that the misfortunes we feel, are far from the sufferings of others. I have been talking to my son Michael Jr. on why our society is scarred of unending negative energies, why self renewal is at its best rejected in the face of economically and politically-driven wrong choices. One of the strangest thing about life is when we talk of change, people say they embrace it but we see a few doing that especially if the change threatens their comfort zones.

Our space and those for the unborn are invaded by what we fear borne out of our own miscomprehension. This is not an illusion and the price to pay is equally beyond comprehension. That there are things that happen that cannot be explained is acceptable but there are things that should have happened, but never did, is wanting of explanation.

The voice in my garden tells me to understand these with joy. Joy because we are motivated and propelled to work more believing the whole world is much better without our own frustrations. Looking at my garden makes me believe so, the plants assuring my thoughts.

Life is too beautiful to go on and a bitter pill that insists I swallow it can never be an option. An adage goes that “the man who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the grief which he proposes to remove.”

I need to unburden myself by doing something that will put a smile on someone else’s face. As my plants did to me. There are not many things in my life that I can truthfully say mean everything to me. The small things are important and very dear, but the really significant things I count on one hand – my faith, love ones, friends, my good desires, my country and life.

I guess one of the most magnified situations in this day is taking life too seriously …. in the stress of too much mental social confusion, some people seem unable to laugh off some. Especially so if it involves issues that drumbeat our society daily without pause. We let mental presumptions rule ourselves into making solutions source of further problems, anxiety, and depression until it dramatically chokes us.

I look at the anthuriums growing wild with ferns, Margarets blooming bright yellow under the rising October sun, the wild pink roses starting to unfurl and the glistening moss covering the pond’s stone rim from which a lizard peered, I know there is still a bright day ahead. And the day after tomorrow, and the other morrows.

I follow an ant column seeking out food from a niche in the ground ignoring a centipede unsavory and too ill-smelling for breakfast and like them I am hopeful there is something promising at the next bend.

And even as the confusion is there, it becomes a bit bearable knowing the worthwhile side of life is too important to let myself become involved with something that mean little to me now.

God told me that.