South African Environmental Issues

When I ask a class of university students to name environmental problems or issues, I'm likely to get answers like endangered species, air pollution and population growth. When I probe, however, they don't really have a handle on what they mean by population growth or how such population growth affects the environment. If they have any thoughts on the matter, they think the result is pollution. Often they're right, but they don't quite understand the mechanisms of impact.

South Africa is a good example of the impact of population growth on biological resources and raises the question of how to manage such resources so they are sustainable. According to a report on the web, "many species are threatened, and extinction rates in South Africa are high by global standards." According to the web report, "It is not fully known what the impacts of extinction are, or what might happen if certain ecosystem processes are interfered with" because "these impacts are of relatively recent origin, and the consequences are yet to play out."

"South Africa has the third highest level of biological diversity in the world, with 7.5% of the worlds vascular plants, 5.8% of the world's mammal species, 8% of the world's bird species, 4.6% of the world's reptile species, 16% of marine fish species and 5.5% of the world's recorded insect species," according to the report.

The causes and effects of population growth are familiar to anyone who reads about environmental issues in developing countries and typifies the interrelatedness of various issues. The web report puts it succinctly: population growth leads to "urbanisation, intensification of agricultural production, and industrialisation, in order to meet the demand for food, energy, and other commodities. These processes impact terrestrial ecosystems, through degradation, alteration of processes, or transformation. The increase in mobility of the human race due to modern transportation methods, has resulted in the introduction (both intentional and unintentional) of many non-native (alien) species. In some cases these species have become invasive, i.e. they have dominated the natural vegetation, and place an additional burden on already scarce resources, such as water."

As elsewhere, government policies are both positive and negative because of various effects on habitats and species. On the positive side, conservation laws protect "species and habitats, preserving populations of species, the wilderness experience, enhancing quality of life, and slowing the rate of extinctions." But government policies also can have negative effects, such as when policies encourage "monoculture and intensive use of agrochemicals," which leads to overuse of land and depletion of soils and plants.

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