Blueprint for a Better Planet
(Page 2 of 10)
Stabilizing world population at about 7.5
billion is central to avoiding economic breakdown in
countries with large projected population increases that
already are overconsuming their natural capital assets.
Some 36 countries in Europe and Japan have essentially
stabilized their populations, but the challenge now is to
create the economic and social conditions that will lead to
population stability in all countries. The keys here are
extending primary education to all children, providing
vaccinations and basic health care, and offering
reproductive health care and family planning services in
all countries.
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Stabilizing falling water tables is even
more difficult than stabilizing population because the
forces triggering the fall have their own momentum that
must be reversed. Stopping the fall depends on quickly
raising water productivity—the urgency of this effort
is difficult to overstate. Failure to stop the fall in
water tables by systematically reducing water use will lead
to the depletion of aquifers, an abrupt cutback in water
supplies and the risk of a precipitous drop in food
production. Many countries are now using highly efficient
drip-irrigation technology, which is ideally suited to
areas where water is scarce and labor is abundant, to
produce high-value crops.
With soil erosion , we have no choice but
to reduce soil loss to at least match the rate of soil
formation. Otherwise we face a continued decline in the
inherent fertility of eroding soils and cropland
abandonment.
South Korea and the United States stand out for their
efforts in stabilizing soils. South Korea, with
once-denuded mountainsides now covered with trees, has
achieved a level of flood control, water storage and
hydrological stability that is a model for other countries.
Only a narrow demilitarized zone separates the two Koreas,
but the contrast between them is stark. In North Korea,
little permanent vegetation remains, droughts and floods
alternate, and hunger is chronic. The U.S. record in soil
conservation also is impressive. Beginning in the late
1980s, gov ernment policies guided U.S. farmers to retire
roughly 10 percent of the most erodible cropland and plant
grasses on the bulk of it. In addition, the United States
leads the world in adopting minimum-till, notill and other
soil-conserving practices. With this combination of
programs and practices, the United States has reduced soil
erosion by nearly 40 percent in less than two decades.
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