Thanks to strong domestic policies as well as international support for women's education, health care, and family planning, the rate of population growth has fallen particularly rapidly in Brazil, China, and Indonesia. Still, we have a long way to go if world population is to be stabilized at less than 10 billion by late in the next century. The report also explores a number of other environmental challenges facing the world. One chapter details the important services ranging from pollination of crops to supplying fresh water provided by intact ecosystems. Another chapter documents the potential of climate change to disrupt many of these ecosystems in the next century.
Human societies are also at risk.
Chapter 3 documents the rapid loss of productive cropland in many countries, while Chapter 7 shows how political and military conflicts such as those in Chiapas and Rwanda are caused in part by underlying population pressures and a degraded resource base. One of the key conclusions of State of the World 1997 is that the eight environmental heavyweights could be crucial in taking the next steps on issues such as climate change and biological diversity. Just as the G7 now gets together annually to forge a broader consensus on economic issues, so could the E8 become an important catalytic force on environmental questions. At the same time, smaller countries will continue to play an important role in addressing environmental concerns. Tiny Denmark has become a world leader in renewable energy, spreading its wind power technology around the world in the past decade.