#WorldPopulationDay: Population & Sustainability In Nigeria & Beyond
By: Iccdi Africa
Tags: Nigeria, Planets, Sustainability, Climate Change, Population

In Nigeria, a woman will have 5.3 children in her lifetime according to the Nigerian demographic health survey (NDHS2018) and only 12% of married women use any modern contraceptive method. All environmental and economic problems become harder and possibly ultimately impossible to solve with ever more people.

The world population day 2019 event hosted by POPULATION MATTERS and the NIGERIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION (NCF) kicked off at 10:00 am with a welcome speech by Mr. Joseph Onoja — the director of technical programs, NCF. Guests were afterward treated to a screening video introducing POPULATION MATTERS; Screening was voiced by Florence Blondel — population matters, UK.

The next session was a panel presentation. The members of the panel were; Bar. Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin — Hon Federal Commissioner, National Population Council, Mr. Mutari Aminu-Kano — Director-General, National Conservation Foundation, Mr. Robin Maynard — Director, Population Matters, Mrs. Temitope Okunnu — Director, Foundation for a Better Environment (FABE) and Mr. Abiodun Bamgboye, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry Of Environment.

Mr. Mutari Aminu-Kano talked on “Population growth and environmental sustainability”. He explained that in the ’80s Nigeria’s population was around 75 million people, in the ’90s, it was around 100 million but now, in our current period, we are approaching 200million while our land area is shrinking due to desert encroachment, flood, sea-level rise, etc. He stated that we should be talking about population pressure and the consumption that goes with it. Environmental organizations in the developing world have to tackle this issue head-on. We have the 4th largest population in the world and still occupy a landmass of about 923,763Km2. He said we might argue about the tools we use but we must first agree that we have a population problem that we must address.

The next panel presentation held by Mr. Robin Maynard focused on — Overpopulation in the developed world and a global approach — there are about 10,000 childbirths every hour across the globe. The principal driver of biodiversity extinction is the human population expansion — this was noted by a study on human consumption. He stated that the poorest people emit the least greenhouse gases but feel the highest impact of climate change. He showed those 10 years ago, the world constituted 1% human and 99% wild animals but today, its 32% humans, 1% wild animals and 67% livestock. These sad changes in numbers led to the following impacts:

1. Habitat loss: Presently, Only a quarter of land on earth is subsequently free of the impacts of human activities, 80% of extinction threats to mammal and bird species due to agriculture, Of all the plant, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species that have gone extinct since AD 1500, 75% were harmed by over exploitation or agricultural activity or both (sources: WWFLiving Planet Report 2018, EAT-Lancet commission).

2. Food Security: Expected Population growth of 2.8 billion people between 2010 and 2050 drives the majority of expected growth in food demand.

3. Climate change: globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. (Source IPCC, 2018).