The human population growing at unprecedented rate, threatening vital resources, but the growing power of women may offer some hope of solution, the United Nations said today.
More people are using more resources with more intensity than at any point in human history, the UN said in its annual world population report for 2001.
But the editor of the report, Mr Alex Marshall, said a ray of hope lay in the fact that women were winning the war to control their fertility and had finally gained the ear of government.
Nearly 60 per cent of women now have access to some sort of family planning - even if you take China out of that you still have about 40 per cent, he said.
His report painted an otherwise bleak picture of the planet.
The world's population, which has doubled to 6.1 billion in the past 40 years, is projected to surge 50 per cent to 9.3 billion within another half century, with all the growth in developing countries whose resources are already over-stretched.
By 2050, 4.2 billion people (over 45 per cent of the global total) will be living in countries that cannot meet the daily requirement of 50 litres (11 Imp gallons) of water per person to meet basic needs, the report said.
It said water was being used and polluted at catastrophic rates.
At present 54 per cent of available fresh water supplies is being used annually – two-thirds for agriculture.
This figure is set to surge to 70 per cent by 2025 due to population growth alone, and 90 per cent if consumption in the developing countries reaches the levels in the developed world.
The report said 1.1 billion people already did not have access to clean water, and in developing nations up to 95 per cent of sewage and 70 per cent of industrial waste was simply being dumped untreated into water courses.
Vital rain forests are being destroyed at the highest rate in history, taking with them crucial sources of bio-diversity and contributing to climate warming, thereby boosting already rising sea levels.
The seas continue to be massively overexploited and erosion is taking a rising toll of plant species - one quarter of which could be lost forever by 2025.