Overpopulation and worldwide environmental degradation were the focus of a UW-Madison and National Audubon Society-sponsored forum attended by approximately 50 Madison community members Wednesday at 6191 Helen C. White Hall.
From 1950 to 1995 the world population grew by between 2.5 to 2.7 billion people, according to statistics presented by Jon Foley, director of the UW-Madison Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
Foley said human attempts to satisfy the increasing needs of the world's growing population cause detrimental effects on world resources.
\The need for grain and water has tripled, and the use of fossil fuels increased fourfold [from 1950 to 1965],"" Foley said
Not only does population growth tax resources, but it has negative consequences on animals as well, according to the panel.
""Extinction continues at never-before-seen levels. Every action [humans] take has some cascading effect on animals,"" said UW-Madison agriculture and life sciences Professor Scott Craven. ""When it comes down to wildlife on a global scale is a [gloomy] picture.""
The panel presented the example of National Audubon Society statistics collected from primatologist Jane Goodall that show the population of chimpanzees in Africa has decreased from approximately 2 million in 1960 to the present generation of 120,000. Audubon Society members predict the overtaxation of natural resources will only get worse.
""At current fertility rates we will add more people to the planet in the next 50 years than we have in the previous 50,000,"" said Desiree Sorenson-Groves of the National Audubon Society.
Sorenson-Groves said she wants Congress to spend more money on international family planning programs to help with the problem of overpopulation.
""We need education empowerment and universal access to reproductive services [around the globe],"" said Stan Bernstein, a repr esentative from the U.N. Population Fund.
Foley said these issues are important for the future of the human race.
""To meet the needs of the present without compromising the future ... [is] the biggest challenge our species has ever seen,"" Foley said.
