Coffee - not for birds

About 11 per cent of all known bird species are threatened with extinction, according to the World Resources Institute. Fragmentation or loss of habitat is mainly responsible for this decline, but harvesting for food and trade and competition from introduced species are also responsible. For example, conversion of traditional coffee plantations, which serve as habitats for migratory birds, to industrial coffee production methods may have devastating consequences for migratory bird populations.

The costs of war

Every war has an environmental cost. Armies have been known to degrade the environment, burn fields and forests and poison water sources. Advances in weapon technology have left their mark in innumerable places, the most noticeable being Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Recently, NATO bombing of a petrochemical plant in Belgrade has raised questions about its environmental fallout. Yet the most outstanding price of war is the human cost.

Poor distribution

If the available food is distributed according to need, it would be sufficient to feed all the people of the world. Yet there are more than 828 million chronically undernourished poor people in developing countries, says a study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. According to estimates, another two billion people have deficiencies of micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals because their diets mainly comprise cereals and tubers.

City shock

Cities are known to generate a lot of waste and contribute in a major way to water and air pollution. They have become a major source of concern in the 20th century. City authorities will have to be particularly vigilant in the next millennium. According to Worldwatch Institute estimates, Mumbai will be the third-most populated metropolis by the year 2000. Its population is expected to reach 18 million, just 0.1 million behind Mexico City, the second-most populated city after Tokyo.

A question of priorities

The world has sufficient resources to accelerate progress to accelerate progress in human development for all and to eradicate poverty. According to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 1998, the total additional yearly investment required to achieve universal access to basic social services would be an estimated US $40 billion, which is 0.1 per cent of the world's income.

Women at work

Women spend much more time working than men in virtually every society for which time use studies are available, according to the United Nations Human Development Report, 1998. This includes both paid and unpaid work. The disparities are particularly marked in rural areas of developing countries, where the environment in many cases is degraded. In these areas women's work burden is significantly greater than that of men. In most industrialised countries the disparity is less.

Trash to trash

The industrialised countries are producing an enormous amount of garbage. Western Europe -- an industrialised consumer society -- generated 200 million tonnes of municipal garbage in 1995. The cheapest way to get rid of this nuisance is to dump it in landfills, which remains the most common way to deal with municipal and household trash in Europe. Incineration is the second most favoured option. But recycling is increasingly becoming a priority in many European countries.

The haunting nuclear ghost

The remains of the once powerful Soviet nuclear submarine fleet are lying in crumbling shipyards. Many of these are in the northern Kola Peninsula. With Russia lacking the money to dispose of the nuclear waste safely, the radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel pose a tremendous environmental hazard. At least 104 decommissioned submarines are resting in shipyards and docks, many of them still have their nuclear fuel on board. The Northern and Pacific fleets have 72,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies.

Water stress

If a country is using 20-40 per cent of available freshwater, it is said to be suffering from 'water stress" according to the estimates of the United Nations Environment Programme. About one-third of the population of the world is living in countries that are experiencing moderate to high water stress. As demand for water grows, this figure could rise to two-thirds. As world population is projected to grow from 5.7 billion in 1995 to 9.4 billion

The price of power

A significant source of urban air pollution is the combustion of fuels by power plants, industrial boilers, residential stoves and vehicles. A World Bank study in 1998 assessed the magnitude of various damages from this. This method of analysis was applied to six large cities in different countries: Bangkok, Thailand; Krakow, Poland; Manila, the Philippines; Mumbai, India; Santiago, Chile; and Shanghai, China. Cost of damage to health was the highest, in which premature death accounted for 40 per cent.