Mineral Fertilizer Use and the Environment International Fertilizer Industry Association United Nations Environment Programme

UNDP’s 1998 Report
UNDP’s 1998 World Human Development
Report emphasizes the fact that it is the poor
which are hit hardest by environmental
degradation. Past deterioration of resources
worsens current poverty. This renders very
difficult the important tasks of the preservation
and restoration of agricultural resources,
reforestation, prevention of desertification, the
fight against erosion and soil nutrient
replenishment. It is a vicious circle. Individuals
confronted with poverty are obliged to over-
exploit resources, which risks exhausting them,
which in turn increases their poverty. The poor
will be increasingly pushed to live on fragile land;
by the end of the next decade it is possible that a
billion poor people will have to live on fragile
land as against 500 million today.
The problem of land degradation is most
serious in Africa and Asia, with two thirds of the
world’s poor. The problem of land degradation is
worse in arid areas. And this is not particular to

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Mineral Fertilizer Use and the Environment
developing countries. The continent which has
the largest area of arid land subject to
desertification is North America (74%), just
ahead of Africa (73%).
Deforestation is another problem. Almost a
third of the earth’s forest have disappeared and
about two thirds of those which remain are
subject to serious modifications. Forests retain
and regulate water and their destruction can lead
to floods and drought.
Today about a third if the world’s population
depends on renewable resources. By 2025 a
substantial proportion of the population of sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia will depend
largely on these resources, as will a substantial
number in Latin America and the Caribbean. The
area of arable land per person is likely to be half
the present low level of 0.27 ha. By 2050 more
than two billion people will live in regions with a
land shortage, due to desertification and
degradation, in particular in South Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa.
In the world as a whole, the use of water is
increasing rapidly. By 2025 it will have increased
by 40%. By 2050 the number of people
suffering from a water shortage will increase from
132 million to between 1 and
2.5 billion. Almost two thirds of the world’s
population will be confronted with a moderate or
high shortage of water. Some believe that water
will be an important cause of wars in the 21
st
century.