“Over the next twenty years physical pressures – population, resource, energy, climatic, and environmental – could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty,” warns the newly released 2008 National Defense Strategy. Demographic trends, resource scarcity, and environmental change all inform the updated strategy, which encourages international cooperation to address these impending challenges.

The “Population Forum” in the September issue of WorldWatch Magazine “reveals that empowering women to make their own family size choices…is the best strategy to tackle population growth” and the environmental and security problems linked to it. A short history of population trends is available online; the website offers free previews of Lori Hunter’s article on PHE and gender, as well as “Population and Security” by Elizabeth Leahy and ECSP’s own Sean Peoples. Bernard Orimbo links population growth and environmental degradation in his native Kenya, and PAI staff discuss urbanization.

Climate change threatens to exaggerate the challenges faced by the billions of people worldwide who depend upon natural resources for their survival. But the competition and, at times, violent conflict that results from increased resource scarcity is not a given; the recently released World Resources Report 2008 finds that “well-designed, community-based enterprises” can ease the environmental burden on natural resources and pave the way for sustainable dependence on the land.

At the 2008 World Expo’s “Water and Conflict Resolution” week, municipal representatives working with Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) presented case studies from its “Good Water Neighbors” programs: cross-border solutions for the Lower Jordan River; the Jordan River Peace Park project; and the town of Auja in the Jordan River Valley. Speaking about these programs the Wilson Center, FOEME’s Gidon Bromberg said that “by working together, not only do we advance the environmental issues…we also advance peace between our peoples.”

“[O]ver the last three decades, approximately 75% of new emerging human infectious diseases have been zoonotic”—transmitted between humans and animals. So states the final report of the One Health Initiative Task Force, warning that “[o]ur increasing interdependence with animals and their products may well be the single most critical risk factor to our health and well-being with regard to infectious diseases.” The One Health Initiative was established by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 2006, and the task force was assembled in early 2007 to articulate its goals and vision. Released last month, the report stresses that “[b]y working together, more can be accomplished to improve health worldwide, and the veterinary medical profession has the responsibility to assume a major leadership role in that effort.”

In our interconnected world, human, animal, and environmental health are linked in numerous and complex ways. One organization tackling these connections is the Ugandan NGO Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH). Founded and directed by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, CTPH works to bolster human and animal health in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP), home to half of the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population. Zoonotic disease transmission is especially prevalent in remote areas like BINP, where people frequently live in close proximity to animals, and is exacerbated by the fact that these remote areas are often woefully underserved by government services like health care. “They’re the last people the government thinks about,” said Kalema-Zikusoka in a presentation at the Wilson Center on May 8, 2008.

The One Health Initiative demonstrates that people are starting to think seriously about the intersections between human, animal, and environmental health. “We are standing at the precipice of a health care transformation,” said Task Force Chair Lonnie King. “[D]isease prevention and health promotion in people, animals and our environment have become a critical strategic need.”

Speaking at the Wilson Center in November 2005, King expressed a desire for a program like the One Health Initiative. “We have to build infrastructures in health systems in developing countries,” he said, “not just human health, but animal health, too.” At the same event, William Karesh, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Field Veterinary Program, said, “[t]he concept we have is ‘one world, one health.’ There is the division of human health and wildlife health. But really, there’s only one health.” The idea of integrated health finally seems to be catching on.

“Population, Health, and Environment: Exploring the Connections,” an original ECSP video, offers a lively, brief, and accessible explanation of population-health-environment connections, with examples and photos from successful programs in the Philippines. Presenter Lori Hunter of the University of Colorado, Boulder, spoke at the Wilson Center earlier this year as part of ECSP’s PHE meeting series. View the video on YouTube, then rate it, comment on it, favorite it, or post a video response.

“Recent studies – including several by the Chinese Academy of Sciences – have documented a host of serious environmental challenges to the quantity and quality of Tibet’s freshwater reserves, most of them caused by industrial activities. Deforestation has led to large-scale erosion and siltation. Mining, manufacturing, and other human activities are producing record levels of air and water pollution in Tibet. Together, these factors portend future water scarcity that could add to the region’s volatility,” says “China, Tibet, and the strategic power of water,” a new multimedia report by Circle of Blue that includes an interview with ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko on water and environmental peacemaking.

Twenty years after the release of the seminal Brundtland report Our Common Future, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko says that global security still depends on the health of our environment. In “An Uncommon Peace: Environment, Development, and the Global Security Agenda,” an article in the May/June 2008 issue of Environment, he reviews the successes and failures of efforts over the last two decades to integrate environmental concerns into national and international security agendas. “We must draw lessons from environmental security’s history if we are to address the multiple threats—and opportunities—posed by environment-security links today,” says Dabelko.

The Population Reference Bureau’s new series of regional profiles of population, health, and environment issues in the Philippines aims to provide more detailed information on these important aspects of well-being, which vary widely among the country’s 7,100 islands.

The Financial Times reports that the Chinese government is likely to approve a Ministry of Agriculture proposal to encourage Chinese companies to acquire farmland abroad—particularly in Africa and South America—to improve food security. Other countries, including Libya and Saudi Arabia, are exploring similar arrangements.

Integrated population-health-environment (PHE) development programs can often produce greater improvements—at lower total cost—than multiple programs that each target only one sector. ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko recently interviewed Lori Hunter, an associate professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, about her work evaluating integrated PHE programs with colleague John Pielemeier. In the following ECSP podcast, Hunter discusses the challenges associated with encouraging men’s involvement in family planning, implementing integrated development projects on the ground, and designing projects that are sensitive to local residents’ livelihoods and other priority needs.

Migration and Climate Change, a new report prepared by Oli Brown for the International Organization for Migration, examines current and future migration due to climate change; explores climate change-related migration’s implications for development; and recommends policy responses.

The rapid recovery of nature tourism in Kenya is central to stabilizing the fragile nation, bolstering its economy, and protecting its biodiversity, said UN Environment Programme Director Achim Steiner.

Two articles from Reuters highlight the intertwined environmental, demographic, and political challenges Yemen faces. “Yemen’s painful struggle to build a modern state may be overwhelmed by rampant population growth, dwindling resources, corruption and internal conflicts,” writes special correspondent Alistair Lyon. One of Yemen’s greatest challenges is water scarcity, which is only becoming more acute as the population booms.

“Many argue that demographic trends can interact with other factors such as poverty, poor governance, competition for natural resources, and environmental degradation to exacerbate tensions and contribute to conflict….Family planning will not end conflict, of course, but slowing the rate of population growth can help stabilize a country in turmoil,” writes ECSP’s Gib Clarke on the RH Reality Check blog.

Papers and presentations from “Population, Health, and Environment: Integrated Development for East Africa,” a November 2007 conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that the Environmental Change and Security Program helped organize, are now available online.

Effective development programs require multisectoral strategies, says Roger-Mark De Souza, and succeed by building local and regional partnerships and winning the trust and participation of individuals and communities. In the following podcast, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko discusses integrated development approaches in the Philippines with De Souza, who is the director of foundation and corporate relations at the Sierra Club and formerly the technical director of the Population Reference Bureau’s population, health and environment program. De Souza shares his experiences of how local communities have successfully integrated environmental conservation and population issues to alleviate poverty and improve their quality of life. Many of the issues regarding integrated population, health, and environment approaches discussed in this podcast also appear in an article by De Souza in ECSP Report 10.

A report by Filipino TV journalist Melclaire R. Sy-Delfin—recent Global Media Award winner and subject of an ECSP podcast—warns that a water crisis could threaten the 88 million residents of the Philippines as early as 2010. According to Delfin, 27 percent of Filipinos still lack access to drinking water, despite successful government programs to increase supply.