POPULATION PROBLEMS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30782, 21 June 1965, Page 14

POPULATION PROBLEMS

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 20. Many nations faced tremendous problems because of over-popula-tion, and steps were being taken to curb this growth, said Dr. A. F. Guttmacher, a world authority on birth control, at a meeting of doctors at the National Women’s Hospital on Saturday.

He said this was particularly so in Latin America, which was one of the most deeply poverty-stricken land masses in the world. Because of the tremendous growth in population, Latin Americans were not being fed as well year after year. At the same time, industrialisation was going along very slowly.

He said it was no use pumping money into these countries to feed and educate the people better without having some form of population control. ' -Thirty years ago the world population was growing at the rate of about 1 per cent a year and the birth rate increase had been relatively constant at 40 per 1000 over several centuries. But the death rate had fallen from 30 per 1000 30 years ago to an estimated 19 now.

The world population was expected to double in about 35 years and would be close to 7,000,000,000 by the end of the century. No-one could say what the maximum population the world could support, he said.

and the population increase was scattered widely being 0.4 per cent in Hungary and 4.4 per cent in Costa Rica. This meant the Costa Rican population doubled every 16 years and that of Hungary in 125 years.

It would be possible to feed everyone infinitely better if all the world resources were used.

“If we were humane enough to scrap the bombs and cease firing shots at the moon,” he said, “we could pour fertiliser into India and make it a Garden of Eden.” Dr. Guttmacher described the efficacy of various methods of contraception and gave his opini on on the best method of attacking the problem of over-population.