Kevin Hillstrom - Asia: a continental overview of environmental issues

Cover

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A Continental Overview of Environmental Issues

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THE WORLDS ENVIRONMENTS

Kevin Hillstrom and
Laurie Collier Hillstrom, Series Editors

Global warming, rainforest destruction, mass extinction,
overpopulationthe environmental problems facing our planet are
immense and complex.

ABC-CLIOs series The Worlds Environments offers students and general
readers a handle on the key issues, events, and people.

The six titles in the series examine the uniqueand commonproblems
facing the environments of every continent on Earth and the ingenious ways
local people are attempting to address them. Titles in this series:

Africa and the Middle East

Asia

Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

North America

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ASIA

A Continental Overview of Environmental Issues

Kevin Hillstrom
Laurie Collier Hillstrom

Santa Barbara, California
Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

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Copyright 2003 by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hillstrom, Kevin, 1963
Asia : a continental overview of environmental issues / Kevin
Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom.
p. cm. (The worlds environments)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57607-688-1 (acid-free paper) ISBN 1-57607-689-X (eBook)
1. AsiaEnvironmental conditions. 2. Environmental
degradationAsia. 3. Environmental protectionAsia. 4. Conservation
of natural resourcesAsia. I. Hillstrom, Laurie Collier, 1965 II.
Title.
GE160.A78H55 2003
363.7'0095dc21 2002156274
07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Santa Barbara, California 931161911

This book is printed on acid-free paper .
Manufactured in the United States of America

Page v

List of Tables and Figures vii

Introduction: The Worlds Environments ix

Acknowledgments xxi

Biographical Notes xxiii

1 Population and Land Use

2 Biodiversity

3 Parks, Preserves, and Protected Areas

4 Forests

5 Agriculture

6 Freshwater

7 Oceans and Coastal Areas

8 Energy and Transportation

9 Air Quality and the Atmosphere

10 Environmental Activism

Appendix:
International Environmental and Developmental Agencies, Organizations, and Programs on the World Wide Web

Index

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Tables

1.1 Worlds Largest Countries in 2002 and 2050 (Projected)

1.2 Population Trends across Asia

3.1 State of Asias Protected Areas by IUCN Category

4.1 Asia: Forest Resources by Subregion

6.1 Top Ten Countries in Inland Fisheries Production

7.1 Countries with Largest Coral Reef Area

8.1 World Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 19902020

Figures

2.1 World Trade Comparisons, 1986 and 1997

3.1 Cumulative Growth in the Number and Extent of Protected Areas within East Asia

3.2 Cumulative Growth in the Number and Extent of Protected Areas within South Asia

3.3 Cumulative Growth in the Number and Extent of Protected Areas within Southeast Asia

5.1 Composition of FAO Agricultural Land by Region

6.1 Global Irrigation Intensity, 19951997

6.2 Global Annual Cropping Intensity 19951997

7.1 Marine and Inland Capture Fisheries Production: Top Producer Countries in 1998

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As the nations of the world enter the twenty-first century, they confront a host of environmental issues that demand attention. Some of these issuespollution of freshwater and marine resources, degradation of wildlife habitat, escalating human population densities that place crushing demands on finite environmental resourceshave troubled the world for generations, and they continue to defy easy solutions. Other issuesglobal climate change, the potential risks and rewards of genetically modified crops and other organisms, unsustainable consumption of freshwater resourcesare of more recent vintage. Together, these issues pose a formidable challenge to our hopes of building a prosperous world community in the new millennium, especially since environmental protection remains a low priority in many countries. But despite an abundance of troubling environmental indicators, positive steps are being taken at the local, regional, national, and international levels to implement new models of environmental stewardship that strike an appropriate balance between economic advancement and resource protection. In some places, these efforts have achieved striking success. There is reason to hope that this new vision of environmental sustainability will take root all around the globe in the coming years.

The Worlds Environments series is a general reference resource that provides a comprehensive assessment of our progress to date in meeting the numerous environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. It offers detailed, current information on vital environmental trends and issues facing nations around the globe. The series consists of six volumes, each of which addresses conservation issues and the state of the environment in a specific region of the world: individual volumes for Asia, Europe,