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World population reaches 7 billion

By Jason Gutierrez | AFP

Danica Mae Camacho, the Philippine’s symbolic 7 billionth baby is coddled by her mother Camille during a welcoming ceremony after she was given birth at a government-run maternity hospital in Manila early 31 October 2011.AFP/Getty Images/Ted Aljibe/Philippines

Asia welcomed the first of the world’s symbolic “seven billionth” babies Monday, but celebrations were tempered by worries over the strain that humanity’s population explosion is putting on a fragile planet.

The United Nations says that by its best estimates, the seven billionth baby will be born Monday, and countries around the world have planned events surrounding the demographic milestone.

Zambia is throwing a seven billion song contest; Vietnam is staging a “7B: Counting On Each Other” concert; Russian authorities are showering gifts on selected newborns; the Ivory Coast is putting on a comedy show and Papua New Guinea is handing out “goody bags” for new mothers.

The Philippines was the first country to declare a seven billionth baby, in the form of a little girl called Danica May Camacho.

Weighing 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds), Danica was delivered just before midnight Sunday under an explosion of media camera flashes at Manila’s Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital.

“She looks so lovely,” the mother, Camille Dalura, whispered as she cradled her baby girl.

“I can’t believe she is the world’s seven billionth.”

Danica is the second child for Dalura and her partner, Florante Camacho, who stood quietly in a corner wearing a white hospital gown as television crews and photographers crowded to get a shot of his daughter.

UN officials presented the child with a cake. Other gifts from local benefactors included a scholarship grant and a financial package to help the parents open a general store.

The UN named a Bosnian child, Adnan Mevic, as the Earth’s six billionth inhabitant on 12 October 1999. The secretary general at the time, Kofi Annan, was pictured in a Sarajevo hospital with Mevic in his arms.

The Mevic family is now living in poverty, which is partly why no single baby will be put in the global spotlight this time. Instead a number of births will be marked throughout the day.

Other countries honouring babies as the world’s symbolic seven billionth include Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos and the Maldives.

Indian Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said the birth of the seven billionth child was “not a matter of joy but a great worry.”

“We shouldn’t be celebrating the birth of the seventh billionth child… For us, a matter of joy will be when the population stabilizes,” he said Sunday in an interview with The Times of India.

India’s population is the world’s second biggest at 1.2 billion and is set to surpass China’s by 2025, according to the US census bureau.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, authorities named another baby girl the world’s seven billionth child. Weighing 2.75 kilos and named Oishee, she arrived a minute after midnight at a hospital in the capital Dhaka.

“I’m so happy. I’ve become the father of a baby girl at a historic moment,” her father Mohsin Hossain said.

The world has added a billion babies — or almost another China — since Adnan Mevic was born. Having taken millennia to pass the one-billion mark, the world’s population has now doubled in 50 years.

When Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk was born on 31 October 1922, at the start of humanity’s great demographic expansion, the world’s population had still not reached two billion. Sihanouk turned 89 on Monday.

Mounting concern over humanity’s environmental impact and fears we may not be able to feed ourselves in 100 years’ time have cast a cautionary tone over the buildup to Monday’s milestone.

Unlike his predecessor, current UN chief Ban Ki-moon will not be seen cuddling a newborn. He has said the seven billionth baby will be entering a “world of contradiction,” especially if the child is born into poverty.

“Plenty of food, but still a billion people going to bed hungry every night. Many people enjoy luxurious lifestyles, but still many people are impoverished,” he said in an interview with Time magazine.

Addressing students at a New York school last week, he said: “Seven billion people who need enough food. Enough energy. Good opportunities in life for jobs and education. Rights and freedoms. The freedom to speak. The freedom to raise their own children in peace and security.

“Everything you want for yourself — seven billion times over.”

With about two babies being born every second, the seven billion figure will keep racing ahead in decades to come — to more than 10 billion by 2100, according to UN estimates.

A new UN Population Fund report highlights how the world will face growing problems finding jobs for the new army of young people, especially in poor countries. It also sounds alarms over how climate change and population growth are adding to drought and famine crises; the management of megacities like Tokyo; and aging populations such as Europe’s.

Copyright © 2011 AFP

Published in Sin Chew Jit Poh