"Demographers and environmentalists often use the term ecological suicide to link population explosion to the environmental problems," Sugiri Syarief said after opening a consultation forum on 2011 All Indonesia Population and Family Planning Programs.
He explained that a total population of 237.6 million people in Indonesia at present has caused a lot of problems related to garbage, flood, and even traffic jam.
"Not to mention the difficulty of access to clean water, air, and other climate change issues. Then we can imagine what happens if the population continues to grow to reach 500 million people," Sugiri said.
He said it was possible for the population to grow if the government failed to suppress the rate of population increase.
"In the past ten years the the population has increased by 1.49 percent to 32.7 million to be equal to the number of population in Canada and more than that of Malaysia," he said.
Sugiri added that if the population growth remained at 1.49 percent then it was predicted that in 2045 the population would reach 450 million people.
(Uu.O001/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
