The number of people on Earth, where they live, and how they live all affect the
condition of the environment. Changes in environmental conditions, in turn, can affect
human health and well-being. Human demographic dynamics, such as the size, growth,
distribution, age composition, and migration of populations, are among the many factors
that can lead to environmental change. The precise impact of a given change depends on
the interplay among all these factors, but it is clear that demographic change can affect
the environment.
HIV/AIDS is one of those diseases which can change on demographic pattern as well as
can change various types of Environment. Approximately 39.5 million people around the
world were living with HIV/AIDS in 2006. Of these, almost two thirds were in sub-
Saharan Africa. The same year, an estimated 2.9 million AIDS-related deaths occurred
globally. The number of people living with HIV continues to rise around the world
especially in Africa, parts of Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and South, Southeast,
Central and East Asia, with prime age adults being affected most (UNAIDS 2006a).
HIV/AIDS has rapidly become one of the major problems, particularly in poor countries.
It is shown that it is primarily increasing difficulties in making sustainable use of natural
resources when time, energy and money must be used to relieve the effects of ill health
and when labour is tragically lost. At the same time various forms of environmental
degradation affect the general health status of people and increase their vulnerability.
When HIV/AIDS is added to the list, there is a danger that people cannot make a living
any more.
AIDS can lead to an accelerated rate of resource extraction when people turn to natural
resources to replace household income lost after an income-earning family member dies
from an AIDS-related illness or is too sick to work. The result is often increased resource
dependence and intensity of use. People who have been affected by or who are afflicted
with HIV or AIDS may develop a short-term outlook on both economic and
environmental issues. For example, in coastal Tanzania, some fishers have turned to the
production and selling of charcoal to supplement their small incomes in order to support
their AIDS affected households, further stressing local forest and mangrove ecosystems.
Also, AIDS-affected communities or households may not observe conservation rules and
sustainable practices in agriculture, fishing, and other resource-dependent activities, such
as harvesting of wood or medicinal plants, because they do not see the benefits of
stewardship accruing to them personally, especially if the benefits take longer to accrue
than the affected household members expect to live.
Loss of traditional knowledge is also impact that AIDS can have on conservation and
effective environmental management. Loss of knowledge about sustainable land and
resource management practices, which are traditionally passed on between generations,
can cause natural resources degradation and a decline in productivity. When traditional
knowledge of natural resource management and local farming systems are lost, and when
households are forced to change land use practices (e.g. growing less labor-intensive
crops), land and resources are often used in less appropriate ways. Problems with land
tenure and land grabbing often occur when the male head of a household dies; in some
societies widows and orphans cannot inherit land (either legally or customarily). Landgrabbing
results in loss of livelihood base for the immediate surviving family members.
As mobility is a fact of Environment, Research in Africa has long demonstrated that the
prevalence and patterns of the spread of infectious diseases are closely associated with
patterns of human mobility. People become more vulnerable to
HIV/AIDS when their work regularly takes them away from home and family.
Studies in Africa have found that fishers are particularly susceptible to HIV infection and
more vulnerable to the impacts. One study of the Kagera region in Tanzania found that
fishermen were five times more likely than farmers to die from side effects of AIDS.
Amongst the major sustainable development challenges facing the country today is the
devastating effect of the HIV/AIDS pandemic to economic Environment. No sector of the
economy has been left untouched by this ravaging menace.
A study indicated that the disease could affect various aspects of
the control environment,namely: competency of the workforce (e.g. productivity, quality of work, absenteeism,
loss of skills and knowledge, training and recruitment, etc.); organizational structure (e.g.
increase use of technology labour, disruption of processes, level of employees affected by
the disease); human resource (HR) policies and practices (e.g. legislation applicable,
prevention and awareness programmes, compensation and benefits).
HIV/AIDS slows human development. The progress of human development is lost by
more the 2 years when HIV increases by 1% in a population. When prevalence rises more
that 6%, it takes a country 11 years longer to reach a particular level of human
development. GDP growth has dropped by 2.6 % points in those countries having HIV
prevalence more than 20%. In
Sub-Saharan Africa, GDP growth has fallen by 2-4% and South Africa losses of 17%
GDP in the next decade.
AIDS affects on the consequent reduction in labor capacity. In Kenya, it is estimated that
the agricultural sector will have lost a total of 329,000 person-years by 2020 due to
AIDS. In Tanzania, it is estimated that between 1985 and 2020 the country will have lost
13 percent of its agricultural labor force due to the disease (FAO 2002). Conservation
organizations and projects are losing staff members to AIDS in the countries most
seriously affected by the disease. For example, the nongovernmental organization
Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi lost 14 percent of its staff in healthrelated
deaths. Also in Malawi, Kasungu National Park lost 17 staff members between
2000 and 2006 – 22 percent of its 2000 workforce level. As a result, uncontrolled
poaching has escalated in Kasungu, leading to a serious decline of buffalo, elephant and
other species. Loss of staff at this scale seriously affects institutional memory and
continuity f programs and operations, and can greatly reduce an organization’s ability to
achieve conservation goals.
So we hope in this World AIDS Day, 2008, ‘Stop AIDS and keep the promise’ and theme
for this year ‘Lead, Empower and Deliver’ will be successful correlated with about this
Environmental concern.
