In the process of creating development, human beings transform and destroy the environment. The continued growing demand for resources by an ever-increasing population (population pressure) has created an age-long concern for the environment and the adequacy of resources for future generations (sustainable development).
The environment provides the resources needed for the existence and survival of human beings. It also provides the site for the physical presence of all living things. The environment serves as the sink for wastes. Human beings produce the greatest amount of waste.
With advances in technology, overexploitation of environmental resources become inevitable. Land degradation, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, sand dunes, etc. are evidence of the worsening state of the environment.
There is no problem in the relationship between living things and the environment as long as the total ecosystem made up of great variety of species remain balanced. Trouble begins when nature's balance is upset by a dominant species, usually the human population, or by natural disaster.
Recent studies of population-environment interactions therefore recognize land use and land cover change as a corner stone of the science of global environmental change, sustainablity, and increasingly, environment-and-development.
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