With the world’s population growing at 200,000 per diem, the world’s children of the 2050s face the very real risk of never being afforded the opportunity of walking through a wood or even playing sport on a grassy field. In Gauteng, the towns of Pretoria, Joburg and Van der Bijl Park have already almost converged into one megacity within the past 30 years.
Contrast this with early man. Was the impact of these peoples such as the Aborigines of Australia or the Maoris of New Zealand as benign as is supposed? Or is modern man with its industrial scale re-engineering of the topography, the proverbial poster boy of environmental destruction or despoilation?
Main picture: An aboriginal woman performs the Woggan-ma-gule morning ceremony on Australia Day in Sydney, Friday, Jan. 26, 2007. Australia Day marks the arrival of the first European settlers in 1788. (AP Photo/Paul Miller)