ASIA welcomed the first of the world’s symbolic “seven billionth” babies today, but celebrations were tempered by worries over the strain that humanity’s population explosion is putting on a fragile planet.
The UN says that by its best estimates the seven billionth baby will be born on October 31, 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 (October 30) 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 October 12, 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 stabilises,” he said yesterday 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 October 31, 1922, at the start of humanity’s great demographic expansion, the world’s population had still not reached two billion. Sihanouk turned 89 on today.
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.
