World Enivironmental Issues Brief

  • LARGE AREAS SUBJECT TO OVERPOPULATION
  • INDUSTRIAL DISASTERS
  • POLLUTION (air, water, acid rain, toxic substances)
  • LOSS OF VEGETATION (overgrazing, deforestation, desertification)
  • LOSS OF WILDLIFE
  • SOIL DEGRADATION
  • SOIL DEPLETION
  • EROSION
  • GLOBAL WARMING

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Global Issues Snapshots

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Mexico

— Current Environmental Issues —
scarcity of hazardous waste disposal facilities; rural to urban migration; natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; widespread erosion; desertification; deteriorating agricultural lands; serious air and water pollution in the national capital and urban centers along US-Mexico border; land subsidence in Valley of Mexico caused by groundwater depletion

— Health Indicators —
HIV / AIDS prevalancy rate: 0.3
Fertility Rate: 2.4
Infant Mortality Rate: 19.6
Life Expectancy at Birth: Male: 72.8
Life Expectancy at Birth: Female: 79.0
Life Expectancy at Birth: Total Population: 75.6

— Population —
Population Total: 108,700,891
Population Growth Rate: 1.2

— Economic Indicators —
GDP Real Growth Rate: 4.5
Military Expendatures Percent of GDP: 0.5
Unemployment Rate: 3.2
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 3.4
GDP Per Capita PPP: 10,600
Population Below Poverty Line: 40
    (Definitions of poverty vary considerably among nations.)

— Education and Communications —
Global Issues Snapshots
Global Issues Snapshots
Bordering country: Belize
Bordering country: Guatemala

— Background —
The site of advanced Amerindian civilizations, Mexico came under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century. A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery. Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. The elections held in 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that an opposition candidate - Vicente FOX of the National Action Party (PAN) - defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was succeeded in 2006 by another PAN candidate Felipe CALDERON.