gling small amounts of high-grade plutonium and uranium for sale in the West. After the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, fears of terrorists acquiring and using nuclear weapons were heightened. To lesson the chances of plutonium be- ing diverted for weapons use, weapons-grade pluto- nium can be oxidized and mixed with uranium oxide to form mixed oxide fuel (MOX), which is suitablefor use in some nuclear reactors. Terrorists might con- ceivably construct an inefficient bomb from MOX, but it would require hundreds to thousands of kilo- grams. Charles W. Rogers Further Reading Bernstein, Jeremy. Nuclear Weapons: What You Need to Know. New York: Cambridge University Press,2008. _______. Plutonium: A History of the World’sMost Danger- ous Element. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007. Bodansky, David. Nuclear Energy: Principles, Practices, and Prospects. 2d ed. New York: Springer, 2004. Greenwood, N. N., and A. Earnshaw. “The Actinide and Transactinide Elements.” In Chemistry of the Ele- ments. 2d ed. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997. O’Very, David P., Christopher E. Paine, and Dan W. Reicher, eds. Controlling the Atom in the Twenty-first Century. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994. Patterson, Walter C. The Plutonium Business and the Spread of the Bomb. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1984. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Tsipis, Kosta. Arsenal: Understanding Weapons in the Nu- clear Age. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. Tucker, William. Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s En- ergy Odyssey. Savage, Md.: Bartleby Press, 2008. Web Site U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Plutonium Fact Sheet http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ fact-sheets/plutonium.html See also: Gallium; Isotopes, radioactive; Manhattan Project; Nuclear energy; Nuclear waste and its dis - posal; Uranium. Poland Categories: Countries; government and resources Coal has been Poland’s most important resource both internally and as an export. Formanyyears abundant sulfur deposits made sulfer Poland’s principal non- metal export. Copper has been a significant metal re- source both domestically and globally. Such agricul- tural products as potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, and rye have played pivotal roles in Poland’s economy both through domestic use and export. The Country Poland is located in east-central Europe, bounded to the north by the Baltic Sea, Russia, and Lithuania; to the east by Belarus and Ukraine; to the south by the Czech Republic and Slovakia; and to the west by Ger- many. Topographically, Poland is predominantly pla- nar, interrupted by the Carpathian Mountains in the south. The average elevationof Poland is only 173 me- ters, with only 3 percent of its land above 500 meters. Geographers have divided Poland into several zones, the most important of which are the central lowlands, which are characterized by largely level terrain inter- sected by such major river systems as the Vistula and the Oder. To the south of these lowlands are situated the foothills of the Sudety and Carpathian mountains and mountain chains. Poland’s lake region lies north of the central lowlands, with forest-covered hills and valleys that are populated by lakes, streams, and bogs. Along the Baltic Sea are coastal lowlands, with two principal inlets, the Gulf of Gda½sk in the east and Pomeranian Bay in the west. Portions of this variegated geographical setting have been the source of Poland’s principal natural re- sources and the basis for much of its economy. For ex- ample, Silesia, in southwest Poland, has been the chief source not only of Poland’s coal but also of its copper, zinc, and lead. The soils of the central region have allowed Poles to develop several important agri- cultural resources. Because of Poland’s tortuous polit- ical history, these natural resources have not always been efficiently exploited, but with the formation of the republic and Poland’s entry into the European Union (EU) in 2004, Poland became one of the world’s leading exporters of several resources; in 2005, it ranked twenty-first in global commodity exports. In 1990, its gross domestic product (GDP) was only $59 958 • Poland Global Resources Global Resources Poland • 959 Poland: Resources at a Glance Official name: Republic of Poland Government: Republic Capital city: Warsaw Area: 120,737 mi 2 ; 312,685 km 2 Population (2009 est.): 38,482,919 Language: Polish Monetary unit: zuoty (PLN) Economic summary: GDP composition by sector (2008 est.): agriculture, 4.5%; industry, 31.2%; services, 64.3% Natural resources: coal, sulfur, copper, natural gas, silver, lead, zinc, salt, amber, arable land Land use (2005): arable land, 40.25%; permanent crops, 1%; other, 58.75% Industries: machine building, iron and steel, coal mining, chemicals, shipbuilding, food processing, glass, beverages, textiles Agricultural products: potatoes, fruits, vegetables, wheat, rye, sugar beets, oats, poultry, eggs, pork, dairy Exports (2008 est.): $175.3 billion Commodities exported (2003): machinery and transport equipment, 37.8%; intermediate manufactured goods, 23.7%; miscellaneous manufactured goods, 17.1%; food and live animals, 7.6% Imports (2008 est.): $199 billion Commodities imported (2003): machinery and transport equipment, 38%; intermediate manufactured goods, 21%; chemicals, 14.8%; minerals, fuels, lubricants, and related materials, 9.1% Labor force (2008 est.): 17.01 million Labor force by occupation (2005): agriculture, 17.4%; industry, 29.2%; services, 53.4% Energy resources: Electricity production (2007 est.): 149.3 billion kWh Electricity consumption (2006 est.): 126.2 billion kWh Electricity exports (2007): 13.11 billion kWh Electricity imports (2007 est.): 7.761 billion kWh Natural gas production (2007 est.): 6.025 billion m 3 Natural gas consumption (2007 est.): 16.38 billion m 3 Natural gas exports (2007 est.): 45 million m 3 Natural gas imports (2007 est.): 10.12 billion m 3 Natural gas proved reserves ( Jan. 2008 est.): 164.8 billion m 3 Oil production (2007 est.): 37,670 bbl/day Oil imports (2005): 499,200 bbl/day Oil proved reserves ( Jan. 2008 est.): 96.38 million bbl Source: Data from The World Factbook 2009. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009. Notes: Data are the most recent tracked by the CIA. Values are given in U.S. dollars. Abbreviations: bbl/day = barrels per day; GDP = gross domestic product; km 2 = square kilometers; kWh = kilowatt-hours; m 3 = cubic meters; mi 2 = square miles. Warsaw Germany Denmark Belarus Ukraine Czech Republic Slovakia Lithuania Russia Poland Baltic Sea billion, whereas in 2005, it exceeded $303 billion. This meant that Poland hadtheeleventh largest econ- omy in Europe. Its GDP increased again in 2006, but, like the rest of the world, it suffered from the global recession of 2007-2008. Coal Dubbed “black gold” in good times, coal, Poland’s most substantial natural resource, has been both a blessing and a curse for the country. From the eigh- teenth century, the mining of some of the world’s richest coal fields became a vital element in the Polish economy, eventually resulting, in the late twentieth century, in a world-record 96 percent dependence on anthracite (hard) and especially lignite (brown) and bituminous (soft) coal for the country’s power needs, while concomitantly creating problematic domestic pollution and greenhouse gases that contribute sig- nificantly to global climate change. Geologists have estimated Poland’s total coal reserves in excess of 125 billion metric tons, with hard-coal reserves at more than 40 billion metric tons. The twenty-first century discovery of new deposits meant that reserves will be able to meet the country’s requirements for five hun- dredmoreyears,twicetherestoftheworld’s average. The largest coal lodes are in Silesia, which has be- come an important industrial region in southwestern Poland and accounts for three-quarters of the hard- coal reserves. Significant lignite deposits have been found in the central and western regions. Because of the pivotal importance of Upper Silesian hard coal to the economy, in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, offi- cials, in an unprecedentedly costly project, subsidized a “coal trunk-line” from the mines of the south to the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia in the north. This helped to make anthracite the principal hard-currency earner for Poland during the Communist and post-Commu- nist periods. In 1979, Polish miners produced more than 180 million metric tons of coal, but Communist- party leaders emphasized quantitative-production goals to the point that gross inefficiencies and envi- ronmental damage lowered the quality of Polish life. Post-Communist leaders have tried to mitigate these problems by closing inefficient mines, reducing de- pendence on coal, and instituting policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, all of which has led to a de- cline in annual coal output. For example, in 2000, the government closed twenty-two mines, and by 2004, the country’s dependence on coal for power genera - tion had been reduced to 92 percent. Nevertheless, Poland remained the world’s sixth-largest coal-mining country. Before joining the European Union in 2004, Po- land had to bring the coal-mining and power-generat- ing industries into compliance with the EU’s norms for the economy and the environment. More mines were closed and natural gas became a clean-burning substitute, but this did not prevent Greenpeace activ- ists from attacking Poland’s heavy reliance on coal, both in the electric-power and chemical industries. In 2008, environmental activists were able to disrupt operations at an open-pit coal mine in Konin. Like many countries around the world, Poland faces cru- cial decisions about how to achieve an environmen- tally friendly balance of energy from renewable and nonrenewable resources. Sulfur In recent times, sulfur has been Poland’s second most important mineral resource. The Polish sulfur indus- try developed later and more slowly than the coal in- dustry, and it wasnotuntilthe1950’s, when richsulfur deposits were discovered in the south-central regions, that extensive mining began. Afterward, with the dis- covery of other deposits, certain analysts ranked Pol- ish sulfur reserves, which may exceed 1 billion metric tons, as amongthe largest in the world. Some deposits are close to the surface, and miners have used tradi- tional techniques to excavate the sulfur, but for deep deposits they have used the Frasch process, a three- piped technique involving pressurized hot water, to extract this sulfur. By the last decade of the twentieth century, Polish sulfur production ranked sixth in the world. Sulfur has been important domestically for the chemical industry, and Poland has become one of the world’stwentylargestmanufacturersofsulfuricacid. During the 1960’s, Poland began exporting its sul- fur, and by 1980, nearly 75 percent of the sulfur it pro- duced was going to other nations. However, during the 1990’s and the early years of the twenty-first cen- tury, production diminished, largely because of low global prices. A further reason was the discovery of other methods for obtaining sulfur more efficiently than mining, for example, by the desulfurization of bituminous materials. Environmental considerations may also have played a role. For example, the interna- tional Second Sulfur Protocol (1994) aimed at de- creasing global sulfur-dioxide emissions. In the late 1980’s, Poland’s annual output of sulfur was more than 725,000 metric tons, whereas by the late 1990’s, 960 • Poland Global Resources this output had shrunk to about 118,000 metric tons. Even with this reduced demand, Poland continued to be a significant exporter of refined sulfur to such countries as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, and Russia. Metal Resources Poland has significant deposits of several metal ores. Copper ores in particular have proven valuable to the domestic economy, but refined copper and such cop- per products as wire rods and cathodes have become major exports to such countries as Germany and France. Like sulfur, copper-ore deposits have been a relatively recent discovery. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, major finds in southwestern Poland led the country to a more than 3 percent share of refined copper in the following decades (this meant that Poland secured a place among the world’s top ten producers). Because these deposits, which have been augmented by finds in 1998, also contain other metals, such as silver, gold, selenium, and nickel, calculating precise numbersfor copper-ore reserves, which are nonetheless consider- able, has been difficult. By 2005, a Polish company, KGHM Polska Mied. SA, had become Europe’s larg- est, and the world’s sixth-largest, refined-copper sup- plier. Lead and zinc ores are often found together, and Poland possesses the world’s fifth largest deposits of these ores. The mining of such deposits has had a long history in Poland, dating to the sixteenth century, when a mine near Olkusz, just north of Cracow, be- came a source of these metals. Other deposits were later found in west-central Poland, and by 1982, the countrywas known to have the world’s fifth-largest de- posits of lead and zinc. In this year the output of lead and zinc ores was about 4.5 million metric tons, which were smelted into 149,000 metric tons of zinc and 71,000 metric tons of lead. In 1990, about three- quarters ofPoland’s zinc and nearly all ofits lead were used domestically, but a post-Communist investment program facilitated increased production of high- quality zinc, some of which was exported. However, the future production of zinc and lead has become problematic, because of the exhaustion of several Silesian mines. Although Poland has iron-ore deposits, these de- posits have not beenadequate to meet domestic needs. During the Communist era, the Soviet Union sup - plied more than three-quarters of Poland’s iron ore. Native iron-ore reserves were extensively used from the 1950’s to1970’s, but during the 1980’s, the output from the country’s iron-ore mines declined, and de- posits of low-quality ore were unable to compensate for this decline. At the end of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first centuries, the Polish government de- veloped a plan for restructuring its iron and steel in- dustry. Iron mines and steelmills were forced to adapt to a market economy, with the goal of becoming part of the European Union, which occurred after 2004. Agricultural Resources Poland’s climate, with moderate temperatures and rainfall in the central plains, has fostered the cultiva- tion of a wide variety of crops. Regions of sandy soil have proved suitable for rye, while the rich soils of the south-central region support wheat and barley. The less fertile soils of the north are used for oats, while potatoes are grown in almost all regions. During the latter decades of the twentieth century, agricultural products constituted almost 10 percent of the na- tional income, with a large percentage of output from small, privately owned farms, even during the Com- munist period. In terms of area, farmland constitutes Poland’s principal resource, covering more than three-fifths of the country’s land. In 1989, 14.4 million hectares were in use for crop cultivation, 265,000 hectares for orchards, and 4.04 million hectares for pastures and meadows. Because Poland’s land area was reduced by one-fifth after World War II, its arable land was also considerably decreased. Traditionally, agricul- ture played an important role in the Polish economy, but in recent decades its share of the GDP has been decreasing. For example, in 1988, it was about 12 per- cent; in 1994, about 6.4 percent; and in 2001, only 3.3 percent. Poland’s entry into the European Union in 2004 helped to improve the status of agriculture through farm subsidies and other concessions. Wheat, potatoes, sugar beets, and rye constitute Poland’s principal crops. In 1989, Poland was the sec- ond largest producer ofpotatoesand ryein the world. It has also been in the top-ten producers of sugar beets and oats and inthetop twenty for wheat and bar- ley. Because of a world surplus of rye, production in Poland declined in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, from 2004 to 2008, the per- centage of Poland’s share of the world market for food and other agricultural products increased. Though still small, Poland’sproductionoforganically grown food has increased. Global Resources Poland • 961 Livestock constitutes about two-fifths of Poland’s total agricultural production. Traditionally, pigs have been Poland’s principal commercial animal. For ex- ample, in 1955, nearly 11 million pigs were produced, compared to smaller numbers of cattle and sheep. In the following decades pork production, though still high, suffered when compared to poultry and cattle increases. By 2008, because of high feed costs, in- creased EU competition, inefficient farms, and a strong zuoty, Poland produced the lowest number of pigs in twenty-five years. In fact, Poland imported more pork than it exported. Water Resources, Fishing, and Aquaculture Water, like agriculture, has the capacity to be a renew- able resource if carefully managed. Clean water also provides an environment for potentially renewable fish resources. Throughout most of its early history, Poland had sufficient water resources, both static and flowing, for its agricultural, industrial, and domestic needs. The Polish industrial revolution was initially powered by falling water. In modern Poland, more than 125 large hydropower installations exist, though environmentalists point out that only 15 percent of Poland’srivers’ potential is actually beingused to gen- erate energy. During the Communist era extensive withdrawals of surface water by industry were not matched by a desire to purify the often-polluted effluents. During the first two decades of post-Com- munist Poland three-fourths of water withdrawals continued to be made by industry,thoughregulations concerning pollutants have begun to clean Poland’s waters. Fish in Poland’s lakes and rivers have been an im- portant resource. During the post-World War II Com- munist period, freshwater fish catches varied from just under 100,000 metric tons in 1970 to a high of about 210,000 metric tons in 1987. Fish catches then declined in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but this decline was made up for by an ever- increasing aquacultural production of fish. This busi- ness, which began in the late 1970’s, reached 140,000 metric tons of fish production in 2000. The Polishout- put of fish and fish products was worth more than $1 billion in 2005. Other Resources The mining of salt has been important to Poland since the Middle Ages. The first salt mines, centered in an area near Cracow, provided salt to Poles and other countries until the middle of the twentieth century, when other deposits in central Poland became the pri- mary source. These relatively recently discovered de- posits, which have been estimated at nearly 47 billion metric tons, now constitute 65 percent of the nation’s rock salt resources. Rock salt output remained rela- tively stable from 1989 to 2004. Much of the country’s salt now comes from brine. Although Poland was one of the world’s first coun- tries to develop an oil industry, its oil and natural gas deposits are relatively modest. Geologists have discov- ered deposits of oil and natural gas in the Carpathi- ans, Sudety, and Pomerania; in 1985, a major oil field was discovered in the Baltic Sea. Poland’s oil reserves total more than 700 million barrels, but oil produc- tion has dropped in recent decades, and domestic oil has never accounted for more than 5 percent of total Polish consumption. Poland has been heavily depen- dent, first on the Soviet Union, then on Russia, for its oil. Similarly, Poles have extracted natural gas from deposits in Silesia and elsewhere, but, while produc- tion expanded in the 1960’s and 1970’s, it declined thereafter. In 2008, natural gas reserves were esti- mated at 164.8 billion cubic meters, which will meet a greater percentage of Poland’s domestic needs than oil but is nowhere near enough for energy indepen- dence. Poland’s forestlands account for more than one- quarter of its territory. Thestate owns more than four- fifths of these forests, and those forests in private hands resulted in a timber production of 27.14 mil- lion cubic meters in 2003. The state has also set aside forests as parks and preserves, one of the best-known being Biauowieza, famous for its primeval trees and herds of European bison. Preserving Poland’s natural capital has not been confined to the national parks and more than five hundred nature preserves. Post- Communist officials have passed laws protecting many species of plants and animals while also developing ways of saving precious habitats. Robert J. Paradowski Further Reading Andersson, Magnus. Change and Continuity in Poland’s Environmental Policy. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1999. Blazyca, George, and Ryszard Rapacki, eds. Poland into the 1990’s: Economy and Society in Transition. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Brown, Halina Szejnwald, and David Angel, and Pat - 962 • Poland Global Resources rick G. Derr. Effective Environmental Regulation: Learning from Poland’s Experience. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000. Curtis, Glenn E., ed. Poland: A Country Study. 3d ed. Lanham, Md.: Bernam Press, 1994. Torres, Raymond, et al. Studies on the Social Dimensions of Globalization: Poland. Geneva, Switzerland: Inter- national Labour Organization Publications, 2001. Uberman, Ryszard, and Anna Ostr-ga. Mineral Policy in Poland: Mining Manual. Cracow: AGH University of Science and Technology Press, 2007. See also: Agricultural products; Agriculture indus- try; Coal; Copper; Sulfur. Population growth Categories: Environment, conservation, and resource management; social, economic, and political issues The growth of the world population poses significant challenges in regard to resource allocation and use. There is considerable debate among scholars as to how rapidly the human population will grow and about whether resource shortages will develop into a severe problem as the twenty-first century progresses. Background The size of the world population is closely tied to the pace of resource use, although the impact of popula- tion growth on resource use and depletion is debated among scholars. Some scholars believe that the popu- lation of the world can continue to grow with little or no adverse impact on world resourcesbecauseoftech- nological advancement and the substitution of new resources for scarce ones. Other scholars take a more pessimistic view; some argue that, in the near future, Earth’s population will outstrip the carrying capacity of the planetfor wastes and will place severe strainson certain natural resources. Earth’s Carrying Capacity Although estimates of the size of the world population in the past vary widely, it is estimated that the world population numbered 1.65 billion in 1900, 4.1 billion in 1975, 5.7 billion in 1995, and 6.7 in 2009. Estimates also vary widely concerning the carrying capacity of the Earth—that is,thesize of the human populationit can support without incurring serious, perhaps irrep- arable ecological damage. Several scholars have pro- jected the human carrying capacity of theplanetto be somewhere between 8 and 12 billion people; others insist that, given the standard of living in most devel- oped nations, the carrying capacity of the Earth has already been surpassed. Beginningin 1950, the fastest growing populations have been in Africa and Asia, while the slowest rates of growth have been in some European countries. The industrial countries tend to have low rates of population growth, but they place the greatest demands on world resources. The Positive View Scholars such as Julian Simon have argued that a growing population is itself a resource, providing a la- bor supply as well as a driving force for innovation. Scholars holding this positive view of population are little concerned with the growth of population in the twenty-first century. Some argue that the rate of in- crease is slowing and will flatten out midway through the century. Some who hold the positive view see re- source problems as generated by governmental mis- allocation of resources rather than by population growth. The Negative View The negative view of population growth enunciated, for example, by Donella H. Meadows et al. in The Limits to Growth (1972), emphasizes that continued population growth will outstrip available natural re- sources such as oil and some metals. In addition, the wastes generated by a growing population will be such that ecosystems will not be able to cope with the ex- panded waste stream, leading to increasing environ- mental problems. The negative view of population growth is often based on an estimated exponential growth rate for world population. Some extreme pro- ponents of this negative view go so far as to accept nat- ural disasters and epidemicsas positive forces because they limit population. A Balanced Scenario There is a third view, a more balanced perspective that lies between the alarmist and Panglossian perspec- tives just described. The rate of world population growth has slowed, although the rate of growth is still high enough in some countries that it could double the countries’ populations within ten years. Because Global Resources Population growth • 963 advances in medical technology are increasing life ex - pectancy worldwide, there is a relationship between fertility limitation and the age of the population. A country with a high standard of living, resulting in ex- tended life expectancy, may not be able to accept a high fertility rate in its population. Conversely, some countries have high fertility rates butalowstandardof living and few elderly people because of poor medical technology. In some countries, particularly European countries, family limitation is being practiced in such rigorousfashionastoleadtoadecreasingpopulation. The relationship betweenpopulation growth, stan- dard of living, and resource consumption is complex. The industrialized nations, which generally have low rates of population increase, usually have higher stan- dards of livingthan less industrialized nations. The in- dustrialized nations, particularly the United States, are also the major consumers oftheworld’s resources. Some of the world’s poorest nations, especially in Af- rica, have the highest rates of population increase. For example, the population of Togo is expected to double in thirty years. By comparison,withinthesame time frame, the population of the United States is ex- pected to increase 30 percent while the population of Belgium is expected to decrease by 2 percent. The less-developed nations, however, often consume very small amounts of natural resources, such as energy resources—although their energy reserves may be exploited by the industrial nations. As these poorer nations industrialize, the general assumption is that they will place additional strains on natural resource reserves and will generate more pollution. On the other hand, another widely voiced prediction is that as the less-developed countries industrialize, their rates of population increase will slow significantly. Various possibilities have been suggested regard- ing how to achieve sustainable development with an overall growing world population. The “resource sub- stitution” argument of the positive school has some merit, although direct substitutability of resources is not always possible. The ability of the environment to absorb the additional pollution engendered by in- creased population growth is questionable, as is the hope voiced by some that people in industrialized countries will voluntarily alter their lifestyles and stan- dard of living to diminish resource consumption. 964 • Population growth Global Resources People line up in New Delhi, India, for a 2008 convention of village councils in preparation for a national census. India has the second- largest population in the world. (B. Mathur/Reuters/Landov) The growth of the world’s population will pose great challenges regarding the allocation of natural resources, challenges that will have scientific, eco- nomic, political, and ethical dimensions. The situa- tion must be approached as a complex set of issues to be faced on many fronts. Increased population will place increased demand both on finding new sources of all types of resources and on making more efficient use of present resource stocks. Increased population will also increase pollution, which in severe cases can make certain resources, such as land and water sources, unusable. Emphasismust be placed on doing more with less and on decreasing the waste flow. Throughout there will be continued issues of equity and troubling political questions regarding resource allocation. John M. Theilmann Further Reading Anderson, Terry L., ed. You Have to Admit It’s Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2004. Brown, Lester R., Gary Gardner, and Brian Halweil. Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Cohen, Joel E. How Many People Can the Earth Support? New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Dobkowski, Michael N., and Isidor Wallimann, eds. On the Edge of Scarcity:Environment,Resources, Popula- tion, Sustainability, and Conflict. 2d ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Ehrlich. One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Fu- ture. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004. Goklany, Indur M. The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet. Washington, D.C.: Cato Insti- tute, 2007. Meadows, Donella H., DennisL. Meadors, and Jørgen Randers. Beyond the Limits: Global Collapse or a Sus- tainable Future. London: Earthscan, 1992. _______. The Limits to Growth: The Thirty-Year Update. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2004. Simon, Julian L. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. See also: Developing countries; Ecosystems; Energy politics; Environmental degradation, resourceexploi - tation and; Food shortages; Sustainable development. Portugal Categories: Countries; government and resources Portugal is the world’s top producer of cork. It also pro- duces pine and eucalyptus woods and resins. It has a marked presence in the fishing industry and ranks in the top ten of world producers of wines, olives and olive oil, and tomato products. It trades mostly with its Eu- ropean neighbors, particularly its closest neighbor, Spain, as well as Germany, France, the United King- dom, and Italy. It also has major exports to the United States and Angola. Portugal is one of the leading Eu- ropean sources for copper. In 2007, it was a leading world producer of lithium, tin, and tungsten. The Country Portugal is located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula, of which it occupies about 16 per- cent and which it shares with Spain. It is bordered by Spain to the east and north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south, on whichithas1,793 kilometers of coastline. It includes two autonomous island chains, the Azores (composed of nine islands) and the Ma- deira Islands (including two inhabited and several other uninhabited islands), which allow Portugal to have a strategic presence in the western sea around the Strait of Gibraltar. In totalarea, Portugal is slightly smaller than the state of Indiana. It has a temperate maritime climate, with hotter and drier weather in the rolling plains of the south,and cooler,rainier weather in the mountainous north. It is divided almost in half into these two regions by the Tagus River. It has about 10 million inhabitants. Portuguese now ranks as the third most spoken European language in the world and ranks as sixth in the world in number of native speakers (due primarily to the large population of Portugal’s former colony, Brazil). Though Portugal was once one of the world’s richest countries, it failed to use its wealth to develop infrastructure such as a su- perior educational system, and it now ranks as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe and as the sixth poorest country in the European Union because of its poor resource management. However, it ranks as the twenty-sixth most developed nation in the world, and in a survey about quality of life, was ranked nine - teenth in the world, ahead of many of its more devel - oped and economically sound neighbors. Global Resources Portugal • 965 966 • Portugal Global Resources Portugal: Resources at a Glance Official name: Portuguese Republic Government: Republic and parliamentary democracy Capital city: Lisbon Area: 35,559 mi 2 ; 92,090 km 2 Population (2009 est.): 10,707,924 Languages: Portuguese and Mirandese Monetary unit: euro (EUR) Economic summary: GDP composition by sector (2008 est.): agriculture, 2.8%; industry, 25%; services, 72.2% Natural resources: fish, forests (cork), iron ore, copper, lithium, zinc, tin, tungsten, silver, gold, uranium, marble, clay, gypsum, salt, arable land, hydropower Land use (2005): arable land, 17.29%; permanent crops, 7.84%; other, 74.87% Industries: textiles, clothing, footwear, wood and cork, paper, chemicals, auto-parts manufacturing, base metals, diary products, wine and other foods, porcelain and ceramics, glassware, technology, telecommunications, ship construction and refurbishment, tourism Agricultural products: grain, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, grapes, sheep, cattle, goats, swine, poultry, dairy products, fish Exports (2008 est.): $56.42 billion Commodities exported: agricultural products, food products, oil products, chemical products, plastics and rubber, skins and leather, wood and cork, wood pulp and paper, textile materials, clothing, footwear, minerals and mineral products, base metals, machinery and tools, vehicles and other transport material, and optical and precision instruments Imports (2008 est.): $87.83 billion Commodities imported: agricultural products, food products, oil products, chemical products, plastics and rubber, skins and leather, wood and cork, wood pulp and paper, textile materials, clothing, footwear, minerals and mineral products, base metals, machinery and tools, vehicles and other transport material, optical and precision instruments, computer accessories and parts, semiconductors and related devices, household goods, passenger cars new and used, wine products Labor force (2008 est.): 5.625 million Labor force by occupation (2007 est.): agriculture, 10%; industry, 30%; services, 60% Energy resources: Electricity production (2007 est.): 44.83 billion kWh Electricity consumption (2006 est.): 48.02 billion kWh Electricity exports (2007 est.): 1.906 billion kWh Electricity imports (2007 est.): 8,371 kWh Natural gas production (2007 est.): 0 m 3 Natural gas consumption (2007 est.): 4.112 billion m 3 Natural gas exports (2007 est.): 0 m 3 Natural gas imports (2007 est.): 4.095 billion m 3 Natural gas proved reserves ( Jan. 2006 est.): 0 m 3 Oil production (2007 est.): 6,281 bbl/day Oil imports (2005): 390,300 bbl/day Oil proved reserves: N/A Source: Data from The World Factbook 2009. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009. Notes: Data are the most recent tracked by the CIA. Values are given in U.S. dollars. Abbreviations: bbl/day = barrels per day; GDP = gross domestic product; km 2 = square kilometers; kWh = kilowatt-hours; m 3 = cubic meters; mi 2 = square miles. Lisbon Spain Portugal Morocco Atlantic Ocean Cork Portugal is the world leader in cork production, pro- ducing about one-half of the world’s cork. This indus- try accounts for about 16 percent of Portugal’s for- eign trade, and Portugal is involved in about 70 percent of the world trade in cork, with its exports shipping mainly to the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Forests of various types, including pine and eucalyptus, cover about 34 percent of the coun- try, with about 1.7 million hectares in cork oak. About 280,000 metric tons of cork are harvested annually. The western Mediterranean region, and Portugal in particular, is a suitable habitat for the cork oaks with rainfall distributed nearly evenly throughout the year, mild winters, short summers, and moist soils. Most of the cork in Portugal grows in the central and southern regions, with the highest quality cork coming from the Algarve and Alentejo areas. Though cork is used for a variety of purposes, such as floats, shoe soles, pa- per, bath or table mats, or packing material, it became particularly important when glass bottles were in- vented. Cork is impervious to gases and liquids, and thus is a perfect material for sealing glass bottles. Por- tugal’s cork industry employs about twenty thousand workers at about five hundred cork factories, produc- ing about thirty million corks each day. This industry is considered to be environmentally friendly, as cork comes from the bark of the cork oak, and Portuguese law limits bark removal to once every nine years to protect the production of this valuable resource. A cork oak tree can survive for more than 150years, and each cork tree regrows its bark layer once it has been stripped, making cork an extremely renewable re- source. Cork oak forests also prevent soil erosion and house many vulnerable species, including the world’s most endangered big cat, the Iberian lynx. Fish Portugal has a long coastline along the Atlantic Ocean in a temperate zone, which has helped the country de- velop its long history inthe fishing industry.It has one of the highestfish consumption rates per capita in the world. Along the Portuguese coast, archeologists have found ruins of Roman fish processing centers. About seventy varieties of fish—including anchovies, cod, crustaceans, hake, mackerel, mollusks, sardines, and tuna—caught off the coast provide products that are exported all over the world from fishing ports and processing centers such as Lisbon, Leixões, Peniche, Setúbal, Matozinhos, Olhão, and Portimão. In addi - tion to a large industrial fishing sector, many Portu - guese fishermen practice artisanal fishing, orfishing in the old style with nets. Portuguese fishermen and their trade unions have special rights to 1.7 million square kilometers of fishing territory called Portugal’s “exclu- sive economic zone,” which is the third largest in the European Union and the eleventh largest in the world. This industry employs about five thousand people with about ten thousand vessels registered as fishing vessels, of which many are still traditional, aging ves- sels. The Portuguese government helps Portuguese fisherman improve fishing vessels, adding and updat- ing boats with automated electronic work,navigation, and fish detectionsystems to help fishermen compete with fish production in other European countries such as Norway and Denmark, where fewerfishermen and boats catch more fish than Portugal with updated equipment and processing procedures. Metals and Minerals Portugal is a major source of metals and minerals, particularly for its European Union neighbors. It is Europe’s leading producer of copper. In 2007, Portu- gal produced 90,247 metric tons of copper concen- trate, an increase of 15 percent from 2006, valued at $405 million. The Neves-Corvo mine, which is partly government-owned, produces about 450,000 metric tons of copper per year. In 2007, Portugal was the world’s seventh largest producer of lithium. Most of its lithium is mined in the Gonçalo region, but major lithium deposits also exist in the Barroso and Alvor mountain areas. In 2007, Portugal was the world’s tenth largest and Europe’s largest producer of tin. Also in 2007, Portugal was the world’s fifth largest and Europe’s largest producer of tungsten; most of its tungsten production is exported to other countries. The Panasqueira mine located in the Estrela Moun- tains is one of the world’s largest producers of tung- sten outside of China. This mine gained Portugal some notoriety during World War II because it al- lowed tungsten tobe exported to bothAxis and Allied countries. Portugal also has large uranium reserves, particularly in the Alto Alentejo area, where eight shallow uranium deposits have been discovered with reservesestimatedinexcessof2.2millionkilograms. Olive Oil Portugal’s main edible crop from trees is olives, and the country is one of the major producers and export - ers of olives and olive oil. Its history of growing and Global Resources Portugal • 967 . exporters of several resources; in 2005, it ranked twenty-first in global commodity exports. In 1990, its gross domestic product (GDP) was only $59 958 • Poland Global Resources Global Resources. quality of life, was ranked nine - teenth in the world, ahead of many of its more devel - oped and economically sound neighbors. Global Resources Portugal • 965 966 • Portugal Global Resources Portugal:. cultiva- tion of a wide variety of crops. Regions of sandy soil have proved suitable for rye, while the rich soils of the south-central region support wheat and barley. The less fertile soils of the