overpopulation many sources, books and articles say that people are the most important natural resources a land could have. Reproductive health in the philippines introduction it has been a politically perceived issue that there is over population in the philippines. I n the heart of manila's vast north cemetery, the largest graveyard in the capital of the philippines. He opens the rotten coffin to reveal the skeleton of a 65 year old man, dressed in his burial suit and shoes. Up to 80 funerals take place here every day, and demand for plots is so high most people can only afford to rent tombs. If your relatives fail to keep up the payments, another body will take your place.

It's baking's job to clear this grave so another coffin can be lowered into it later this afternoon. Land is precious in manila, and people are prepared to endure incredible circumstances to claim their own piece. Baking's family is one of hundreds that have set up home in the cemetery, jostling for space with the dead.

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It's much better living here than in a shanty town, he assures me as we clamber over densely packed powder pink and blue tombs on the way to his home. The crypt where his family of seven sleeps is barely bigger than a garden shed, but it's furnished with every modern convenience: there's a fridge, a dvd player, electric fans and a built in toilet. His youngest daughter was a little frightened when they moved here four years ago, he says, but they now find it easy to forget the body buried beneath its floor.

In 40 years time, if current growth rates continue, the number of people on the planet will be almost one and a half times what it is today, rising from 6.8 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. As population increases, so does competition for basic resources – land, food, water and fuel – as well as the threat of environmental devastation and endemic disease. Most of the 10,0 babies born every hour are going to grow up in urban settlements: more than half the world's population now live in cities, and that will rise to 70% by 2050. Megacities – with more than 10 million inhabitants – are springing up across the globe, particularly in developing countries. But as we brace ourselves for the future challenges posed by overpopulation, the residents of manila are already living with them. Greater manila is home to 20 million people, rising by another quarter of a million every year. It's a place of great economic extremes, and space and privacy are luxuries only afforded to manila's wealthy elite.

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A third of manilans live cheek by jowl in makeshift settlements on any bit of spare land – under bridges, next to railway lines, beside flood defences as well as cemeteries. These are ordinary people, often with reasonably paid jobs, who can only afford to live in battery conditions if they want to stay in the city. At the government run jose fabella maternity hospital, four mothers and their newborns share each bed. On the morning i visit, 133 babies have already been born since midnight in one ward alone.

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It's desperately hot and the mothers are fanning their babies with whatever they can find. Looking after the welfare of so many people is quite a challenge, says elisa navarro, the head nurse. We have to do regular ward checks to make sure none of the mothers are sleeping on the babies and suffocating them. I can see how easily it would be for this to happen – most of the women are exhausted from labour and almost unaware of the seven other people in their bed.