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Population growth wrongly
blamed for ecology problems
Vandana
Shiva
This article points out the erroneous
identification of population growth as the primary
cause of environmental degradation in the UNCED
documents, which blames victims and ignores the
economic insecurity caused by tbe denial of
people's rigbt to natural resources. The writer
argues that the major causes include:
environmentally destructive products, consumed
mostly in tbe North; high levels of consumption in
the North; environmentally destructive
technologies; and loss of access to and rights over
natural resources by local communities, leading to
poverty.
POPULATION growth in the Third World is being
increaslngly and falsely identified as a primary
cause of environmental destruction. This tendency
is also belng articulated in the UNCED documents
especlally A/Conf. 151 /PC 45 and 46 which focus
heavlly on demographic pressures.
Even documents not related to population issues
erroneously identify population growth as a cause
for environmental destruction. Thus even the
production of toxic chemicals which has grown
exponentially in the industrialised world and has
been transferred to the Third World is related to
population growth e.g. document PC 42 Add. 5 on
blotechnology states:
The expanding world population is generating and
will continue to generate more wastes resulting
from the use of more chemicals more energy and more
agricultural and Industrial products.
The report fails to recognise that the sparsely
populated rural areas of the US use far more
chemicals than the heavlly populated regions of the
Third World and that the increase in use of toxic
chemicals is more directly a result of the pushing
of chemicals by the industry. Neglecting the
pressure from production interests in the North,
and the heavier dependence of the North on toxic
chemicals the document falsely identifies
population growth as a cause for the productlon and
use of millions of tons of toxic chemicals.
There are four main reasons why population
growth cannot be identified as the primary cause of
environmental destruction.
Firstly the large number of poor people In the
Third World whose population is growlng do not
participate In the use of most products that are
causing environmental destructlon because these are
not within their purchasing power. They do not use
CFCs for refrigeration and hence cannot be
identifled as agents of destruction of the
ozone.
Secondly, the large numbers of poor people use
insignificant fractions of the resources used by
the North, and the elites of the South. Thus an
average US cltizen uses 250 times as much energy as
an average Nigerian. Northern lifestyles,
therefore, contribute disproportionately to the
pressure on resources, including the resources of
the South.
Thirdly production processes that have emerged
from the Northern industrialised countries are
inherently destructive of the environment. and this
destruction capacity is independent of population
growth. As has been stated environmental
destruction is a functlon of the resource
destroying capacity of technologies of production
(the technology factor) and the goods produced or
consumed per capita. In other words, Total
pollution = pollution per unit of economic goods
produced X goods consumed per capita X
population.
The first two factors are contributed
disproportionately by the North, both in terms of
transfer of resource intensive technologies and in
terms of high consumption of resource-intensive
products.
Finally, populatlon growth is not a cause of the
environmental crisis but an aspect of it and both
are related to the alienatlon of resources and
destruction of livelihoods first by colonialism and
then by Northern-imposed models of maldevelopment.
For example, in 1600 the population of India was
between 100 mllllon and 125 million. In 1800 the
population remained stable. Then the rlse began: -
130 mlllion in 1845, 175 million in 1855, 194
mllllon in 1867 and 255 milllon in 1871. The
beginning of the population explosion dovetailed
neatly with the expansion of British rule in India
when resources and rights and livelilhoods were
taken away from people.
That populatlon growth arises from the same
causes that lead to poverty on the one hand. and
environmental degradation and resource alienation
on the other hand should be apparent from the India
data which shows that populatlon control programmes
have systematically failed because people In
destitution make a rational choice to have more
children.
The focus on populatlon as the case of
environmental destruction is erroneous at two
levels. Firstly it blames the victims. Secondly by
failing to address the economic insecurity and
denial of rights to survival that underlie
population growth, policy prescriptions avoid the
real problem. False perceptlons of the problem lead
to false solutions. As a result environmental
degradation, poverty creation, and population
growth continue unabated.
Giving people rlghts and access to resources to
generate sustainable livelihoods is the only
solutlon to arrest environmental destruction and
the simultaneous process of population growth.
Source: Vandana Shiva, 'Population growth wrongly
blamed for ecology problems', Third World
Resurgence, No 16, December 1991, p. 33.
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