Submission to the Population (of P.E.I, Canada)
Strategy ‘99 Panel
Back to "Ecological Resources on the Internet"
Sharon Labchuk
Earth Action, 81 Prince Street, Charlottetown, PEI, C1A 4R3,
Canada.
902-621-0719
slabchuk@isn.net
September 23, 1999
Population growth and associated development is the number one threat to species,
ecosystems and ecological processes . . . throughout North America. Steve Gatewood,
executive director of the Wildlands Project.
The overwhelming message I get from reading the backgrounder and brochure prepared
by the Institute of Island Studies for this public process is that population growth
is "good" and population decrease is "bad". Simple as that. The
background here is permeated with language that implies a definite bias in favour
of population growth.
For example, on page 3, second paragraph, it reads: ". . . four decades of population
decline took an uneven toll across the province." This statement encourages
a negative attitude to population decline. On page 9, first paragraph, it reads:
". . . PEI has benefited from a modest butsteady gain of population". This
statement encourages a positive attitude toward population increase.
To proceed on these assumptions leaves little room for a proper scientific and ethical
discussion on population growth - an issue the world's scientists describe as possibly
the most important ecological crisis facing the planet today. In fact, the assumption
that population growth is "good" would be disputed by many learned people
in the fields of both science, economics and ecology.
My first clue that the provincial government intended to pursue a strategy to increase
the population of PEI came when I saw Premier Binns on CBC-TV sometime last year,
I believe. He said something to the effect that he wanted to increase the population
of PEI so that there would be more consumers to buy things. My heart sank.
While one aspect of this committee's mandate is to define whether the province should
seek to use population growth as an economic development tool, another clearly directs
you to produce an implementation plan to keep youth on the Island and to attract
others to move here - in effect, to increase the Island's population. It's dangerous
and unfortunate that this public discussion on population, an issue so critical to
the future of the Earth, must proceed on pre-determined assumptions.
Paul Ehrlich, a professor of population studies at Stanford University and a well-known
scientist, has said that one of the three major driving forces of the destruction
of the planet's life support systems is simply the NUMBER OF PEOPLE on the planet.
Other scientists agree with him. In 1993, 58 of the world's scientific academies
(including academies from southern countries, not just rich countries) published
a statement that said if we don't do something about human numbers, we're essentially
doomed. Around this time, more than 1,500 of the world's leading scientists, including
over one-half of the world's living Nobel Laureates in science, signed a similar
statement called A World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. They said, "If current
predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on
the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent irreversible
degradation of the natural environment and continued poverty for much of the world."
Ehrlich says we must reduce the scale of the human enterprise, and that this is not
even a debate within the scientific community. The debate is on how we can get it
done.
While scientists are well-aware of the population crisis, there is a huge gulf between
their knowledge and what the public knows. Population is a non-issue in the media.
Even among mainstream environmental groups,population issues are avoided. I believe
Earth Action is the only presenter to this panel from the environmental movement.
Sandy Irvine, who teaches Media Studies at the City of Sunderland College in England,
says that across the spectrum of public opinion, there is near unanimity that the
notion of overpopulation is either a silly fantasy dreamed up by a few eco-freaks
or a temporary phenomenon, affecting only a few places in the Third World and one
that will dissipate of it's own accord. He calls this the Overpopulation Denial Syndrome.
Some of you may know that October 12 is The Day of Six Billion. This is approximately
the day that the world's population will reach 6 billion. To put this into perspective,
the world population was 1 billion in 1804. It took all of human history to reach
that point. It took 123 years to add the next billion people to the planet. By 1987
our population was 5 billion. Between then and now, a period of 12 years, our numbers
increased by 1 billion. It's predicted that human population will level off at about
11 billion sometime in the middle of the next century. Since I was born, the population
has grown more than it did in the previous 4 million years.
I think it's apparent that I agree a global increase in human population is undesirable.
I also agree with many informed people that a global decrease in human population
is required. The phrase "carrying capacity" refers to the maximum population
of a given species that a particular environment can support indefinitely (i.e.,
without habitat damage). If one agrees with the world's prominent scientists, then
it's obvious that the Earth's human carrying capacity has been exceeded. I support
the notion of some, like Paul Ehrlich, who say the world's population must be reduced
to one-tenth of what it is today. Rudolph Bahro, the German Green philosopher says
industrialized countries must reduce their impact on the Earth to about one-tenth
of what it was in the 1980's. This reduction is needed for the well-being and flourishing
of human and non-human life on Earth, and to allow the planet's life support systems
to function unimpaired.
So what does this mean for PEI? We have lots of space for more people, don't we?
And isn't over-population just a concern in crowded places like India and China?
One of the four scenarios for increasing population growth on PEI, as described in
the backgrounder, is a rise in fertility rates. A government policy that attempted
to increase the population of PEI by increasing the fertility rate of Island women
would be irresponsible and a crime against humanity. The notion of the PEI government
trying to get women to have more babies, or encouraging young people to stay on PEI
so they can produce babies may sound far-fetched. But in fact the government of Quebec
launched just such a campaign in 1988. Quebec women were offered money in exchange
for producing babies. The first baby was worth $500, the second $1000, and the third
and subsequent baby earned women $4500 each.
Deliberately increasing the population of industrialized countries like Canada is
disastrous for the rest of the world. One Canadian does 20 to 100 times more damage
to the planet than one person in the Third World. Not only do we consume more, but
we produce more waste, in terms of things like garbage, sewage and emissions from
burning fossil fuels. Many of the major problems confronting the Earth today originate
in the patterns of consumption that occur in the developed world. These problems,
like climate change, chemical contamination, deforestation, habitat loss, acid rain,
poverty and loss of biodiversity are inflicted on other countries not responsible
for over-consumption . So we don't need more North Americans.
Before a population policy can be determined, a carrying capacitydiscussion must
take place. In their book The Ecological Footprint, Wackernagel and Rees say, "The
present Ecological Footprint of a typical North American (4 - 5 hectares) represents
3 times his/her fair share of the Earth's bounty. Indeed, if everyone on Earth lived
like the average Canadian or American, we would need at least 3 such planets to live
sustainably." It's clear the carrying capacity of the Earth has been exceeded.
But how about PEI's carrying capacity? If we decide against increasing the fertility
rate as a means of population increase, would it be okay to influence population
by moving other people to PEI?
I think it's clear that the carrying capacity of PEI has also been exceeded. If one
looks at carrying capacity from a human-centred viewpoint, then one might think there
is still plenty of space left on the Island to build homes for people and the infrastructure
they would require. But is this the only consideration? What of other species?
Imagine what PEI would have looked like to the first European visitors. An island
almost totally covered in huge hardwood trees, teaming with birds and animals; wild
beaches rich with shellfish, and waters filled with all manner of marine life; rivers
swollen with trout, salmon and eels. Today PEI is the most densely populated province
in Canada. The forests have been ravaged, the land denuded and converted to potato
fields, roads, parking lots, tourist attractions and lawns. The rivers are choking
in silt. All wild things are being poisoned by pesticides. We dump our sewage into
the ocean or spread it on land. Shellfish closure areas ring the island. And we entice
a million people a year to holiday on our island.
Where is wild nature? Where are the wild creatures who used to inhabit this island?
The bears, lynx, pine martin and woodland caribou are all gone - shot, trapped or
their habitat destroyed by humans for consumtion andprofit. From a biocentric perspective,
I believe it is immoral for us increase human population on PEI . More humans means
more land (i.e., wildlife habitat) taken for housing, schools, hospitals, industrial
malls, sewage lagoons, landfills, golf courses, tourist facilities, roads, food production,
recreation, cottages and shopping malls. This is all land that was once home to other
creatures. We assume the planet is ours for the taking. But how can one species own
the planet?
There is a philosophy called Deep Ecology, currently seen as radical but gaining
new supporters steadily. This philosophy says that all life on Earth has inherent
value and that these values areindependent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world
for human purposes. Deep Ecology proponents believe that humans have no right to
reduce the diversity and richness of life on Earth except to satisfy vital needs,
that present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation
is rapidly worsening. From a Deep Ecology perspective, here on PEI we have no right
to further diminish the potential for other species to survive when our own kind
has already taken more than we should have. It's a matter of justice for all species,
not just humans.
Far from increasing population, it's time to rewild the Island, to share this place
with other species. Taking the long term human-centred perspective, increasing wildlife
habitat on PEI can only benefit humans. Occupying existing wildlife habitat will
further degrade the life support systems of this island so that all species, including
ours, lose in the end. Biodiversity loss is utterly irreversible on any kind of meaningful
time scale. Yet the organisms we're killing off are the working parts of our life
support system.
Many people in North America are involved in the Wildlands Project, the organization
guiding the design of a continental wilderness recovery strategy. The project is
drafting a blueprint for an interconnected, continental-scale system of protected
Wildlands linked by habitat corridors. Some of North America's most prominent conservation
biologists are working with the Wildlands Project and they believe that at least
50% of the continent, in the form of interconnected ecosystems, must remain wild
in order for other species to continue to evolve naturally and for our own species
to survive in the long term. Increasing the population of PEI is contrary to current
conservation biology thinking and not in the best interests of any species, including
humans.
Finally, I would like to question the entire premise of a population strategy based
on the myth that increased population equals increased consumption equals economic
development equals increased human well-being. There are ecological economists who
recognize that we have exceeded the Earth's carrying capacity and that we're living
on borrowed capital. Many fine books have been written on the subject of population
and environment, politics and policy. I have attached to my presentation an annotated
survey of over 50 such recent publications.
We already have too much consumerism and economic growth on PEI, as you can see from
the Ecological Footprint data I've presented. We need to be talking about humans
scaling back and making room for other plant and animal species. The proposal for
economic development based on increased population is a recipe for certain ecological
and social diaster for PEI.
Note: An excellent resource on population and ecology issues is the Winter 1997/98
issue of Wild Earth. Contact: Wild Earth,
PO box 455, Richmond, VT
05477; 802-434-4077;
info@wild-earth.org
Attached:
1. An Annotated Survey of Recent Population Publications, from the Winter 1997/98
issue of Wild Earth (9 pages) (coming in a few days)
2. The Deep Ecology Platform, written by Arne Naess and George Sessions (1 page)
____________________________________________________________________________
The Deep Ecology Platform
1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value
in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth, intrinsic value, inherent value). These
values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life-forms contribute to the realization of these values
and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital
needs.
4. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation
is rapidly worsening.
5. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease
of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic,
technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be
deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in
situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard
of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly
to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.
--Arne Naess and George Sessions
Source: Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry, edited by Bill Devall (San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books and Earth Island Press, 1993).