ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1992;12:11-36 11

THE IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON

ENVIRONMENT: THE DEBATE HEATS UP

R. PAUL SHAW
The Worm Bank, Washington, D.C.

Introduction
More humans have been added to the world's population in the past 40 years than
in the previous three million (Keyfitz 1989). Every day the global population
grows by 240,000, every year by over 90 million, the equivalent of three Canadas
or another Mexico. Just 10 years from now, another billion people will occupy the
planet. That such growth is largely responsible for global environmental
degradation has been widely touted by population control advocates, the press,
and popular media (Ehrlich 1986; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990). One such group
sponsored a statement, signed by leaders of 46 countries, claiming that
"degradation of the world's environment, income inequality, and the potential for
conflict exist today because of over-consumption and over-population."l
The appearance of consensus on this issue is belied by the fact that the
Norwegian-inspired World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED)--the Brunfland Commission--reached unanimous agreement on all
issues concerning the environment except two--what to do to protect Antarctica
and the causal significance of population growth (WCED 1987). A year later, the
United Nations convened an expert group on the consequences of population
growth at which a leading environmentalist claimed, "The theory that
environmental degradation is largely due to population growth is not supported
by the data" (Commoner 1988). Most experts were at a loss to refute the
statement, though some United Nations agencies were already linking the two in
policy decisions.
Uncertainties spilled further into the political domain in August 1990, when the
first Preparatory Committee of the 1992 United Nations Conference on

1The statement was organized and distributed by Population Communication, Pasadena, CA, and is entitled
"Statement on Population Stabilization by World Leaders." It was produced over the period 1988-89.
Address correspondence to: R. Paul Shaw, The World Bank, Room J-4-139, 1818 A Street NW, Washington,
DC 20433.

O 1992 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.

655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 0195-9255/92/$5.00
12 R. PAULSHAW

Environment and Development (UNCED) refused to put population issues on its

working agenda. That meant an official working group would not be established
to study the problem, although others would investigate climate change,
deforestation, water pollution, and so on. 2 Even more politicized were regional
deliberations in preparation for the UNCED. Departing sharply from popular
slogans of "Our Common Future," the environmental ministers of Latin
America published Our Own Agenda, spuming population control policies as
meddling by more developed countries) More recently, the Group of 77
"non-aligned" developing nations (G-77) proposed that discussions of popula-
tion and environment be dropped from the 1994 United Nations Conference on
Population, thus retaining a more traditional emphasis on population and
development per se.4 All the more surprising was that Ghana, spokescountry for
the G-77, has for years been trying to resolve its own demographic pressures on
natural resources.
What lies behind this dissension? A first explanation is that governments of
less developed countries (LDCs) and developed countries (DCs) are sparring over
who is most to blame for the current environmental crisis. DCs charge that the
role of rapid population growth is crucial, while LDCs counter that rich-country
technology, affluence, and waste are the major culprits. Second, many LDCs
cling to an idea conceived at the 1974 United Nations World Population
Conference that "development is the best contraceptive." If population is truly
relevant to global environmental degradation, they say, then rich countries should
be most concerned with promoting economic growth and development in LDCs,
as a way of lowering both mortality and fertility. In short, without a "New
International Economic Order" to accelerate Third World development--
including debt forgiveness and massive transfer of technology--LDCs spurn
population control as a palliative.
An endless stream of superficial arguments linking population with global
environmental degradation constitutes yet a third cause of dissension. Population
control advocates are largely at fault here. The technique is a familiar one: simply
juxtapose racy generalizations about rapid population growth with disturbing
generalizations about the pace of environmental degradation---desertification,
deforestation, depletion of fisheries--as though the former necessarily caused the

Subsequently, however, the second PreparatotT Meeting of UNCED in April, 1991, appeared mon~ open to
considering population issues---judging by delegams' sm~mems----thus paving the way for the Secretariat m
consider them more thoroughly on route to Rio, 1992.
3 Indeed, representatives of Brazil, future home of the 1992 environment conference, were openly hostile to
having population issues on the agenda. See Latin American and Caribbean Commission on Development and
Environment (1989).
4 Plans were retained, however, to convene an expert panel on population and enviromnont in preparation for the
Conference--following the tradition of the 1984 World Population Conference---though implications of the G-77
position do not remain fully known.
IMPACT OF POPULATIONGROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 13

latter. Sorely lacking are empirical studies that carefully demonstrate relation-
ships between the two variables. As one LDC spokesperson demanded, "Show
me one study that rigorously estimates the independent effects of population
variables in environmental degradation using multivariate techniques, time series
or cross-sectional data, and relevant control variables.'5 Unfortunately, there are
none to my knowledge. This lacuna has prevented policy analysis of what
population interventions might realistically accomplish.
Finally, many LDCs feel pressured to make sacrifices never asked of DCs---to
have fewer children than desired in order to mitigate the pace of global
environmental degradation precipitated by generations of rich-country inhabi-
tants. As the head of the Argentinean delegation remarked caustically at the
second Preparatory Meeting of the 1992 UNCED Conference, "We will not
convert our countries into empty gardens for the benefit of the world's top billion
people". 6
It may be impossible to move smoothly beyond these points of contention.
However, it is essential to come to grips with population within a nexus of factors
affecting environment. If this process sheds light on who or what is most to blame
for our current environmental ills, then so be it. At least we can then move on to
sharpen our understanding of how population impacts on critical resources and
where interventions might have their greatest effect.

The Confounding Issues

A major stumbling block in the debate on population and environment is that it
is not a black and white issue; the picture has been blurred by the failure to
acknowledge the importance of ultimate versus proximate factors, current versus
future concerns. Basic clarifications are needed.
First, it is imperative to establish what we mean by population impacts on
environment. Population control advocates are obsessed with rates of population
growth per se at the expense of attention to distributionalpatterns and migration,
or population dynamics such as changing configurations in the age structure? The
fact is that governments of the world express dissatisfaction more with
imbalances in the distribution of population to natural resources than with any
other population factor (excluding mortality) (United Nations 1989b). From this
perspective, Canada has a population problem as well. With over 90 percent of its
population condensed along a narrow band from east to west, paralleling the
Canada--United States border, Canada happens to be the world's number one
producer of municipal and industrial wastes per capita.
Second, rapid population growth to date does not qualify as an ultimate cause

s Commentat United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) Expert Group Meeting on Population and
Environment(United Nations Population Fund, Now York, March 4-5, 1991).
6 Statement by head of Argentinean delegation, Geneva, April 4, 1991.
14 R. PAUL SHAW

of global environmental degradation (see Appendix I for elaboration). Rather, a

large majority of our current environmental crises stem from rich-country
behavior where rapid population growth is not a problem. With barely 25 percent
of the world's population, DCs consume 75 percent of all energy used, 79 percent
of all commercial fuels, 85 percent of all wood products, and 72 percent of all
steel products (UNFPA 1991a). For rich countries, cleaner technologies and
alternate lifestyle policies are urgently needed (and presumably affordable).
Moreover, an immense challenge facing the international community will be to
insure that those same polluting technologies are not sold, or exported through aid
channels, to burgeoning populations in LDCs. Cleaner technology transfer is
fundamental to a healthier planet. This broad conclusion establishes that DCs are
most to blame for our current environmental mess. 7
On the basis of the above conclusion, one could argue that rich countries
should pursue negative population growth--implying less than replacement level
fertility, as well as restrictions on immigration---because the multiplier effect of
an additional DC person is many times more harmful to the global environment
than an additional person in poor countries. For example, each additional
American consumes 55 barrels of oil a year, on average, compared with only three
barrels of oil by each Bangladeshi. From a political standpoint, however, many
DC governments appear unreceptive; rather, they are poised to combat negative
population growth with a plethora of pro-natalist policies and other measures.
Third, it is time to debunk myths that population growth and a host of evils
such as environmental degradation, refugees, and famine all naturally lump
together, as though refugees and famines are situations that would not have
occurred were population control institutionalized. For example, at an interna-
tional seminar on population and environment at Stanford University, a
population specialist recently argued that water shortages and famine in
sub-Saharan Africa had occurred seven times over a decade or more, presumably
because of rising demographic pressures. This misconception was immediately
debunked by a political scientist who correctly pointed out that during five of
those seven times the primary or ultimate cause was civil war. It was the impact
of political instability, combined with effects of drought that had destablized food
production, cut supply lines, and forced tens of thousands of rural families to flee.
Few studies of population and environment in Africa even acknowledge that
the region has experienced more than 200 coups or attempted coups d'6tat over
the last 20 years. At nine per year, on average, there is no other global situation
like it. Cumulatively, these political upheavals, the ultimate factors, have
immense destabilizing effects on productivity, economic well-being, and
environmental conservation efforts in the countries affected. By several accounts,
countries like Ethiopia or the Sudan could feed the entire African continent were
it not for corruption and civil wars shackling their economies.

This claim is elaborated in Shaw (1989a,b).

IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 15

It is also time to remove the blindfold: The off-made connections among

population growth, poverty, and environment are usually exacerbated by
powerful economic and political factors (see Appendix I for elaboration).
Distortionary pricing policies, urban bias in development expenditures (favoring
largest or primary cities to the detriment of rural areas and small towns),
half-hearted agrarian reforms and failure to establish rights of land tenure,
mismanagement of common lands, protectionism, massive international indebt-
edness, intergroup conflict, ethnocide, and genocide have all contributed to the
vicious downward spiral of poverty and environmental degradation (Shaw 1989a,
c; 1991). The poor have been exploited, shifted, and marginalized to the extent
they often have no choice but to participate in the denigration of resources, with
full knowledge they are mortgaging their own future.
It is true that poor families have disproportionately more children, and that rapid
population growth---all else constant--threatens to seriously undermine future
prospects for sustainable development (UNFPA 1989). But to argue that population
control and family planning will turn the relationship around, to bring about
prosperity rather than poverty, conservation rather than degradation, is without
theoretical or empirical basis (McNicoll 1984; Kelley 1989). It is in this context that
rapid population growth is a decidedly proximatefactor. For without changes in the
economic and political variables mentioned above, and without assurances that
nonpolluting technologies will be made available to LDCs in the future, population
control and family planning may only delay things from getting worse.
Finally, it is important to distinguish population impacts according to different
regions and countries of the world, by rural versus urban sectors, by social groups
(poor versus wealthy), by natural resource sectors such as fresh water, by specific
resource problems such as deforestation or desertification, and by quality of life
dimensions such as poverty and urban living.

The Evidence
What then do we know about population impacts on the environment beyond the
qualifications above? To answer this question, I review evidence relevant to several
key themes of the forthcoming 1992 UNCED, including energy use and related
greenhouse gas emissions, industrial and municipal wastes, agricultural lands and
forests, fresh water resources, biodiversity, and quality of life considerations such
as urbanization and poverty. I also illustrate how overwhelming some of the
problems are becoming, as in the case of sub-Saharan Africa.

Commercial Energy
The production and consumption of commercial energy, including nuclear energy
and fossil fuels, contributes immensely to pollution, environmental degradation,
and the production of global greenhouse gases. The increasing rate of ozone
depletion and global warming is perhaps the most alarming consequence. Many
16 R. PAUL SHAW

expect these phenomena to melt mountain glaciers, to cause ice sheets to

discharge into the ocean waters of Greenland and Antarctica, and to raise sea
levels. The damage expected to industrialized countries----or costs to prevent
damage from a 1-meter rise in sea levels by the year 210(g--has been crudely
estimated at $5 billion for the Netherlands, $28 billion for Japan, and $200-475
billion for the US (Nicholls 1990). Among several LDCs such as Bangladesh,
global warming and sea level rise are projected to have far-reaching implications
for risk of death, displacement, and foreign aid (Nicholls 1990).
Though global commercial energy consumption is determined by levels of
economic development as well as by population size and growth, few studies
have sought to establish the relative contribution of DCs versus LDCs. This is
important for two reasons. On the one hand, it is in the LDCs where more than 90
percent of future growth is projected to take place over the next 40 years. On the
other hand, per capita energy consumption is currently only about 1 gigajoule per
person in many of the poorest countries, as in sub-Saharan Africa, versus more
than 250 gigajoules per person in a country like the United States (World
Resources Institute 1990).
One study, produced by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, speculated
that the LDC share of global carbon dioxide emissions could rise from 30 percent
in 1990 to 64 percent by 2025, and up to 88 percent by 2100, all driven largely by
Third World population growth (Office of Technology Assessment 1991). In
countries like India, for example, greenhouse gases from the energy sector are
expected to quadruple over the next 40 years (Topping 1990).
A far more rigorous study on the subject, however, by Gretchen Kolsrud of the
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, and Barbara Boyle Torrey of the U.S.
Bureau of the Census demands a closer look at such estimates (Kolsrud and
Torrey 1991). Using different assumptions about population growth and energy
use per capita for 122 countries for the years 1988-2020, and 2020--2050,
Kolsrud and Torrey simulate different outcomes when (1) energy consumption
per capita is allowed to grow, unconstrained, as in the past, (2) constraints are
imposed on per capita energy consumption, as though conservation policies were
taking effect, and (3) constraints are levied on LDC population growth rates, as
though population policies reduced growth to a level 20 percent lower than the
United Nations "medium" variant projections.
Their results suggest that even with severe constraints on DC energy use and
reduced LDC population growth, worldwide commercial energy consumption
will grow by 82 percent by 2050. Population growth in DCs, although now low,
is shown to contribute as much to global energy change from 1980 to 2020 as the
much larger population growth in LDCs because of the much greater energy
consumption per capita in DCs. While constraints on LDC population growth will
contribute to a reduction in total global commercial energy growth, such
constraints are, in general, far less important in the near term than constraints on
DC per capita energy consumption.
IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 17

Kolsrud and Torrey (1991) do see a role for family planning as a significant
means of reducing future global energy consumption, but they do not overstate
the ease. They acknowledge the realities of built-in population momentum in
LDCs--meaning substantial increases in population regardless of family
planning efforts. They also emphasize the necessity of altering existing energy
technologies---that is, their polluting and greenhouse gas effects---lest current
patterns of energy use be transferred and duplicated by burgeoning LDC
populations, s In utopian terms, if all energy technologies were somehow stripped
of their pollutants, then population growth would have no effect on environment
through interactive effects with energy consumption.

Industrial and Municipal Wastes

Waste products from commercial enterprise, preparations for war or deterrence,
and day-to-day living at the household level have produced one of the most
visible forms of environmental degradation---industrial sludge, polluted oceans
and rivers, overburdened landfills for garbage disposal, and everlasting nuclear
damps. According to my estimates, total worldwide waste generation was about
2477 billion tons in 1985. DCs were responsible for about 74.8 percent of this,
LDCs for about 25.2 percent (Shaw 1989b).
To assess the impact of future population growth on global waste generation
over the next 40 years, I traced the implications of two partial-equilibrium
scenarios. The first scenario assumes that population will grow according to
United Nations "medium variant" projections----meaning average versus
"lower" or "upper" limit projections---but that incomes per capita and waste
generation per person will stay at 1985 levels---about 1.6 tons per capita per year
in DCs versus 0.17 tons in LDCs. According to this scenario, total worldwide
waste generation will rise to 3364 billion tons by 2025; the DC share will be 65.5
percent, the LDC share will rise 10 percent to 35.4 percent.
The second scenario assumes that incomes grow as well as population. If per
capita incomes in LDCs grow at the same rate during 1985-2025 as they did
during 1960-85 (about 3 percent annually), the incomes could be expected to
increase from an average of $750 per capita to $1500 in 2025 (adjusting for
inflation). This rising level of affluence can be expected to boost per capita
waste generation in LDCs from about 0.17 tons per capita per year today to
about 0.34 tons by 2025. 9 According to this scenario, total worldwide waste

$ For example, as much as China and its massive population looms on the scene as future contributors to
greenhouse gases, the governme~tt m-mounced a "greenhouse response strategy" in May 1990 that aims to increase
energy efficiency--now 50-60% US levels--through improved use of coal.
9 The~ calculations h~corpora~ a number of additional assumlzions: (a) rising incomes, or levels of affluence,
will produce higher levels of per capita waste generation by LDCs as predicted by a regression analysis; (2) rising
incomes, or levels of affluence, will not be accompanied by a higher level of per capita waste generation in DCs----at
a staggering 1.6 tonnes per capita, they have to stop somewhen~! (c) the interaction of rising income and popular/on
growth in I..DCs will not yield unforseen waste-disposal methodologies or produce levels o f waste generation that
are higher than those predicted by the regression analysis mentioned above.
18 R. PAULSHAW

generation jumps to 4522 billion tons, with LDCs now contributing a majority
of 52 percent.
Of course, the calculations above would overstate the contribution of LDC
population growth if technologies and consumption behaviors were somehow to
become pollution- and waste-free. However, as environmentalist Barry Com-
moner (1988) points out, even governments in North America and Western
Europe have made little progress in implementing more costly emission controls
for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic
compounds. The same applies to municipal and agricultural water pollutants---
including fecal coliforms, dissolved oxygen, nitrates, phosphates, and suspended
sediments (Commoner 1988). Much of what can be done to clean up existing
technologies relatively cheaply has been done in the last 15 years. Moving
beyond this will involve massive cost, or development and implementation of
new, cleaner technologies, which are also costly. Furthermore, unlike rich
countries, the exorbitant costs to develop and install nonpolluting technologies
(rather than mere cleanup efforts), far exceed the capacities of poorest countries.
If these negative assessments come to pass, then it seems reasonable to assume
the world faces the prospect of an additional 2000 billion tons of industrial and
municipal wastes over the next 40 years, a large share of which will eventually
originate from LDCs. In this case, the argument that reduction of population
growth rates can help reduce wastes seems imminently reasonable.

Deforestation
Deforestation is occurring more rapidly in Latin America and Asia than in Africa
(where population growth is highest), and is much higher for secondary forests
(2.06 percent per year) than for primary forests (0.27 percent per year) (United
Nations 1990). That approximately 16-20 million hectares of tropical forests
have been disappearing every year since 1985---compared with 11 million lost in
1980--has potentially immense consequences for the extinction of plants and
animals (biodiversity), as well as the depletion of natural "sinks" to absorb
greenhouse gases (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990). This continues even though 70
governments have prepared national forestry plans as part of the Tropical Forestry
Action Plan (TFAP).
The World Resources Institute, which instituted TFAP, cites failure to initiate
reforms in land tenure and community management of forest lands as two of the
most visible causes of accelerating deforestation (Winterbottom 1990). Several
studies also report that variations in rates of deforestation are correlated with rates
of population growth (World Watch Institute 1988). A proliferation of small
farmers, for example, has been observed to create a scarcity of agricultural land
in LDCs which has prompted an expansion of agricultural lands into forested
regions (Myers 1984; Whitmore 1984). Migration is often involved, as in the
relocation of Indonesian peasants from the densely populated island of Java and
IMPACT OF POPULATIONGROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 19

Madura to the sparsely populated and heavily forested islands of Kalimantan and
Sumatra (United Nations 1990).
On closer inspection, however, economic and political variables mentioned
previously appear to be exerting more harmful impacts on deforestation than
population growth per se. Disparities of wealth and power in the larger society
cause poor peasants to seek a livelihood on the margins of society, including the
rain forests of remote rural regions (Ledec 1985; Collins 1986; Blaikie and
Brookfield 1987). The unequal distribution of landholdings, combined with
failed agrarian reforms, undermine the right of the the rural poor to cultivate land.
They gravitate to frontier territory where there is typically an absence of secure
property rights over forested lands.
In differentiating types of rain forest, the United Nations finds that the
destruction of small islands of rain forests on mountain slopes in Central America
or Central Africa occurs when peasants, under pressure from expanding
populations, "nibble" at the forests, expanding cultivation along the edge of the
forest in small increments (United Nations 1990). Large blocks of rain forest
present a more formidable challenge to peasant cultivators. Barriers to
communication in the form of impassable rivers, difficult terrain, and dense
forests make it almost impossible for them to exploit a forested region without
large, capital-intensive investments in infrastructure. Rather, it is when
investments by large-scale private enterprise or governments open up a region for
exploitation (such as Brazil's R2-D2 highway, financed by the World Bank), that
the absence of enforced property fights initiates a struggle by landless families
and newly arrived migrants to claim resources by clearing land.
It seems reasonable to conclude therefore that in places like Central America,
the Philippines, and Rwanda-Burundi, where relatively small islands of rain
forest are located within a vast sea of cleared land, that variations in local rates of
population increase appear causally related to rates of deforestation. The same
relatively strong statistical correlation between population increase and deforesta-
tion could also be expected in regions such as West Africa, where a mosaic of
cleared and forested land characterizes the landscape. Otherwise, in the case of
large blocks of rain forest, it seems more appropriate to conclude that population
pressure on nearby lands results in a "nibbling" of the forest's edge, not massive
deforestation. As a senior official from the U.S. Social Science Research Council
put it, "Yes, rapidly growing numbers of peasants contribute to tropical
deforestation, but on a global scale their activities are probably more akin to
picking up branches and twigs after commercial chain saws have done their
work."

Land Degradation and Desertification

Rapid population growth has outstripped agricultural productivity in many
resource-poor LDCs. Declining per capita food production, rising imports,
20 R. PAUL SHAW

malnutrition, and diminished food security are some of the more obvious
indicators. Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa fit this description, where per
capita food production has been on the decline and numbers of malnourished
have been rising over the last decade.
What then, are we to conclude about the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization's (FAO) widely cited "land-carrying capacity" study, showing
considerable potential for increased agricultural productivity in such areas as
sub-Saharan Africa---under assumptions of improved inputs, such as fertilizers,
or better forms of land management and land tenure rights (FAO 1984). The
answer seems to be that rapid population growth, in combination with political
and economic shackles, has prevented cultivators from access to sufficient
resources to invest in the new technologies required. Under these circumstances,
reduced agricultural growth and land degradation have occurred.
The crux of the problem is that increasing population pressures are
overwhelming traditional modes of farming, livestock raising, fuelwood
gathering, and land distribution (Cleaver and Schreiber 1992). One of the
contributing mechanisms is fragmentation of landholdings, resulting from
inheritance traditions that condone division of already small land parcels to
accommodate expanded family size (Bilsborrow and Geores 1990). Such
problems, resulting in overcultivation and loss of soil fertility, have been widely
documented in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Bilsborrow and Geores
1990). For example, in Meur district, Kenya, population growth in the highlands
has decreased the fallow periods of adjacent lowlands traditionally used for
grazing, resulting in soil degradation and desertification of the low-soil-fertility
lowland areas (Bernard 1988). In Darfur province and other areas of the Sudan,
effects of population growth have contributed to declines in fallow periods
(Ibrahim 1984; Bilsborrow and Geores 1990).
Other studies (Mensching 1988; Lele and Stone 1989) indicate that the
extension of rain-fed irrigation agriculture, combined with rapid population
growth, has contributed to the degradation of arid lands in the Sudan, Niger, and
Kenya (Dietz 1986; Talbot 1986; lbrahim 1986; Painter 1987). In such eases, the
intensification of land use has denuded the original bush and tree cover, and the
inevitable crop failures in these add zones have caused subsistence crises (United
Nations 1990).
Another negative spin-off is that shifting cultivators, under pressure of
population growth, have resorted to slash and bum practices to clear marginal,
less fertile areas. The Max Planck Institute reports that the spread of such
practices is becoming a leading contributor to pollution from burning vegetation.
African fires have become so extensive they are adding three times as much gas
and particles to the air as are all fires set by farmers and settlers in South
America---including the dramatic fires of Amazonia. Another unpleasant surprise
has been that these have also created disturbingly high acid rain levels over
African rain forests (New York Times 1989).
IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 21

Another common problem is that land degradation and desertification go hand

in hand with shortages of fuelwood for cooking. In the more densely populated
savannah zone of Africa, only 25-30 percent of total fuelwood needs can now be
met from annual regrowth. Although conditions for tree regrowth are favorable in
many countries, rapid population growth is causing immense problems (United
Nations 1990). According to FAO and World Bank estimates, 11 countries faced
negative fuelwood supply--demand balances in 1980: Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Chad, The Garnbia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, and
Uganda. By the end of the century, eight more are projected to join the list:
Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe.
Finally, there may be limits to the extent that improved agricultural inputs can
prevent land degradation. In the case of soil productivity, for example, researchers
at the U.S. Agricultural Department Research Service report that fertilized and
cultivated areas emit two to four times as much nitrous oxide, and absorb about
40 percent less methane, than untreated or untilled areas (Nature 1991). To
conclude, when traditional farming systems are being overwhelmed and
opportunities for improvement are limited, room to maneuver is likely to be
extremely limited without reduction in population growth.

Fresh Water
The United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
estimates that global supplies of fresh water have shrunk from 33,300 cubic
meters per person per year in 1985 to 8500 cubic meters per person today. In such
countries as Kenya, the supply of water per capita has been projected to shrink by
half in the next 10-20 years, by 42 percent in Nigeria, and by 33 percent in Egypt
(Shildomanov 1990).
Hydrological water systems depend on rainfall and the return flow of moisture
to the atmosphere as well as the collection of surplus water in river corridors that
pass through the landscape or in aquifers, recharged by percolating water surplus.
Humans affect freshwater systems largely through their impact on land, as in
urban areas which draw on water supply systems, producing a return flow of
sewage and polluted water;, in industrial areas which utilize water in production
processes, returning industrially polluted wastewater; through waste depositories
where infdtrating rainwater picks up pollutants during percolation by leaching;
and around vegetated areas where water is consumed in food production
(Falkenmark 1990). Environmental problems arise therefore when population
growth combines with polluting activities, poor land management, and poor
irrigation management.
To establish links between population and degradation of fresh water
resources, Malin Falkeumark of the Swedish Natural Science Council makes a
sharp distinction between water capabilities in DCs and LDCs (Falkeumark
1990). Many LDCs happen to be located in the arid and semiarid tropics and
22 R. PAUL S H A W

subtropics. Indeed, three-quarters of the bottom 44 countries on the United

Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) "human development index" can
be found in sub-Saharan Africa (UNDP 1990).
Falkeumark identifies several different modes of environmental vulnerability:
vulnerability to water scarcity due to dominance of the natural return flow to the
atmosphere, leaving only very limited amounts for the terrestrial water systems;
vulnerability, to recurrent drought due to large interannual fluctuations in rainfall;
and vulnerability to erosion where the infiltration capacity of the land surface has
been reduced by human action including overgrazing, compacting, exposure to
radiation due to deforestation, or where erodible soils are being exposed to heavy
rains due to deforestation on productive hillsides. These vulnerabilities suggest a
two-edged sword whereby water scarcity--for natural reasons--sets upper limits
on human carrying capacity, and where human activities can contribute to even
greater scarcity.
It is in the case of semiarid Africa that Falkenmark sounds the alarm over future
population growth. By the year 2025, she and her co-workers predict that 1.1
billion people will be living in countries experiencing water stress, if not chronic
water scarcity (Falkeumark et al. 1989). The critical issue will not only be
deficiencies in the supply of drinking water, but the carrying capacity of water as
a cleanser and recycler of human wastes and pollution. The question is whether
governments in the region can improve the situation by recycling greater
quantities of wastewater, constructing dams, storing water in underground
reservoirs, and adopting measures to avoid evaporation losses. These are the
kinds of daunting challenges that have been taken on at great expense and with
immense difficulty by the oil-rich Arab states. In sub-Saharan Africa, however,
where economic stagnation and depletion of fiscal capacity prevails, the situation
appears far less hopeful. Perhaps this is the strongest case for population
limitation policies yet.

Urbanization
Only four decades ago, 18 percent of humanity lived in urban communities,
whereas 50 percent do so today. The lion's share of urbanization is now taking
place in LDCs. Population in LDC cities is projected to mushroom from under
two billion people today to almost four billion by 2025. It has been well
documented that large metropolitan areas, and even medium-sized cities in LDCs
are barely coping with rapid urbanization. Housing shortages, squatter
settlements, lack of infrastructure such as medical facilities and schools, traffic
congestion, intolerable levels of pollution, and problems disposing of industrial
and municipal wastes are all part of the scenario.
As ecologist Norman Myers points out, many LDC cities have become loci for
some of the most degrading poverty known; of every 100 new households
established in urban areas during the second half of the 1980s, upwards of 70
IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 23

were located in shanties and slums (92 out of every 100 in Africa). These squalid
environments are fertile breeding grounds for disease as the number of urban
households without safe water increased from 138 million in 1970 to 215 million
in 1988, while those without adequate sanitation increased from 98 million to 340
million (Hardoy and Satterthwait 1990; UNFPA 1991b).
Myers also provides a startling perspective on traffic congestion in Bangkok,
so severe that the amount of passenger's time lost on city streets, plus the amount
of extra gasoline consumed, cost roughly $1 billion a year. A further $1 billion is
lost through medical bills and worker absenteeism due to pollution-related
aliments, as well as through pollutant damage to buildings and the like. In LDCs
generally, more than one billion people are living in conditions so polluted the air
is not fit to breathe (French 1990; UNFPA 1991b).
Ultimate causes of migration into urban areas have remained surprisingly
resistant to change. For example, during the first and second United Nations
Development Decades (1960-80), agrarian reform was identified as a panacea for
reducing discrepancies in rural/urban income and employment inequalities,
which are common motivations for migration. Yet, when I last visited the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, I was told that this had become a moribund
issue. Few agrarian reforms are now on the books, while past reforms hardly add
up to success.
A similar story applies to the building of satellite and "countermagnet" cities,
or to land reclamation and resettlement schemes. Ten years ago, such schemes
were favored as action-oriented policies at the International Labour Organization
(ILO). In my own work at the ILO, I envisaged payoffs through schemes that
would create competitive opportunities in secondary cities (Shaw 1978, 1980).
Today, the accumulated evidence shows that such strategies have failed to stem
the urban tide (Gberai 1983).
It would not seem unreasonable then to suggest a crucial role for population
limitation policies in view of the strong likelihood that 90 percent of new urban
growth will be accounted for by LDCs by 2025. In this case, two important
perspectives must be observed: First, some development economists argue
fiercely that urban mismanagement, combined with bungling by local govern-
ments, is to blame for the environmental consequences of rapid urbanization.
David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Develop-
ment, London, is one of these and his arguments deserve to be taken seriously
(Satterthwaite 1989). Second, we must seriously continue to identify and combat
conditions in rural "sending" areas that are promoting a vicious cycle of income
insecurity, food insecurity, and environmental degradation that lead to migration
as a form of escape. Such problems are unlikely to dissipate with the adoption of
population limitation policies. In fact, the realities of population momentum will
insure continued rapid urban growth all else remaining constant. The hope for
sustainable development lies in the resolution of such problems because large
shares of the world's poor are situated in rural, agricultural contexts.
 24 R. PAUL SHAW

Poverty
Poverty has been repeatedly singled out as an ultimate factor in the environmental
degradation of LDCs and, thus, as a driving force behind LDC contributions to
global environmental degradation, l° Tragically, the poor are not only pressed into
unsustainable use of resources to meet survival nee~; they also know better than
anyone that their future is being mortgaged by actions they are taking now (World
Bank 1990).
Poor families tend to have larger numbers of children than do wealthier families.
Whereas, on average, 15-30 percent of families in LDCs as a whole have eight or
more members, the proportion of poorest families with that many members is
55-80 percent (UNFPA 1989). Large families also spend less on the health,
nutrition, and education of individual children (National Research Council 1986).
If poverty is linked to environmental degradation, if the poor in LDCs are growing
absolutely, and if LDCs are home to rapid population growth, then surely
population limitation represents an indirect means to reduce poverty, promote
environmental conservation, and assure sustainable development. Or does it?
It seems entirely reasonable to maintain that population limitation will keep the
absolute number of poor in LDCs from growing further. While this would be no
small accomplishment, it would not be correct to maintain that population
limitation would actually make the poor more prosperous--thus mitigating
poverty conditions among the already poor. To argue otherwise is to assign full,
or two-way causality to the effects of population change: if it goes up, things get
worse, if it goes down, they get better. A great many studies have sought to
establish two-way causality in the case of the population-poverty relationship but
without success (McNicholl 1984; Kelley 1988, 1989). This message was echoed
at a 1988 United Nations expert meeting: population growth may well confound
attempts of governments to meet future demands for services, jobs, etc., but there
is no consistent evidence that a reduction in population growth will actively
reduce poverty levels (Rodgers 1984; United Nations 1989). By implication,
there is no assurance that fertility reduction per se can turn the relationship
between population and poverty around.
If these generalizations withstand empirical analysis, as they have in the past, then
the implications for population, poverty, and environmental degradation are clear.
By restraining absolute growth of the number of poor people, population limitation
will probably prevent environmental degradation in poor, resourco-coustrained
LDCs from getting worse. There is no basis to argue, however, that it will work to
promote environmental conservation. Rather, tackling the many detrimental forces
discussed earlier, such as polluting technologies, distortionary economic policies,
indebtedness, and political instabilities is likely to be more important.

lo This point was made in most of the official statements by country delegations at the second Preparatory Meeting
of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Geneva, April 1991.
IMPACT OF POPULATIONGROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 25

What about the relationship between rapid population growth, poverty, and
prospects for sustainable development? There is no doubt that this relationship
and the threat it poses for future LDC development represent the strongest case
for population limitation in many countries. Though debate over sustainable
limits is likely to rage--including the potential "bail-out" role that new
technologies might play according to economist Julian Simon (1990)---the
prospect that populations will double in a mere 25-30 years in some of the
poorest countries of the world is alarming.
In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, total population was less than 150 million
only three decades ago, 500 million today. Economic growth has stalled in many
countries, per capita food production has declined, and international debt has
grown from $56 billion in 1980 to more than $140 billion today. It is little
comfort then that population is projected to double again in the region to 1.08
billion by 2010, and to 1.6 billion by 2020.
How will governments in sub-Saharan Africa cope when fiscal capacity is
already stretched to the limit and austerity programs are progressively being
introduced---.-s,tmctural adjustment programsDto restore balance of payments
equilibrium? At the very least, population limitation will help to "buy time" to
meet demands for basic needs that already far outstrip supply. Population
limitation may also work against a collapse of biological systems in and around
the poorest areas, if not irreversible loss of biodiversity.11
Again, however, it is important not to build false expectations. Even if
population limitation makes gains in severely stressed areas such as sub-Saharan
Africa---say a 25 percent reduction in the fertility rate by 201(N---popnlation is
still projected to grow from 532 million to just over one billion. Even more
optimistic family planning scenarios, such as a 50 percent reduction in fertility
rates, will still yield another 420 million people in just 20 years (McNamara
1990). Disappointment is also likely to arise over expectations that population
limitation can make a significant difference without removing political and
economic shackles that so often strangle prospects for sustainable development.
The reason is that 50 percent population limitation scenarios cannot hope to take
effect unless high desired family size preferences and high infant mortality rates
decline substantially in the poorest areas. These are important requisites for
couples to accept family limitation techniques. Both theory and evidence suggest
that, while demand for such limitation techniques can be encouraged by
supplying birth control techniques, the principle motivators are largely related to
socio-economie progress in incomes, education (especially women's education),
improved health facilities, and other vestiges of modernization (Kelley 1990). Put
bluntly, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

II ~ c n t i o n by GerardoBudowskiat the United Nations Population Fund ExpertGroup Meeting c~aPopulation

and Environment,New York, March 4-5, 1991.
26 R. PAUL SHAW

The Prognosis
How can uncertainties about the impact of population on environment be juggled
with the urgency of helping LDCs (as well as DCs) find a more sustainable path
to future development? How can meaningful population interventions be fostered
when there are so many scientific unknowns? These are not merely reflections
from the ivory tower, but sum up a dilemma I have faced as a population
economist at the United Nations Population Fund, and now at the World Bank.
The most defensible stance may be that population limitation policies can
"help buy time" to stabilize, and perhaps improve imbalances in population
growth and distribution relative to imbalances in the use and distribution of
natural resources. Time is perhaps the scarcest commodity in the Third World,
where many LDC governments face crushing economic, demographic, and
ecological problems. Time is required to assess whether demographic pressures
might combine with resource depletion to produce sudden structural shifts
resulting, for example, in an irreversible collapse of ecological systems and
biodiversity.
In several countries of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, it is difficult to see
how governments can attain sustainable development in the face of massive
international indebtedness, declining food production per capita, widespread
poverty, urban blight, civil strife, and overstressed social services and
infrastructure, at the same time that their population is primed to double in a brief
25-30 years! I have tried to present a strong case that distortionary social,
economic, and political factors---the ultimate causes--must be rectified if
conservation and sustainability are to be achieved. But the entrenchment of so
many of these ultimate factors has troubling implications. As demographer
Nathan Keyfitz remarked at a session on population and environment at the 1991
Meetings of the Population Association of America, "Since when have those
policies that concern us most ever been right. The real world is replete with failed
policies. Under such conditions, curtailing rapid population growth becomes ever
more relevant."
An equally defensible position is to urge the d~velopment of national
capacities to monitor, evaluate, and conduct research and policy analysis of
demographic and environmental problems. This implies transferring required
skills and technology to LDCs on a far more expansive and accelerated basis. It
acknowledges that data collection and research on demographic and environ-
mental problems are likely to be most productive at the national level, given
immense differences in geography and resources between countries; it aims to
empower governments to make their own informed decisions about the problems
involved; and it is directly relevant to one of the most important tools of
conservation and sustainability---preparation of official national conservation
strategies and national development plans.
IMPACT OF POPULATIONGROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 27

The World Bank, for example, has provided the initial impetus for the
development of National Environmental Action Plans (NEAP) in 18 African
countries (Falloux 1991). These are to be in-country, demand-driven processes
with steering committees at the highest policy level, a NEAP Secretariat at the
working level to ensure multisectoral participation and coordination, local
participation involving NGOs, and task forces on the underlying causes of
environmental problems. Task forces on population and environment must come
to grips with (a) implications of built-in demographic momentum for the
"carrying capacity" of natural resources, regardless of steps that might be taken
to reduce future population growth; (2) "windows of opporumity" for reducing
rapid population growth given that 20-30 percent of couples in African countries
typically are seeking to reduce their completed family size; (3) financial,
logistical, and human resource prospects and constraints to supplying family
planning services, for which there now exists a demand; and (4) prospects for
influencing demand for family planning itself through constructive policy
interventions, such as appropriate population education in schools, policies to
raise average age at marriage, reduce infant and maternal mortality, raise female
enrollments in schools, and empower women to have greater control as managers
of both production and reproduction. Equally important will be to detect
noncomplementarities between population, economic, and environmental poli-
cies that undermine holistic approaches by producing unintended, negative
effects, as discussed in Appendix I.
To crack the hard nut of economic stagnation, rapid population growth, and
environmental degradation in the Third World, however, nothing short of
historically unparalleled efforts will be required. The magnitude of the challenge
is apparent from a candid assessment in 1990 of Africa's development crisis by
Robert McNamara, past president of the World Bank: "Africa is a continent in
crisis and there is little reason to believe that current development programs will
reverse the adverse trends. The situation five years from now is likely to be worse,
not better" (McNamara 1990).
What will be needed to resolve the crisis has been spelled out by Kevin
Cleaver and Gotz Schreiber of the World Bank's Africa Region. Their view
envisions a 20-25 planning horizon during which, (1) the average population
growth rate will have to decline from 3.1 percent now to 2.2 percent by 2025; (2)
growth rates in agriculture will have to grow about 4 percent per year--
exceeding the current 3.1 percent population growth rate--just to achieve food
security, and another four percent to raise incomes and meet Africa's import
needs; and (3) conservation measures will have to be rigorously applied to
reverse clearly negative trends, such as a turnaround in deforestation rates from
-0.5 percent per annum now to +2 percent reforestation annually in the future
(Cleaver and Schreiber 1992).
To realize such goals, Cleaver and Schreiber propose a "nexus strategy"
28 R. PAULSHAW

whereby the average total fertility rate of six to seven children in countries of
Sub-Saharan Africa would have to be reduced by 50 percent within 30 years;
land-saving and labor-using technologies would have to be combined with
liberalization of interregional food trade, to the extent that total cultivated area
would grow by only 1 percent per year, but land productivity would grow by 3
percent annually; and the annual rate of afforestation would have to reach 2.75
million hectares annually, every year, so as to curtail the effect that growing
fuelwood requirements are likely to have on land clearing and deforestation.
Their blueprint deserves high marks because it leaves no doubt that interventions
in any one area, such as population, are not likely to have much effect without
corresponding, complementary interventions in another. It further underscores
the importance of getting right the policy context--to insure that neglected or
well-meaning policies in one area, such as the absence of child-labor laws in
agriculture, do not cancel out the intended effects of policies in other areas, such
as family limitation policies.
And the costs for a region-wide strategy of this nature? Another $500 million
per annum by the year 2000 for family planning alone; this compares with $100
million now spent on population activities in the region, and a total 1991 annual
budget of the United Nations Population Fund of only $200 million. Billions
more will be required for environmental activities in urban areus~to clean up
industrial pollution and waste and sewage disposal--and to maintain wildlife
preserves, protect lands, and preserve freshwater resources in rural areas; this
compares with the less than $500 million that donors give to Africa now. Several
billious more will be essential to improve agricultural productivity, assure land
rights, and foster income and food security among 400 million or more landless
families.
Whether such an initiative can be fully launched is an empirical question given
the immense financing and political will required. Yet, the nexus umbrella has
already provided the impetus for six in-depth country studies in Ethiopia, Malawi,
Nigeria, Rwanda, C6te d'Ivoir, and a region of the Sahel. At the same time, there
are grounds for optimism as growing numbers of international lending
institutions are collaborating with national governments and NGOs to forge
conservation strategies with more informed population components. The World
Conservation Foundation (IUCN, Switzerland) is doing so, for example, through
its assistance to population planning in more than a dozen national conservation
strategies; the World Bank is doing so through its assistance to additional national
environmental action plans; and several major bilateral donors and multilateral
lending agencies are doing so by advocating population management as an
element of environmental impact assessment, if not a requisite of the projects they
support (e.g., Canadian International Development Agency, United Nations
Development Programme, World Bank). At this point, it seems reasonable to say
that a global, regional, or national environmental action plan without clear
IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 29

population components, such as a national population policy, monitoring, and

evaluation, is not an environmental action plan at all. 12

Appendix I: Analytical Framework

The analytical framework proposed here reaches beyond the narrow confines of
demography or economics, to include political considerations as well (Figure 1).
It was first introduced at the 1989 meetings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (Shaw 1989b). It portrays major causes of global
environmental degradation, some being of a deeper, more ultimate nature than
others, and, as we shall see, rapid population growth is conceived as a relatively
proximate cause, albeit one with potentially immense exacerbating effects.
The major component of the analytical framework subsumes the well-known
environmental impact equation proposed by Paul and Ann Ehrlich (1990). [I = PAT,
or Impact on Environment = (Population Size) times (Affluence and its
consumption levels) times (Technology's polluting effects).] One can reasonably
argue that from 1950 to say 1985, upwards of three-quarters of global
environmental degradation originated from interactions of polluting technologies,
affluent-related waste generation, and population size in DCs--wbere rapid
population growth is not a problem (Shaw 1989c).
Limitations of the PAT equation are immediately apparent, however, when
trying to understand complex mechanisms that promote degradation in LDCs.
Poverty and indebtedness are two of these. By World Bank estimates there are
more than one billion people in poor households, many having no option but to
denude common lands of shrubs and trees for firewood; overtax the productive
capacity of soils by planting and harvesting too frequently: or flock to urban
areas, where overcrowded slum and squatter settlements cannot possibly handle
more human wastes (World Bank 1990). Even were the poor to halt their
population growth completely, the fact remains that 1.2 billion would remain
entrenched in an entirely uusustainable relationship to their environment.
Moreover, population momentum--meaning tomorrow's parents have already
been born--ensures increasing additions to those in poverty regardless of
optimistic family planning scenarios.
Not only families, but many LDC governments are also caught in a
poverty-debt trap as well. Third World countries face a staggering $1.3 trillion in
debt, $100 billion yearly just to meet interest payments. Ecologist Norman Myers

t2 This point is developed funh~ in t~ccnt publicatiom by the United Nations Populadon Fund, for which I served
as general editor. "Population and the Environment: The Challenges Ahead" (UNFPA 1991a) contains several
recem~mdalions as put forth by an expert group on population and envi~or.~.eat. "Population, Resources and the
~[ivirol]liien~ Tile Critical ('~m!lt~nge$" (UNFPA 1991b) provides a book-length review by Norman Myers of major
issues of importance to the 1992 UN Confe~nce on Enviroranent and Development, and sketches out policy
imperatives.
30 R. PAUL SHAW

World Environment )
and
Natural Resources

t ,
Technologies ] Consumption Growth
I Levels

~acerbatin& Conditions in DevelopedCountries)

cies) . (Mismanagement
Policies)

Z
l-4

(Negative lntero~untry Connections)

I I

Protectionism~ Drain Rich

Country
Altruism

~Un ImpureEnvironment'~ ' ~

sustainabla~dopulations~
FIGURE 1. Causes of environmentaldegradation and unsustainabledevelopment.

reckons that tropical forest countries owe some $600-800 billion to banks, both
public and private, a situation that encourages certain countries to liquidate
unsustainable amounts of their forest capital to pay off debts (Myers 1990). Debt
forgiveness and debt-for-nature swaps have yet to make much of a dent on the
foreign debt obligations of LDCs.
IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON ENVIRONMENT 31

Also beyond the scope of the PAT equation lie distortionary factors that
undermine economic incentives or contribute to the mismm~gement of key
resources. These factors are described in neo-classical economic theory---one of
"four theories of population change and the environment" classified by Carole
Jolly of the National Academy of Sciences (1991). For example, government
practices of keeping farm prices down have been widespread in LDCs, choking
off incentives to pursue fanning which maintains the traditional forms of soil,
land, and forest conservation. Moreover, rapid urbanization in LDCs has been
determined as much, or more, in the past by disproportionate investments in
infrastructure and services in largest cities, than by population growth per se.
Such practices have systematically worsened "terms of trade" between rural and
urban areas, fostering relative deprivation and migration in the process.
Mismanagement of common or public lands also tends to be grossly
overlooked as a major culprit of Third World environmental degradation. A
careful study on the destruction of common lands in India, based on surveys of 80
villages in 20 Indian districts, leaves little doubt that public policies, not
population growth, are largely to blame for reducing the viability of the
"commons" to sustain population (Jahoda 1988). In a great many LDCs, such
policies have allowed common lands to be eaten up by large-scale commercial
enterprises or else developed as real estate in a great many LDCs. When poor
ethnic groups are marginalized in the process, or when large-scale mechanization
schemes displace small-scale farmers to less productive lands, poverty and
overuse promote environmental degradation.
The same applies to nearly one-third of the world's tropical forests, located in
Brazil. Much of the deforestation has been initiated by the rich to create vast
ranches. In addition, government-subsidized colonization schemes have attracted
a swarm of shifting cultivators. Settlers, fleeing from landlessness and poverty,
have traveled government-built highways, urged on by government slogans and
promises of free land. The resettlement has been hailed as land reform--precisely
what it is not. This is one case where population growth and shifting cultivators
cannot be blamed entirely for degradation. Rather, as Norman Myers argues, the
problem is one of "shifted cultivators" and the political forces doing the
shifting. 13
A final clustering of factors in Figure 1 affects the capacity of entire
governmental systems to assure sustainable resource use and conservation. They
are most akin to "dependency theory" in Carole Jolly's classification noted
previously. Warfare may seem an obvious example, especially when the
environmental legacy of the Vietnam or Gulf war is considered. But it is the
covert aspects of intergroup warfare within so many countries that has devastating
impacts.

13See note 12, and the reference to Norman Myers' excellent review of population and environment for the United
Nations Population Fund.
32 R. PAUL SHAW

One of literally hundreds of examples is currently unfolding in B m m a ~ h o m e

to over 80 percent of the world's teak forests. Stepping up efforts to obliterate the
ethnic Karen, the Burmese military has launched a scorched-earth campaign to
sweep the Karen guerrillas from the forests. In doing so, it has enlisted the help
of large-scale, mechanized Thai logging operations that--with a blind eye to the
war---have accepted a cane-blanche invitation to cut as much, as fast as they can.
As Saw Ba Thin, general secretary of the Karen National Union puts it, "All
Karen know the teak belongs to our forefathers and children. We cut the teak
selectively and replant afterward. One year of the Thais' cutting is equal to more
than 10 years of ours" (Moreau 1990).
Such acts are responsible for more than 15 million refugees living in
encampments, including from hundreds to thousands on the edge of rural
communities and cities, to 400,000 Indochinese on the border of Thailand, to
more than 1.5 million in the northern part of war-torn Sudan, as well as in Iraq.
They live in an entirely unsustainable relationship with natural resources, using
trees for shelter, firewood for survival, while their small-scale livestock
contribute to land degradation through overgrazing. An influx of 100,000
refugees in mml sub-Saharan Africa initially desertifies about 875 acres and
accounts for more than 100,000 tons of firewood annually. Globally, this
translates into the desertification of about 135 square miles per year and
consumption of more than 17 million tons of fuelwood annually. As I have argued
elsewhere, their negative impacts on environment have little to do with
population growth per se. 14
Finally, it may seem far-fetched to talk of "dependency"-type factors such as
trade protectionism, the brain drain, or limited rich-country altruism as major
factors in environmental degradation in poorer countries. Yet these phenomena,
too, undermine social and economic environments in ways that are seldom
recognized by population advocacy writers. In the case of trade protectionism, for
example, countries of Western Europe and North America subsidize their
domestic agriculture sector to the tune of $200 billion annually (Winglee 1989).
Direct losses to LDCs have been estimated at around $30 billion per year (Zietz
and Valdes 1986). These subsidies undermine farm incomes in poor countries,
help to perpetuate poverty, and contribute to abandonment of farms and
rural-urban migration. In the process, they reduce motivation to maintain and
care for agricultural lands, thus contributing to the vicious cycle of poverty and
environmental degradation. In short, they compromise prospects for development
of poorer countries whether population is reduced or not.

Views expressed in this paper are those of the author alone, and should not be interpreted as reflecting
opinions or policy of the World Bank.

14Figures provided to the author by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), Geneva.
IMPACTOF POPULATIONGROWTHON ENVIRONMENT 33

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