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Population and the Environment: How Do Law and Policy Respond?

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Population and the Environment: How Do Law and Policy Respond? THE DEBATE Population and the Environment: How Do Law and Policy Respond? hen the modern environmental movement Enthusiasm for interventions waned. Access to emerged in the West fifty years ago, over- family planning and abortions was cut back as a Wpopulation was a central international con- priority in international aid programs. cern. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best seller The Population Population was under 4 billion people at the time Bomb warned that demographic pressures were of the Club of Rome report. It is now almost double, worsening environmental destruction. The 1972 an estimated 7.5 billion, and that could reach 11 Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth used a model that billion by 2100 — without intervention by policy- included population growth. The same year, the makers, philanthropies, and ordinary people. groundbreaking UN environmental conference in The disengagement of the environmental move- Stockholm, among its principles, listed population ment with issues of overpopulation did little to growth as a major concern. change environmental impacts. While Malthusian Yet, a variety of forces slowly but surely distanced predictions of mass starvation have not yet come population issues from the mainstream environ- to pass, greenhouse gas emission profiles sug- mental agenda. Sustainable development, with its gest that global climate change will not be solved emphasis on growth, became an international goal. by technology alone, but will continue to climb if The specter of forced sterilization in India and the population grows. And populations are already tak- excesses of China’s one-child policy were alarming, ing over habitat critical for biodiversity. suggesting to some that stabilizing population was Is humanity pressing on the Earth’s carrying ca- synonymous with government excess and human pacity? What laws and policies have been devel- rights violations. oped to address population growth, internationally Others argued that the population issue was and within specific countries? Have they been ef- simply one of poverty and that a demographic tran- fective in holding off the resource depletion and sition would automatically follow in countries who environmental degradation forecast by scientists move from low to middle income dynamics. And for and demographers? Based on these lessons, how many, family planning services — primarily abortion do we best address population size and growth to but in some cases also contraception — are simply meet humanity’s resource needs and minimize its contrary to basic moral precepts. effect on the biosphere? 44 |THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2017, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org. Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, March/April 2017 “Absent iron-fisted global “There is, sadly, no sign rationing of material that an abandoning of resources, decoupling economic growth-mania between human or humane population population size and shrinkage could occur ecological damage is in the critical next few impossible” decades” Joe Bish Paul R. Ehrlich Director of Issue Advocacy President Population Media Center Stanford University Center for Conservation biology “Demystifying the wood “Too slow or even fuel value chain and negative growth rates pursuing one that is also pose risks to the more sustainable as sustainability of population pressures otherwise successful increase would be a public policy game changer” interventions” Wanjira Mathai Jaime Nadal Roig Director Representative to Brazil Partnership for Women’s United Nations Population Entrepreneurship in Renewables Fund “Environmental “Any long-term policies should focus on formula for a increasing sustainability. sustainable peace Above all, they should requires demographic reject a view that there stability — a state is any human life that is that is still disturbingly dispensable” elusive” Lucia A. Silecchia Alon Tal Vice Provost for Policy Chair, Department of Public Policy Catholic University Tel Aviv University ® Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute , Washington, D.C. www.eli.org. MARCH/APRIL 2017 | 45 Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, March/April 2017 THE DEBATE Undue confidence in demographic replacement fertility, should be out- Exceeding transition theory, which assumes “eco- lawed. Singapore, with a fertility rate Benchmark nomic development is the best con- of 1.3, currently pays over $6,800 for a traceptive,” will certainly not suffice. third child. Projections Persistently high fertility in economi- Importantly, the medical defini- cally growing, lower middle-income tion of pregnancy should guide legal By Joe Bish countries like Zambia and Nigeria — systems everywhere. Pregnancy oc- along with well-documented “stalls” in curs when a fertilized egg implants in uadrupling from 1.86 billion fertility decline across Africa — signal the uterine wall; as the Guttmacher people in 1920 to today’s 7.48 dangerous unreliability in the notion. Institute notes, this fact distinguishes billion, the human popula- A more instructive effort was en- “between a contraceptive that prevents Q tion has grown in a man- gineered by Iran, starting in 1986, pregnancy and an abortifacient that ner that is both temporally swift and when its population was 49 million. terminates it.” In the Philippines, faith- cumulatively massive. In the scientific With women averaging 6 children, the based petitioners have delayed imple- literature, correlations between this annual growth rate was 3.2 percent. mentation of the progressive Respon- ballooning population and ecological The government faced prospects of a sible Parenthood and Reproductive degradation are omnipresent. Biodi- population doubling in just 20 years Health Act of 2012 for over four years versity is in perilous decline. A 2015 — posing monumental challenges by arguing, speciously, that hormonal study in Science found humanity has for food security, education, and jobs. contraceptive implants are abortifa- transgressed four of nine planetary In response, Tehran adopted explicit cients. Hamstrung by such inanity, boundaries, increasing risks that hu- demographic goals: by 2009, cut the citizens now face impending shortages man activity will drive Earth “into a annual growth rate to 2.2 percent of the popular contraceptives. much less hospitable state.” and the fertility rate to 3.5 births per Humanity is capable of sparking Meanwhile, the flagship United woman. rapid global fertility decline with Nations population projection — To support this initiative, the gov- justice-oriented, human rights-en- the “medium variant” — assumes ernment deployed print-media, TV, hancing interventions. In addition to incremental decreases in global child- radio, and pre-marriage counseling to policies like Iran’s, mass-media “green bearing to the year 2100, from today’s educate the public about population entertainment” initiatives can edu- global average of 2.5 children per growth. Family planning was encour- cate audiences about small family size woman to 1.99 then. If these assump- aged to reduce poverty and enhance decisions and environmental conser- tions prove accurate, 3.7 billion ad- access to health and education for fu- vation through the use of behavioral ditional people are expected, totaling a ture generations. The status of women role-models, featured in soap operas still growing 11.21 billion. was boosted considerably, as secondary and video games. Such strategies are Ecologically speaking, this “busi- education was opened up to females recommended by Section 11.23 of ness-as-usual” scenario is unacceptable, and university enrollment for women the seminal Programme of Action of useful only as a motivational bench- soared. the 1994 Cairo International Confer- mark to measure progress against. The results were dramatic. The ence on Population and Develop- An accelerated slowing of growth, an government’s goals were accomplished ment. end to total growth well before 2100, by 1993, some 16 years ahead of The need is elemental. Humans and achievement of a far smaller peak schedule. Today, Iran’s women average have fixed minimum requirements population size than ensconced in the 1.65 children, population is expected of sustenance and space, yet pursue medium variant will define success. to peak at mid-century at 92 million, improved living standards when- To achieve these objectives, conditions likely decreasing to 70 million by ever possible. Regulatory oversight to must be created to facilitate far more 2100. ameliorate environmental impacts of rapid declines in child-bearing than Iran’s success can inform policy those pursuits are necessary, but not medium variant assumptions. anywhere fertility is above replacement sufficient, to achieve a sustainable Opportunities are ample: the global level, but reformers must remain vigi- civilization. Absent iron-fisted global measure of 2.5 children is an “average lant against authoritarian restrictions rationing of material resources — an of extremes.” It includes Niger’s high on fecundity. For example, from 1996 unattractive delusion — transforma- fertility (7.6), South Korea’s low (1.2), to 2000, sterilization without informed tive decoupling between human popu- and everything in between. Overall, consent of an estimated 300,000 Peru- lation size and ecological damage is 104 countries have fertility greater vians is attributable to the discredited impossible. than the “replacement level” of 2.1. idea of “population control.” Likewise, These countries are prime candidates cash incentives
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