Discussion Form Question
Culture & Environment: Anthropological Approaches to Environmental Issues ANT3CAE
WEEK 3: Population and Environment
Dr Nicholas Smith
Plan for session
• Situate the problem: population – environment
• Definitions • Demography - Anthropology • Population – environment:
arguments/theories/trends • Global population through lens of
historical ecology 2
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Global Population: a long- term view
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/World-Population-1800-2100.png
Global population: UN predictions
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Global population continues to rise but fertility rates
dropping
5 http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/fertility/world-fertility-patterns-2015.pdf
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Fertility rate - global decline
Influenced by: • access to contraceptives; • health care improvements; • women’s access to education and
employment; • widespread shift from rural to urban
livelihoods; • diminishing cultural/religious pressures
for large families. 10
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Ecological Definition: Populations
• ‘A population is a group of individuals of the same species that occupy a given area and breed with each other… populations are units through which energy flows, matter cycles and information is transmitted’ (Moran 2008: 62)
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Demography (Barfield 1997)
• Study of causes and consequences of population growth/decline
• Quantitative emphasis: population size, density, age structure, sex ratios, growth rate, births, deaths, migration
• Distinctive methodological toolkit, however invokes many of the concepts that are used in any social/cultural analysis
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Anthropology of Demography
• For anthropologists:
‘demography’s numerical concepts embody primary and moral dimensions of human behaviour and identify processes and structural relationships that profoundly influence the direction of social and cultural change.’ (Barfield 1997: 110)
‘For anthropology, demography is best understood as human population ecology sensitized to the moral and political dimensions of human lives. (Barfield 1997: 111)
Global Population: demographic factors
• birth rate • mortality rate • migration • Conflict; disease (e.g. HIV/AIDS); famine • fertility rate
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Global Population: “the demographic divide”
• “Developing” and “developed” • “Poor”/”affluent” • “Global north”/ “global south” • “Core” and “periphery”
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Global population density
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Global population: cartogram
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http://i.imgur.com/NKiC8gH.png
Arguments about the causal relationship between
population-environment • Thomas Malthus 18th C • Neo-Malthusians (1970s+) • Anti-Malthusians: Danish economist -
Ester Boserup (1960s); US economist Julian Simon (1980s-90s)
• Biologists Ehrlich & Commoner and env. scientist Holdren - IPAT equation (1970s)
• Population - ecological footprint (ongoing) 18
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Thomas Malthus (1798)
• All human communities tend to increase exponentially if enough food
• Once humans have turned enough land into agricultural and pastoral production struggle to meet needs of growing population
• Limits to population growth: disease, famine, violent conflict (=human suffering)
Neo-Malthusians: the Club of Rome (1972)
• An ecological version of Malthus • Human population growing faster than
our capacity to support ourselves from finite resources i.e. soil, water, forests.
• “Limits to growth” – “carrying capacity” • Reducing human population will avert
catastrophe • Focus on fertility rates in “developing”
countries 20
Neo-Malthusians: the Population “Bomb”
(Paul & Anne Ehrlich 1972)
“The explosive growth of human population is the most significant terrestrial event of the past million millennia … no geological event in a billion years … has posed a threat to terrestrial life comparable to that of human overpopulation”
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Earth’s resources finite, yes; but human ingenuity
infinite (Boserup 1965) •Population growth stimulates technological change and agricultural intensification (not agricultural/technological advance that enables population growth) •Population density results in land scarcity which triggers agricultural intensification through application of improved technology (e.g. better tools, irrigation, terracing and shortening of fallows)
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the IPAT equation (Commoner, Erhlich & Holdren 1970s)
• Common assumption that greater population = greater environmental degradation
• IPAT equation: Human Impact = Population x Affluence (per capita level of consumption) x Technology (I = PAT)
• More people does not necessarily mean more emissions (ecological footprint)
• Following Boserup, higher populations may lead to less harmful environmental impact
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Per capita global ecological footprint
Per capita global ecological footprint: WWF Living Planet Report 2018
25https://www.wwf.org.au/knowledge-centre/living-planet-report#gs.zpbsjd
Ecological footprint per capita
• The countries with the biggest ecological footprint per person are: • 1) Qatar (2.6 million approx.) • 2) Kuwait (4.2 Million approx.) • 3) United Arab Emirates (9.5 million approx.) • 4) Denmark (5.7 million approx.) • 5) United States (326 million approx.) • 6) Belgium (11.4 million approx.) • 7) Australia (24 million approx.) • 8) Canada (35 million approx.) • 9) Netherlands (17 million approx.) • 10) Ireland (4.7 million approx.)
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Ecological footprint per capita
• The 10 countries with the smallest ecological footprint per person are:
• 1) Occupied Palestinian Territory (pop: 2.7 million approx.) • 2) Timor Leste (pop: 1.4 million approx.) • 3) Afghanistan (pop: 35 million approx.) • 4) Haiti (pop: 11 million approx.) • 5) Eritrea (pop: 5 million approx.) • 6) Bangladesh (pop: 166 million approx.) • 7) Rwanda (pop: 12 million approx.) • 8) Pakistan (pop: 200 million approx.) • 9) Democratic Republic of Congo (pop: 83 million approx.) • 10) Nepal (pop: 29 million approx.)
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Population, consumption and climate change (Wilk 2009)
• Consumer economy in ‘developed’ countries a way of life based on moving and transforming huge amounts of materials and energy
• US individual uses approx 60 X as much material each year as a citizen of ‘developing’ country i.e. Mozambique
• China and India even while consuming less on per capita basis now rival national levels of consumption and carbon emissions of ‘developed’ countries
Historical ecology: Mayan population “collapse”
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Historical ecology • An approach to human-environment interactions
that incorporates (past and future) long-term perspective (often over several centuries)
• Humans as integral feature of all ecosystems • “may be applied to spatial and temporal frames at
any resolution, it finds particularly rich sources of data at the “landscape” scale, where human activity and cognition interact with biophysical systems, and where archaeological, historical, ethnographic, environmental, and other records are plentiful”
(http://www.herculeslandscapes.eu/blog.php?what_is_historical_ecology&id=10) 30
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An archaeological puzzle: why did the Maya
population collapse? • Maya civilisation reached its peak around
700 -800 AD • At the time one of the most culturally rich
and densely populated societies in the world
• Central authority collapsed and elaborate cities fell into disuse well before Spanish colonisers arrived
• Most popular explanation is ecological collapse
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Hypothesis 1: an ecological explanation (Townsend 2000)
• Mayans attempted to live on maize as a staple food in a tropical lowland environment while under increasing population pressure
• Deforestation, the invasion of grasses, soil depletion, and erosion cut productivity
• Nutrition and health deteriorate • Vulnerability to diseases, diseases spread aided
by dense settlement • political unrest • Led to dispersal and depopulation.
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Hypothesis 2: the Malthusian explanation
(Diamond 2005)
• 5 pronged collapse of Maya civilisation: • (1) population growth outstripped available
resources (breach of carrying capacity) • (2) deforestation and hillside erosion: soil
nutrient loss • (3) conflict over resources • (4) prolonged drought (the Great Warming) • (5) social unrest ignored by Mayan elites
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Hypothesis 3: Maya as intensive agriculturalists
(Sutton & Anderson 2010)
• Four major dimensions to their agricultural system: • (1) Complex system of orchards interspersed throughout
the forest (agro forestry) for food lumber and aesthetics. • (2) Large numbers of small terraced gardens • (3) Complex system of chinampas in areas such as swamps
not normally thought (by scientists) to be suited to agriculture. The canals b/w the raised fields were home to turtles and fish, which were both eaten.
• (4) Extensive swidden agriculture
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Hypothesis 3: Maya as intensive agriculturalists
(Sutton & Anderson 2010)
• Maya culture ultimately collapsed in central lowlands but survived in northern and southern regions of Maya territory
• Collapse most likely as result of drought • Other possible causal factors: deforestation;
shortening of swidden cycles; erosion and/or silting of chinampas;
• ongoing warfare.
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Summary • Historical ecology - Can we learn from the past? (Maya example) • Common assumption that greater population = greater environmental
degradation (ongoing influence of [neo]Malthusian perspectives) • This view modified to an extent by IPAT equation • More people does not necessarily mean more emissions (population
growth in context of ecological footprint); Boserup (1965) suggests higher populations may lead to less harmful environmental impact (Maya example)
• Population, reproductive rights and health, gender equality, the environment and development all inter-related
• Moral and political dimension to issues of population, environment, consumption
• Think demographically: Global population continues to rise however global fertility is declining.
• Issue of environmental impact of any given population through lens of political ecology yields particular insights; factors include: gender equality; inequality; power –who holds it and who doesn’t (capacity to make decisions and good governance); global–local forces; impact of colonisation etc.
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References ABS 2008. Population Projections, Australia, 2006 to 2101, Australian Government Publishing Service:
Canberra. Catalogue No. 3222.0 . Barfield, T. 1997. The Dictionary of Anthropology. Blackwell Publishing: Mas, USA & Oxford, UK Boserup, E. 1965. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under
Population Pressure. Aldine, Chicago. Brown, L. G. Gardner & B. Halweil. 2006. ‘Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions to the Population
Problem’ in Haenn, N. & R. Wilk. (eds) The Environment in Anthropology, New York University Press; New York & London, pp.80-86.
Durham, W. 1995, ‘Political Ecology and Environmental Destruction in Latin America’. In The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America, M. Painter & W. Durham, (eds.) Anne Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Ehrlich. P. 1968, The Population Bomb. Sierra Club/Ballantine Books, New York. Ethelston, S. 2006. ‘Gender, Population, Environment’ In Haenn, N. & R. Wilk. 2006. The Environment
in Anthropology, New York University Press; New York & London, pp.113-117. Kunwar, R. and R. W. Bussmann 2008. ‘Ethnobotany in the Nepal Himalaya’. Journal of Ethnobiology
and Ethnomedicine, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 24-32. Notestein, F. 1945. ‘Population - The Long View’ in P.W. Shultz (ed) Food for the World. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. Robbins, P. (ed) 2007. Encyclopedia of Environment and Society vol. 4. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Accessed 23 February 2017. Stonich, S. 1993. “I Am Destroying the Land!”: The Political Ecology of Poverty and Environmental
Destruction in Honduras. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. Sutton. M. & E. Anderson. 2010. Introduction to Cultural Ecology. Altamira Press: London, New York Wallerstein, I. 1974, 1980 & 1989 (vols. 1-3). The Modern World System. Academic Press, New York. Wilk, R. 2009. ‘Consuming Ourselves to Death’ in Crate & Nuttall Anthropology and Climate Change:
from encounters to actions, S. Crate & M. Nuttall (eds.) Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, pp 265--276.