Population and Environmental Dynamics
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Philippines: Joseph and his three brothers learned to fish using traditional methods of fishing from their father. After fishing, they would return to their home on the shores of Bagongon Island, trade some fish with their neighbors in exchange for rice, grains, or vegetables, and prepare the rest for dinner. There was always enough fish for feeding all seven children in the family and earning some cash as well.
That was 20 years ago, and now the population of the village has more than doubled in size. Like most others, this coastal village is rural, remote and has limited basic services like drinking water, sewage treatment, education and health care. Joseph and his wife already have three children and find it difficult to feed them and still have fish to sell. As the population of the village grows and the fish harvest per person declines, the villagers are increasingly turning to the forests and converting land for agricultural use.
Joseph and his wife understand that their family size affects their ability to provide their children with opportunities for a good life. But since they live far from the nearest health clinic, they don't know much about family planning and don't have regular access to contraceptive supplies.
I'm a Conservationist-Why Should I Care About Population?
The story above Joseph and his family illustrates how economics, family size, natural resources, land use, and other socioeconomic issues are interconnected in many remote areas that are key to conservation around the world. Consider the following facts: - More than one billion people now live in the earth's biodiversity hotspots.
- In 90% of the hotspots, population growth rates are above the global average.
- Within a country, fertility is generally higher in rural areas around protected areas than in the rest of the nation, usually due to cultural values, poor access to and knowledge of reproductive health, and low levels of education.
- Migrants are often drawn to frontier areas around protected areas in search of economic gain or livelihood opportunities based on resource extraction.
- Fertility in rural areas tends to decrease with increasing access to reproductive health care and information, family planning methods, and women's education.
Demographics and the Environment: A Simplified Equation for Human Impact
It is useful to think of the impact that humans have on the ecosystem as:
impact = number of people X rate of resource use of an individual
Most of the community conservation work we do is meant to decrease the last part of this equation-the "rate of resource use of an individual." The "number of people" using the resources from an ecosystem is what makes up "population." Working in Population- Environment means to work on the left-hand side of the equation in order to reduce human impact on the environment.
Viewing population growth in combination with per capita increases in resource use allows us to get a clearer picture of the scale of population impacts on natural resources. Some of the common problems that arise from this combination of factors include shortages of arable land and fresh water, depletion of fisheries and harvesting forests in protected areas, most of which are also threats to biodiversity.
The number of people in your conservation area may be increasing through one or both of two ways: natural growth (i.e., human reproduction) and/or in-migration. In addition, the density and pattern of human settlements, such as the degree of urbanization, determines the dynamics of the human population-environment relationship and has important consequences for conservation and resource use. Some of the tools and data sets presented in this section show you how to determine the current make-up (by age, sex, etc.) and trends and growth of the human population living in an ecosystem, essential information for threat analyses and planning for the future.
What's the link between family planning and conservation?
Since the rapid growth of families and communities around protected areas affects the environmental conditions there, it makes sense that addressing this growth will affect the longevity of the ecosystem as well. But rural communities tend to be poorly served by social services such as health and education. People in rural areas are often unable to access professional reproductive health advice and contraceptives. Low education levels are doubly problematic for conservation because we know that increased education for young girls leads them to marry later and to have fewer children. This gap in meeting needs is reflected by statistics that show rural communities tend to have a substantial unmet demand for family planning-that is, there are a great number of women and men who don't want to have more children but are not using a family planning method. Helping address this unmet demand by ensuring people have the appropriate information and services to make wise choices regarding their own fertility is, therefore, an important way to support natural resource management and conservation planning. Some of the tools in this section explain how to integrate reproductive health issues into other project activities. There are also a number of case studies and lessons learned documents about integrating population and environment.
How does human migration affect the environment?
Effective responses to population pressure created by migration into an area high in natural resources are less well understood and documented. Human migration is a phenomenon with significant causes and effects related to the environment, human health, and economics. The relative wealth of natural resources in protected areas and buffer zones around them frequently attracts migrants seeking a higher quality of life, moving in from areas where the environment and resources are degraded. People also move to frontier areas with high biodiversity (e.g. forests, coasts) for agricultural opportunities. In conflict areas, refugees and internally displaced people can have huge impacts on the environment. Field staff in conservation organizations often see the tremendous impact of the growth of human communities from migration, but do not know what they can do about it.
Several tools and case studies in this CD-ROM can help conservation planners and project managers grapple with these issues. Partnering with governmental health, geography and statistical agencies can oftentimes provide good data sources and spatial analyses for your project area about human population growth and movements. Increasingly, conservation practitioners find it very useful to overlay spatial analyses of demographic data with conservation data including threats, protected areas or areas of high endemism. Projections of human population growth are also very applicable in conservation planning, as they can indicate where new or existing threats might exacerbate protected area management. Whatever the strategy, natural resource managers, park managers, forest rangers and other environmental extension agents are in a strong position to address environmental threats related to human population.
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