Comment by Gordon Hocking
Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population Inc. (AESP) is an independent environmental organisation dedicated to achieving an Australian society which is in balance with nature and, to this end, actively lobbies on population/environmental issues at federal, state/territory and local government levels.
Australians impact on the environment in two ways: by our numbers and our practices. Our impact often causes ecological damage beyond our horizon; we don't see the damage that our demand for a materialistic lifestyle creates on ecosystems far distant from where we live and work. It is precisely because of our passion for economic growth and materialistic lifestyles that our numbers must be brought under control.
AESP is concerned about the impact of Australia's total population — including permanent residents, long-stay temporary residents, and short-stay visitors — on Australian (and overseas) ecosystems. It is therefore as equally concerned with Australia's domestic natural increase as with population increase from international movements of people.
Australia's population is currently 18.7 million. Even though Australians have only 1.8 children on average, births still outnumber deaths by almost two to one. This is because our population is so young — we have an inordinate number of men and women still in their child bearing years.
Many of Australia's leading scientists claim that ecological reality in Australia, a mainly arid continent with low nutrient soils and El Nino-induced erratic rainfall, requires us to stabilise our population at the lowest possible level at the earliest possible time in order to achieve sustainability.
Professor Ian Lowe, chair of the 1996 State of the Environment Report Advisory Council, summed up the environmental concerns of scientists this way: "There is no prospect — even in principle — of a sustainable pattern of development unless we devise a socially acceptable way of stabilising the human population."
AESP calls for balanced (number in equals number out) international movements of people. This is not an isolationist position — each year seven million people arrive in and seven million depart from Australia, of which about 30,000 leave permanently and another 70,000 Australian residents leave for a long-term stay away. It would therefore allow both interaction and cultural exchange. And we could boost our refugee intake by 25%.
Balanced international movements would deliver the lowest possible population peak — about 20.5 million by 2031. Australia's population would then decline slowly, reaching today's level by 2051 and reaching a lower ecologically sustainable level some time later.
Stabilising population alone will not achieve ecological sustainability, nor will it address the serious concern of international equity.
The developed countries — only 20% of the world's population — use huge quantities of non-renewable fossil fuel to consume 80% of the planet's output of resources. International equity and ecological necessity demand that we in the developed nations abandon our totally unrealistic, growth-dependent economic system, and the materialistic lifestyles it promotes.
International equity cannot be achieved by moving the world's poor to affluent countries — sheer weight of numbers precludes this. The combined populations of the present-day immigrant nations (north and South America, and Australasia) add up to less than the world's last 10 years' population growth. Each geographic region must develop its own path to ecological sustainability and must share information and the planet's resources.
Our existing economic system is a major hurdle. It is not designed to operate in a static, let alone a shrinking market. Growth is revered, yet endless growth is absurd.
It's time for another look at how we humans organise our society — how we relate to nature and to each other. It's time for us to adopt a hierarchy of goals, which gives primacy to the protection of our life-support systems. The economy is just a tool of society, it is not an equal partner with environment or society.
By adopting our new paradigm of balance, referencing all policies and programs to the overarching goal of protecting our life-support systems, we — and other nations — will find ecological sustainability within our reach.
Once we've halted and reversed growth in both our own numbers and our per-capita consumption, and achieved an ecologically sustainable population, we can share our experiences and knowledge with other nations to assist them in their own struggle to achieve ecological sustainability.
[Gordon Hocking is vice-president of AESP.]