The role of population growth in environmental and resource deterioration in developing countries.

Viewing the problems of environmental deterioration in developing countries as a consequence of growing populations and rising subsistence requirements oversimplifies the present situation. In many regions the problems are much worse than would follow from the sheer increase in numbers. It is population growth in conjuction with other processes which is resulting in much more rapid deterioration. This discussion draws attention to and illustrates the consequences of these processes. 1 of these consequences is inequality in access to natural resources and particularly to land. Many areas now experiencing serious environmental stress are those like the East African highlands where much land was alienated during the colonial period compressing the resource base for indigenous agriculture and husbandry. Unequal access to land is pronounced in most developing countries. The implications for natural environments are significant. A table shows the extent of this inequality; it reproduces a compilation of data for 83 developing countries. Another consequence is commercialization. The relation between commercialization of a resource and population growth is not simple. Commercialization may be accompanied by population decline as in the American Indian case when 1 society is overwhelmed by another exploitative society. It may encourage rapid population growth. Commercialization may be impeded by the sparseness of population not only because of the lack of domestic markets but also because of the lack of labor force and infrastructure. Commercialization by converting a limited an inelastic subsistence demand to a limitless and elastic export demand can lead to much more rapid rates of exploitation than would be implied by population growth alone. The 3rd closely related process is the widespread breakdown of traditional resource management systems under external commercial and political pressure. From the standpoint of ecological sustainability most traditional systems were brilliantly successful in using fragile and variable natural environments by comparison with "modern" attempts to "develop" the same resources. The remainder of this paper offers some experiments with a model of renewable resource exploitation comparing the effects of population growth operating purely as a force expanding subsistence demands with the effects of such growth combined with the other processes discussed: conversion of a subsistence demand to a commercial demand and conversion of a resource managed for maximum sustainable usufruct to an open access resource.