Population and Resources: An Exploration of Reproductive and Environmental Externalities

This article identifies four types of social externalities associated with fertility behavior. Three are shown to be pronatalist in their effects. These three are exemplified by the way theories of economic growth treat fertility and natural resources, the way population growth and economic stress in poor countries are seen by environmental and resource economists, and the way development economists accommodate environmental stress in their analysis of poverty. It is shown that the fourth type of externality, in which children are regarded as an end in themselves, can even provide an invidious link between fertility decisions and the use of the local natural‐resource base among poor rural households in poor countries. The fourth type is used to develop a theory of fertility transitions in the contemporary world; the theory views such transitions as disequilibrium phenomena.     

Institutions,Incentives, and Resource Use Conflicts: The Case of Biscayne Bay,Florida

Landuse changes and commercial developments along coastlines often put intense pressure on coastal environments. In this paper we examine market and political factors that have influenced the exploitation of Biscayne Bay in South Florida, and the evolution of institutions and policies that govern the Bay's uses. While public enthusiasm to save the Bay continues to be strong, resolving conflicts among interest groups needs government intervention. One of the largest yet weakest interest groups is the general public, whose physical access to the estuarine resources has been reduced over time due to the private ownership of most properties around the Bay. Our paper suggests certain regulatory, economic, and institutional mechanisms needed to achieve more efficient and equitable resource use outcomes.     

Renewable resources and population growth: Past experiences and future prospects

The links between population growth, resource use, and environmental quality are too complex to permit straightforward generalizations about direct causal relationships. Rapid population growth, however, has increased the number of poor people in developing countries, thus contributing to the degradation of the environment and the renewable resources of land, water, and nonhuman species on which humans depend. Demands of the rich industrial countries have also generated environmental pressures and have been foremost in the consumption of the so-called nonrenewable resources: fossil fuels, metals, and minerals. On the other hand, population and economic growth have also stimulated technological and management changes that help supply and use resources more effectively. Wide variations in the possible ultimate size of world population and technological change make future interrelationships of population, resources, and the environment uncertain as well as complex. But those interrelationships are mediated largely by government policies. Responsible governments can bring about a sustainable balance in the population/resource/environment equation by adopting population and development policies that experience has shown could reduce future population numbers in developing countries below the additional five billion indicated in current United Nations medium projections, coupled with proven management programs in both developing and developed countries that could brake and reverse the depletion and degradation of natural resources.This article is adapted from: Robert Repetto, "Population, Resources, Environment; An Uncertain Future,"Population Bulletin, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 1987).     

Population,resources, environment: an uncertain future

This issue analyzes the economic and environmental consequences of rapid population growth in developing countries (LDC), the population decline in developed countries, the limits that life on a finite planet impose on economic and demographic expansion and progress, and the proper governmental response to promote the welfare of its current and future citizens. The links between population growth, resource use, and environmental quality are too complex to permit straightforward generalizations about direct causal relationships. However, rapid population growth has increased the number of poor people in LDC, thus contributing to degradation of the environment and the renewable resources of land, water, and nonhuman species on which humans depend. Demands of the rich industrial countries have also generated environmental pressures and have been foremost in consumption of the nonrenewable resources of fossil fuels, metals, and nonmetallic minerals. On the other hand, population and economic growth have also stimulated technological and management changes that help supply and use resources more effectively. Wide variations in the possible ultimate size of world population and accelerating technological change make future interrelationships of population, resources, and the environment uncertain as well as complex. Those interrelationships are mediated largely by government policies. Responsible governments can bring about a sustainable balance in the population/resource/environment equation by adopting population and development policies that experience has shown could reduce future population numbers in LDC below the additional 5 billion indicated in current UN medium projections. This coupled with proven management programs in both LDC and developed countries could brake and reverse the depletion and degradation of natural resources.     

我国人口与海洋渔业资源系统仿真模型的构建

在对以往研究文献进行评述的基础上 ,本文构建了适合我国国情的人口与海洋渔业资源的仿真系统 ,其中主要包括人口、海洋渔业生产、水产品消费和海洋渔业资源四个子系统 ,这对于定量仿真分析提供了重要的理论框架。文章最后还对构建我国人口与海洋渔业资源系统仿真模型的思路、研究方法等做了初步的讨论。     

Marine protected areas and children’s dietary diversity in the Philippines

Fish living around the coral reefs in the Philippines provide livelihoods for more than a million local fishers and are an important source of protein for coastal communities. However, this rich resource is at risk from myriad threats, which consequently threaten human livelihoods, nutrition, and health. In this paper, we examine the degree to which marine protected areas (MPAs), which aim to conserve marine biodiversity, are associated with improved nutritional outcomes in children under age 5. This analysis, which uses data from the 2008 Philippines Demographic and Health Survey and MPA data from the Coastal Conservation and Education Fund, found a positive association between MPAs and children’s dietary diversity when the MPAs were located closer than 2 km to a child’s community. MPA characteristics such as age or type of management were not consistently associated with dietary diversity. These results suggest a positive association of proximity to MPAs with certain aspects of children’s diet.     

Resources,environment, and population: the nature of future limits

The balance between world supplies of resources and the demands presented by population growth in the recent past, during the period to 2025, and for the long term is examined. Focus is on the issues, the past in terms of socioeconomic indicators, past trends in market places, and specific evidence of depletion; future demands in terms of population projections and growth in per capita demand; resource supplies to 2025; ultimate resource production possibilities; environmental constraints and risks (problems capable of control at reasonable cost, other domestic environmental problems, and potentially severe global problems); and implications. Improvement in socioeconomic indicators, relatively stable resource market prices, along with evidence of resource and environmental changes suggest that thus far the world as a whole has been able to win the race between demand and supply. For the next 50 years, during which a slowdown is projected in population growth rates and resource consumption, the most important problems to be faced are associated with the unequal distribution of resources and the transition problems of moving from 1 resource regime to another in an orderly fashion. For the long term, a projected equilibrium population of 10-12 billion can probably be sustained at a decent standard of living by more equitable distribution of food and shifts from less to more abundant resources. Ultimately, environmental and security problems associated with growing energy production and use such as increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and nuclear proliferation may be the most difficult to resolve. Although cessation of population growth would help, it does not by itself constitute a solution to the world's resource problems. Both the causes and the symptoms need to be worked on simultaneously. Understanding the true nature of the world's resource and environmental limitations is a 1st step in that direction.     

人力资本与社会资源获得:东北国企的实证分析

在东北社会变迁和体制改变的大背景下,东北老工业基地人力资本和人力资源的社会效应问题比较突出。在实证数据分析的支持下,东北国企干部与职工的人力资本对特定社会资源的摄取呈现出不同的效果,展现了人力资本的差异性作用。基于干部和职工的比较分析,认识到东北老工业基地人力资本对社会资源摄取的差异性作用,可以促进东北老工业基地不同职业群体的和谐发展。     

Environmental hazard and migration intentions in a coastal area in Ghana: a case of sea flooding

Recently, there has been significant debate about whether ‘environmental migration’ can constitute a form of adaptation to environmental change, as opposed to forced or flight migration. The Foresight Report on Migration and Environmental Change (2011) suggested environmental factors are one driver of migration, as well as political, social, economic and demographic drivers, and that—under the right conditions—migration can be a form of adaptation to changing climatic conditions. However, this is dependent on migrants having adequate social and financial capital to undertake beneficial types of migration; it further argues that environmental change may result in ‘trapped populations’ whereby people who lack the necessary resources to re-establish livelihoods elsewhere may be left exposed to increasingly severe environmental shocks and stresses in situ. Research on the climate-migration nexus in West Africa has largely focused on out-migration from the semi-arid Sahel with more limited evidence about how sea flooding interacts with migration flows. This paper attempts to help fill this knowledge gap. Using data from a representative survey of households across three coastal communities in Ghana’s Volta River Delta, this paper concludes that exposure to sea flooding may not be a primary cause of out-migration as other community, economic and political factors influence migration intentions and decisions. Thus, it is important for planned adaptation interventions to be strengthened in situ to enable households, particularly farming households, sustain their livelihoods.     

Job Satisfaction Among Fishers in the Dominican Republic

This paper reflects on the results of a job satisfaction study of small-scale fishers in the Dominican Republic. The survey results suggest that, although fishers are generally satisfied with their occupations, they also have serious concerns. These concerns include anxieties about the level of earnings, the condition of marine resources and the performance of government officials engaged in management. Such worries are offset, at least to some degree, by high levels of satisfaction regarding the communities of which respondents are part, as well as the healthfulness and worth of the job. The ambivalence characterising fishers?? views of their occupation carries through in their responses to general questions on willingness to shift to another type of fishing, leave the occupation altogether and advise young persons to enter fishing. However, the survey results also indicate significant variation between different parts of the coastline.     

Extractive workload: a mixed-method approach for investigating the socially differentiated effects of land-use/land-cover changes in a southern Zambian frontier

In rural regions across the globe, local natural resources (i.e., “bush” resources) are central to meeting daily household needs. Culturally-influenced gender- and age-based divisions of labor guide the harvesting of these resources and, as a result, shifts in resource availability will differentially affect women, men, girls, and boys. This research brief presents results of an innovative pilot project designed to assess the socially differentiated effects of land-use/land-cover changes (LULCC) on Gwembe Tonga migrants living in Kulaale, an agricultural frontier in southern Zambia. Integrating existing analyses of remotely sensed imagery with a seasonal resource survey and mapping exercise (n = 20 homesteads), this study finds the average extractive workloads (mean annual distance traveled for the collection of bush resources) of women, men, girls, and boys to be both unequal and contrary to recent speculations about the distinctive vulnerability of adult women to environmental change. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic methods—including semi-structured interviews (n = 101), a homestead labor survey (n = 38), participant observation, and references to over fifty years of anthropological research—the author identifies additional variables—including the demographic structure of Kulaale homesteads and the flexible division of subsistence labor—that color Gwembe Tonga migrants’ aged and gendered experiences of LULCC. The study adds important nuance to our understanding of natural resource practices and individual-level vulnerability, particularly in the face of contemporary environmental change.     

人力资本积累下的技术进步对能源消耗型产业经济增长的影响

可持续的经济增长受到技术、资本、能源、环境等诸多要素投入的影响。本文构建并刻画了基于能源与环境约束的能源消耗型产业在考虑人力资本积累(涉及到原始能源的二次开发利用和产业污染物的治理)的技术进步影响下,实现其产业的稳态经济增长路径,并尝试分析了技术进步形成的污染治理和能源回收再利用对产业经济增长的影响。     

户籍制度改革与流动人口在流入地的居留意愿及其制约机制

本文基于一项在福建省沿海地区所做的问卷调查 ,探讨了在当前户籍制度改革中流动人口在流入地的居留意愿及其制约机制这一重要问题。结果表明 ,即使没有户籍制度这一障碍 ,流动人口中的大部分还没有把在流入地定居作为其最终目标。流动人口的居留意愿与其在流入地的生存能力和家庭策略、市场需求波动和企业用工策略等一系列非户籍因素有着密切的关系。本文认为 ,在积极推动户籍制度改革的同时 ,要在户籍制度改革之外的更广泛领域考察与流动人口有关的政策问题。     

Emergy Measures of Carrying Capacity to Evaluate Economic Investments

This paper outlines a method for determining carrying capacity for economic investments based on an emergy evaluation of the environmental resources of a region. Using data from tourism development in Mexico and Papua New Guinea, the concept of carrying capacity is related to intensity of development, environmental support area, and the fit of economic development in local environments and economies.Emergy, a unit of resource use and work potential, is used to quantitatively evaluate intensity of development. Emergy evaluation is briefly described and the evaluations of tourism used to further explain the methodology. The total annual resource use for the tourist resorts and the economies in which they are embedded (including inputs of renewable and nonrenewable resources and purchased goods and services) was calculated and converted to emergy units. The renewable resource base and an Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR), are proposed as a means for determining both long term and short term carrying capacity respectively. The concept of sustainable development is related to the net emergy benefits that result from development. Expressed as a ratio of the amount of emergy received by the local economy to the amount that is exported (embodied in tourists), sustainability is suggested to result from a positive emergy trade balance.     

提升福建省人口承载力问题的探讨

基于人口与资源环境关系紧张的现实,特别是进入21世纪,我国提出以科学发展观为指导,构建资源节约型、环境友好型社会,追求人口、经济、资源、环境的全面、协调与可持续发展,围绕人口承载力的研究成果不断出现。本文通过运用定性与定量相结合的方法分析了福建省人口、资源、环境所决定的人口承载力现状,在此基础上提出了福建省提升人口承载力、坚持走可持续发展道路的对策性建议。     

Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon

This paper seeks to broaden the application of demographyto environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature aggregate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household life cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Amazon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic characteristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of theeffects of farmer background, neighborhood context, institutional context, and off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinct environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal micro-level demographic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications forfuture changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest household life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.     

论可持续发展原则与区域开发

可持续发展已经成为当代社会经济发展的基本原则,它对区域开发提出了新的要求,即人类的区域开发活动必须遵循与自然生态系统相协调的原则,区域开发应该具有全局性、科学性、前瞻性、系统性和稳定性。为了在区域开发中贯彻可持续发展原则,就要树立新的环境资源价值观,扩大对资源范围的认识,建立合理的资源配置机制,保证资源开发的可持续性,才能实现区域经济与生态环境的协调发展。     

A GIS-Based Interval Fuzzy Linear Programming for Optimal Land Resource Allocation at a City Scale

A geography information system based interval fuzzy linear programming model for city land resource allocation is developed in this study for dealing with land-use planning. The developed model improves upon the existing land resource allocation model with advantages in uncertainty reflection, model coupling, data availability and spatial analysis. The model can deal with uncertainties expressed as not only discrete interval values but also fuzzy sets. Therefore, it can effectively reflect dynamic, interactive complex, and uncertain characteristics of land-use system without unrealistic simplification. Moreover, the model can be used for supporting spatial allocation of land resources under a variety of ecological, environmental and socio-economic conditions. The developed model is applied to a real case of land resources allocation in Hangzhou City, China. Results demonstrate that the desired system benefit will be between $ [427.66, 549.83] × 10⁹; The model could help decision makers to generate stable and spatial land resources allocation patterns and strategic land use policies, gain in-depth insights into effects of the uncertainties and analyze trade-offs among economic objective, eco-environmental protection and social demands.     

Strengthening resources for midlife and older rural women who experience intimate partner violence

ABSTRACT

Little is known about midlife and older women who experience intimate partner violence living in rural places and their resource needs. Guided by a strengths perspective, we provided insights into resources that midlife and older women use, or would like to use, in their journey in leaving an abusive partner. Eight women who had left an abusive partner participated in a face-to-face interview. They drew on a wide variety of paid and unpaid resources, while each woman had a unique set of resources that contributed to her being able to make such a significant life transition. It is clear that we need to have a variety of formal and informal resources available to older women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in rural places, and new forms of resources need to be developed. Our results also indicate that increased efforts are needed in improving both public and professional education regarding older rural women and IPV.     

Population in the UN Environment Programme's Global Environment Outlook 2000

Most specialized agencies in the United Nations system have taken to compiling a periodic status report on their field. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) issued the first in a proposed biennial series in 1998, titled Global Environment Outlook‐1 or GEO‐1. The second in the series, Global Environment Outlook 2000, was published in 1999. GEO‐2000 is described by the UNEP's Executive Director, Klaus Töpfer, in the foreword as “a comprehensive integrated assessment of the global environment at the turn of the millennium… [and] a forward‐looking document, providing a vision into the 21st century.” Its status, however, is rendered uncertain by the printed caution that “The contents of this volume do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UNEP or contributory organizations.” GEO‐2000 paints a generally bleak picture of environmental trends. It evidences a wide array of particulars (“In the Southern Ocean, the Patagonian toothfish is being over‐fished and there is a large accidental mortality of seabirds caught up in fishing equipment”), but perhaps of more import are its statements about the root causes of environmental problems and what must be done. The excerpts below reflect some of these general views as they pertain to population. They are taken from the section entitled “Areas of danger and opportunity” in Chapter 1 of the report, and from the section “Tackling root causes” in Chapter 5. High resource consumption, fueled by affluent, Western lifestyles, is seen as a basic cause of environmental degradation. Cutting back this consumption will be required, freeing up resources for development elsewhere. Materialist values associated with urban living are part of the problem, given the concentration of future population growth in cities. And “genuine globalization” will entail free movement of people as well as capital and goods, thus optimizing “the population to environmental carrying capacity.” Some of these positions are at least questionable: the supposed “innate environmental sensitivity of people raised on the land or close to nature,” or the aim of “globalization of population movements.” The latter does not appear in the recommendations, perhaps because of an implicit assumption that the effect of open borders on environmental trends is unlikely to be favorable. (For an earlier statement of the same sentiment—from 1927—see the comments by Albert Thomas, first director of the ILO, reproduced in the Archives section of PDR 9, no. 4.)