Issues in contemporary

Development
Chapter one
Population and development
 What are issues in contemporary
development?
• Are important subjects, problems and questions raised
currently as a result of development itself.
• Are crosscutting issues/things that are associated with
development and have become points of discussion in
development theorists, practitioners and policy
makers.
• Though they are many, the major ones are population,
gender, environment, sustainable development, climate
change, food security, etc. and how these affect
development or are influenced by development.
Overview of development
• Development can be defined in many ways, in fact the
definition and the concept both evolved gradually.
• Todaro and Smith (2005) state that the term development,
may mean different to different people, however, it seems
necessary to have some of the working definitions of
economic development.
• They have defined economic development in three different
ways. These different approaches to economic development
are:
1. Traditional View
2. New Economic View
3. Core Values of Development.
1. Traditional View
• In strict economic terms, development has traditionally
meant the capacity of national economy whose initial
economic condition has been more or less static for a long
time, to generate and sustain an annual increase in its gross
national product (GNP) at rate of perhaps 5 to 7 percent.
• On the whole, prior to the 1970s, development was always
seen as an economic phenomenon in which rapid gains in
overall and per capita GNP growth would either
‘trickledown’ to the masses in the form of economic
opportunities, or create the necessary condition for
distribution of the economic and social benefits of growth.

• In fact this is not inclusive to benefit majority of the

society.
 2. New economic view of development

• In 1950 and 1960, many countries of the world

were experiencing high growth rates but the
condition of the masses was unchanged.
• This state of affairs compelled the economists to
reconsider the definition of development.
• Many economists clamored the
dethronement(removal) of GNP.
• It became a pre-requisite for development to
attack absolute poverty, inequality and
unemployment.
 New economic view,…
• Redistribution was a new concept which became a
popular slogan.
• World Development Report, 1991 asserted that the
challenge of development is to improve the quality of
life and focusing efforts in the poor countries of world.
• A better quality of life generally calls for higher incomes
—but it involves better education , higher standard of
health and nutrition, less poverty, cleaner environment,
more equality of opportunity, greater individual freedom
and a rich cultural life.
New economic view,…

• Therefore, according to the new concept of

development, it is a multidimensional process.
• This involves major changes in social structures,
popular attitudes, national institutions, as well as
acceleration of economic growth, the reduction of
inequality and the eradication of poverty.
 Summary of new economic view,…
• Recently the concept of development has changed
further.
• Now the focal point is welfare of ‘human being’ not
the material gains only.
• It is the view that income and wealth are not ends in
themselves but in fact these are instruments to get
the main ‘end’ that is welfare of human being. This
idea dates back to Aristotle.
• Amartya Sen, a Harvard Professor and the 1998
Nobel laureate in economics argues that ‘capability
to function’ is what really matters.
Summary,….
• According to his opinion, economic development is not
an end in itself it is rather an instrument to improve the
life and to widen the scope of freedom of choices that
human beings enjoy.
• He explains that the concept of functioning reveal
various things, which a person may value doing or being.
• The value functioning may vary from elementary such as
being adequately nourished and being free from
avoidable diseases, to very complex activities, such as
being able to contribute in the life of community and
having self respect.
3. Core Values Approach
• Yet there is another concept of development as per
opinion of Goulet (1971) and some other economists.
• At least three basic components should serve as a
conceptual foundation for understanding the meaning
of development.
• These core values are sustenance, self esteem and
freedom.
i. Sustenance: the Ability to Meet Basic Needs
Human beings have certain basic needs, which, if not
satisfied can make the life impossible.
Core Values,…..
• These needs include food, shelter, health and protection.
• From this description, we can conclude that the main
function of all economic activity is to provide larger
segments of society with means of overcoming the
helplessness and misery that is the outcome of failure to get
these basic needs.
• UNDP, HDR, 1994, regards human beings as born with
certain potential capabilities.
• And the purpose of development is to create an
environment in which all people can expand their
capabilities, and opportunities can be increased for
present and future generations as a whole.
Core Values,…..
ii. Self-esteem: The second universal component is self-esteem; a
sense of worth and self respect, of not being used as a tool by
others for their own ends.
• It is in human instincts although in some different forms and
names like identity dignity, respect, honor or recognition.
• It is also very unfortunate that in the present era LDCs wants
development in order to gain esteem which is denied to them
and they are compelled to live in a state of ‘disgraceful
underdevelopment’.
• Development is legitimized as goal because it is an important,
perhaps even an indispensable way of gaining esteem.
Core Values,…..
iii. Freedom from Servitude: The third and final
universal value is the concept of human freedom.
• Freedom here means a sense of emancipation
from alienating material condition of life and
servitude from misery, nature, ignorance, other
people and institutions.
• Lewis (1963) is of the opinion that the advantage
of economic growth is not that wealth increases
happiness; the main advantage is that it gives
human beings a wide range of choice.
Core Values,…..
• All these views presented by different economists in
different time periods, make us able to conclude the
discussion of ‘objectives of development’ which are:
a) To increase the availability of basic life sustaining
goods and make them available to wider segments
of society;
b) To improve the standards of living of human beings;
give them social, economic health, cultural and
political security from misery, servitude and
dependence; and
Core Values,…..
c) To make human choices wider and broader. So
in general,
• Development is the center of all economic
activities.
• During the last quarter of 20th century,
development has emerged with a human
dimension.
• Development is meaningless if it is not
translated into real lives of the people
 Population and development
• The relationship between population and
economic development has been a subject of
debate and research since long(18 th century?).
• The features of population dynamics and its
linkage with socio-economic factors
tremendously contribute to effective planning
and issues relevant to population and
development.
Overview of theories of population
and economic growth
Overview of,….
• Not all theorists saw population growth in a
negative light.
• In particular, mercantilist ideas in Europe during
the seventeenth and eighteenth century saw the
positive aspects of large and growing populations
and favored policies to encourage marriage and
large families.
• Today, members of the Julian Simon school also
emphasize the positive aspects of large and
growing populations (Simon, 1981, 1990, 1996).
1. Malthusian Theory

• About two centuries ago, Thomas Robert

Malthus presented his theory and stated
that population increases geometrically
and food supplies increase arithmetically
subjecting population to poverty.
• Human reproductive power outstrips the
power of land to feed people.
Malthusian Theory
• Hodgson (1983) opined: “On the basis of this theory,
• First, we can say that there is negative relationship
between: fertility rates and standards of living (the
higher the fertility rates, the lower the standards of
living and vice versa),
• second negative relationship is between fertility rates
and social class and,
• third negative relationship is between fertility rate and
urbanization.
• Because of these three relationships an explanation of
western fertility decline emerged.
 2. Theory of demographic transition
• The theory of demographic transition was
initially presented by W.S. Thomson and F.W.
Notestein and further modified by C.P Blacker.
• The theory explains the effects of change in
birth rates and death rates on the growth
rates of population.
• This theory is based on the actual population
trends of advanced countries of the world.
Demographic transition
• This is the most acceptable theory of population growth.
• It does not adopt a pessimistic view point like
Malthusian theory but this is superior to other theories.
• Thus more or less the population growth rate is
stationary (remains at the replacement level).
• As a result of this, standards of living of people rise,
output expands, educational facilities become widely
available, family planning finds a place amongst the
priorities of the masses, and such a decline in
population growth rates give impetus to increase in per
capita income and a further decline in fertility rates.
Demographic transition
• It is also worth mentioning here that
universality of this theory gave the impressions
that similar patterns would be followed in LDCs
and UDCs as well.
• But what is happening in these countries is not
‘Demographic Transition’ but ‘Population
Explosion’, the reason thereof, is that the
population growth rates in these counties is
much higher than what was historically
observed in developed countries.
Demographic transition
Following are some of the reasons:
1. The birth rates in developed countries were
much lower when they were not developed as
against in the less developed countries at a
comparable state; i.e., the birth rates in LDCs
are twice that of the developed countries when
they began the process of development.
2. There are almost seven times more births in
LDCs than in developed countries as a whole.
 Demographic transition

3. In developed countries, fertility rate of women

is at replacement level, whereas in UDCs, women
bear five children on average. If this trend
continues, the size of population doubles in only
three decades.
4. In LDCs mortality rates are declining at a
greater speed because of advancement of medical
facilities, therefore, the gap between death rates
and birth rates is widening.
Demographic transition
5. Developed countries gained benefits of increased
life expectancy due to fall in fertility but in LDCs
life expectancy is increasing due to fall in mortality.
6. Pattern of demography are different in LDCs and
developed countries, children under age 15 make up
almost 40% of the total population but in developed
countries this ratio is 20%.
7. This phenomenon leads to ‘dependency burden’
that shows that the number of non productive
members of society increases.
3. The classical theory
• This theory has its roots and foundation on Malthusian
theory. It was postulated by David Ricardo and is also
called Stationary Theory.
• It states that when population increases, demands of
population for food and shelter also increases, in the
beginning fertile lands are brought under cultivation but
with the passage of time when population pressure raises
less fertile land are also cultivated.
• The burden on each piece of land tends to rise, wages
increase and cost of production also increases, as wages
increase profit falls and a negative trend of growth i.e.
zero growth rates of profit ensues.
Classical theory
• This theory was perfected and extended by Mill (1909), who
argued that technological progress can arrest the tendency of
zero growth rates.
• However, again unfortunately technological changes are
taking place in the developed countries more often and LDCs
are prone to be the victims of stagnation.
• In LDCs and UDCs, agriculture is the dominant sector of the
economy. Approximately 2/3 of their population lives in rural
areas and depends on agriculture for their subsistence. It is
also a reality that agriculture sector is traditional in these
countries.
• People are static and risk aversive .There is little technological
transformation.
Classical theory
• Therefore, population explosion brings about stagnation (zero
growth, or very low economic development)
• Ghatak and Ingersent (1984) state that the obvious implication
of this model is that in predominantly agrarian societies,
curtailment of population growth is the sole feasible means of
materially improving living standards of the majority of the
population.
• Again this theory has relevance for many LDCs, because these
countries are unable to import the requisite amount of food and
other things due to many constraints.
• In addition to that the population trends as observed today in
many UDCs have never been observed in developed countries
when they started development process.
 4. Neo Malthusian theory
• This theory or the model was developed by William and Paul
Paddock. This model is more like a forecasting, in that time
period when it was presented.
• After the World War II, less developed countries were exporting
more and more food grains and they were losing the capability
to feed their people as their population was increasing rapidly.
It became a growing concern for the world concerned agencies.
• At that time in 1966, Science Advisory Committee of the US
President made a special study of the emerging food problem
and their expert report drew the attention to the grim reality of
food shortages that would occur during the two decades 1965-
66 to 1985-86.
 Neo Malthusian theory
• The world would face a visible food shortage did not
prove to happen, yet food shortages in the present era
in many of the LDCs; due to excessive burden of their
population, on one hand and their inability to feed
their masses with imported food supplies on the other
hand, speaks volume of severity of situation.
• It is also pertinent to mention here that import bills of
many LDCs are enormously big.
• They are not importing capital which can help in their
development and add to capital formation; instead
the large chunk goes for import of food.
Neo Malthusian theory
• When this is the situation, trade deficits
become a recurring phenomenon, the
gaps between saving and investment,
imports and exports and technological
gaps are filled by foreign debts and
foreign direct investment which
mortgage the country on very harsh
terms and conditions, thus a vicious
circle of financial slavery sets in.
5. Theory of Population Increase: An
Ecological Disaster.

Wilkinson Ecological Model of

Economic Development
 Theory of population increase &ecological
disaster
• Wilkinson (1973) makes point that changing ecological
circumstances, centering on the relationship between
population and resources, force societies to exploit their
environment in more difficult ways.
• The model also states that the traditional methods of
population control have been abandoned.
• Therefore, most of the LDCs are facing what is called
‘Population Explosion’.
• One of the important policy implications of this model
is that there appears a gap between food supplies and
demand by the masses.
 Population increase &,…..
• In fact, a new social agreement is badly needed to
bring population growth rates to the level where the
resources can cater to the need of large population.
• It is also very unfortunate that in many countries
population policy rely on voluntary acceptance.
• It is very common to just persuade parents to have few
children through moral appeals.
• In many countries taboos like prevalence of
contraceptives, and poor role of women in decision
making about family size also impede the efforts of
bringing fertility rate down.
 Population increase &
• In fact Chinese government has exerted very strong
pressures to discourage all those practices which
increase population growth.
• Yet there is some exception. Birdsall (1980), while
analyzing China states that the largest population
having country[China] adopted the policy of having
one or two children, long ago because the
government of China realized that large family is
anti social because it wrongfully diverts the
resources from productive, developmental and
important tasks to the less important tasks.
 Population increase &
• Some of the policies of government like relaxation in taxation
and preferential treatment in provision of basic necessities of life
helped to bring down population growth rates down.
• Similarly discriminatory policies against large families have been
adopted in Singapore.
• In LDCs parents have been given liberty to determine their
family size and children suffer when they don’t get basic
necessities of life.
• The number of poor increases every minute. All the
governmental efforts to develop become a futile exercise and end
in fiasco(disaster).
• So reducing fertility has become a solution in the LDCs.
 Consequences of high population growth
rate
• According to predictions of United Nations, the world
population will be 9.1 billion by the year 2050 and it will reach
maximum of 11billion in the 2200.
• Ninety percent of this population will inhabit in developing
world.
• Of course, there are certain social, economic and other
implications of this high population rise.
• Among the most critical issues; poverty, standards of living,
unemployment, health and education are not only the indicators
of economic development but ultimate goals of development as
well.
• So achieving these goals would be difficult in high population
growth rates.
 Consequences,……
• Another very important issue is that why high fertility rates
and population growth is hard to curb.
• Kuznet (1974) writes about the parents of developing
countries and observed that larger proportion of population
sees their economic and social interests in more children.
• They take them as supply of family labor and as a matter of
economic and social security in a society having less
economic security.
• Children in poor societies are investment and parents are
unable to think about a tradeoff between, few but high
quality children and larger number of low quality;
uneducated children with low earning prospects.
 Consequences,……
• In general there are many consequences of rapid population
growth rates; these include social, economic and
environmental.
• Ehlrich (1972 & 1975), for example, predicts population
problem as causing catastrophe and ecological damages.
• Economist also use ‘Simplified Solow Model’ to
demonstrate adverse consequences of rapid population
growth.
• As illustrated by Todaro and Smith (2005), low economic
growth, poverty and inequality, low literacy rates, poor
health, environmental degradation and international
migrations are fruits of rapid population growth..
 Consequences,……
• Discussing these consequences, the writers state
that evidences show, rapid population growth
lowers per capita income, the case becomes
even worse, when the country is already poor.
• Thus high population growth rates puts pressure
on natural resources of country.
• When the population pressure is there, poor
masses face the problems of landlessness; they
also suffer from the cuts in government health
and education program.
 Consequences,……
• It is also generally agreed that large family’s size and
low income curtail the opportunities of parents to
educate their children.
• At the same time, high fertility harms the health of
mothers.
• Closely spaced births increase infant mortality rates.
• Environmental degradation is a consequence that
comes in the wake of rapid population growth.
 Question
• What are environmental
implications/consequences high population
growth?
Consequences,……

• Jhingan (2007) also states that with rapidly

increasing population it becomes difficult to
manage the adjustments that accompany
economic and social changes.
• Population growth retards capital formation
when the per capita income decreases and
people have to feed large family with this
meager income which implies high
consumption, low savings and low investment.
 Consequences,……
• Food shortages brought about famine, hunger and
malnutrition in many parts of the world.
• UNDP, HDR, 2002 gives alarming figures about many of the
social indicators of development i.e. 766 million people in
poor countries are living without access to health services,
almost one billion don’t have access to safe drinking water,
2.4 billion live without sanitation facilities and 158 million
children under 5 are malnourished.
• Ghatak and Insergent (1984) while analyzing the causes of
malnutrition write that lowering the population growth by
means, such as improved family planning is a viable approach
to improved nutrition in LDCs.
 Questions for discussion
• So how can developing countries will reduce
high fertility rate and increase productivity of
their population?
 Migration, population change and the rural
environment
• Population change, particularly via migration, has had
an important impact on the rural environment, on both
forests and dry land areas.
• Most of the world’s gene-pool is concentrated in such
rural environments, especially the tropical rainforests,
which are threatened by the growth and intrusion of
human populations.
• Despite two centuries of rapid urbanization, the majority
of the world’s population still lives in rural areas, and
for at least two more decades most people in the
developing world will continue to be rural inhabitants.
Migration, population change,..
• It is therefore important to consider the interrelations among
rural population growth, migration and the rural environment,
particularly with respect to the changes experienced by
developing countries since 1950.
• The twentieth century has witnessed a profound shift of the
world population from rural to urban areas (United Nations,
2000c).
• Thus, the proportion of the population living in rural areas
declined from 66 per cent in 1960 to 53 per cent in 2000.
• Because urbanization began earlier in the more developed
regions and in Latin America, by 2000 only a quarter of their
population lived in rural areas, in contrast to two thirds of the
population of Africa and/or Asia.
Migration, population change,..
• Despite the reduction in the percentage of
people residing in rural areas, there has been a
large increase of the absolute number of persons
residing in the rural areas, from 2 billion in
1960 to 3.2 billion in 2000.
• Over the next 30 years, virtually no growth is
expected in the rural population of the world,
and even that of the less developed regions will
increase by less than 100 million, mostly in
Africa.
 Rural population growth by country/region and its
implication for rural environment
• Most of the rural population of the world is concentrated in a
few countries, with just 34 countries accounting for 85 per
cent of the world’s rural population and 3 having more than
100 million rural inhabitants each (China, India and
Indonesia).
• Rural growth will likely also exceed 1.5 per cent per year in
Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Ethiopia.
• Countries that experience high rates of rural population growth
are more likely to face problems of environmental
degradation in rural areas.
Rural population growth,….
• In past decades, rural population density more than doubled in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and
Yemen, while it rose by over 70 per cent in Bangladesh, India,
Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Viet Nam
• In the future, at least two mutually countervailing(lessen the
effect of something) forces will continue to lead to changes in
arable land:
i. the absorption of agricultural land by expanding urban
areas
ii. the extension of agricultural land through the colonization
of the agricultural frontier.
Both forces involve the redistribution of population over a
country’s territory, usually via migration(e.g. by settlement).
 Migration & its implication for rural
environment
• Rural-urban migration is a major component of urban growth,
and has dominated the literature and policy discussions.
• However, in countries where most of the population lives in
rural areas, rural-rural migration is more common.
• In some of the most populous countries, such as Brazil,
India and Pakistan), rural-rural migration was larger than
rural-urban migration during the 1980s and even before.
• The role of rural-rural migration as the process through which
population interacts with the rural environment is considered,
since it is through out-migration that a population may
respond to a deteriorating rural environment and via in-
migration that human populations may exert pressure on
fragile rural environments.
Migration & its implication,….
• In the analysis of the possible impacts of population on the rural
environment, the focus here is mostly on deforestation, the most
studied impact because deforestation is associated with a
significant loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and global warming.
• On a global scale, 60 per cent of recent deforestation in the
developing world may be attributable to the advance of the
agricultural frontier, 20 per cent to logging operations (including
mining and petroleum) and 20 per cent to household use of fuel
wood (World Bank, 1991).
• While the importance of these factors varies across regions and
countries, demographic factors are thought to play significant
roles in both the advance of the agricultural frontier and
fuelwood use (FAO, 2000c).
 Migration & its implication,….
• Analyzing the linkages among population, migration and the
rural environment is complex because population pressure and
environmental deterioration may both induce out-migration
from areas of origin and be consequences thereof in areas of
destination.
Why do people migrate?
• The factors that propel people to leave their place of origin may
be referred to as “push” factors and include both natural
disasters and gradual environmental degradation resulting from
human activity, such as floods caused by the deforestation of
watersheds or soil degradation due to improper land-use
practices.
Migration & its implication,….
• Both sudden natural disasters and gradual human-induced
environmental degradation in rural areas reduce the
productivity of resources and therefore the incomes of those
dependent on them, and hence may induce out-migration..
• However, empirical evidence on the effect of environmental
factors on out-migration is virtually non-existent owing to
the lack of data distinguishing environmental factors from
other economic factors that may induce migration.
• Of course people may also migrate due to pull factors
/positive inducements that attract people to urban areas
such as better education, health facilities, better jobs &
incomes.
Migration & its implication,….
• Still, there is a growing interest in environmentally
induced migration, especially among so-called
environmental refugees, that is to say, international
migrants compelled by environmental conditions to seek
temporary asylum in another (usually neighboring)
country, and among “displaced persons”, that is to say,
people forced by environmental disasters to migrate
within their own country.
• However, the precise role of environmental factors in
such movements has been hard to establish because
political, civil, religious or ethnic conflicts have also
been involved in their generation.
 Env’tal impact of migration in developed nations
• In developed countries, environmental deterioration has often
led to out-migration from rural to urban areas.
• Sometimes environmental changes have been due to natural
causes, while at other times they have been induced by human
practices.
• An example of the former is the effect of climate change (less
precipitation) on agriculture and therefore in stimulating out-
migration from the Great Plains of the United States during the
“dust bowl” era of the 1930s (Gutmann and others, 1996).
• Apart from the effects of nuclear and industrial accidents, toxic
and solid waste dumps, and severe air or water pollution,
human practices have often led to gradual but severe
deterioration of rural environments.
Env’tal impact of migration developed nations

• A striking example is the shrinkage by half of the

large, inland Aral Sea in Central Asia due to
excessive withdrawal of water for the irrigation of
cotton fields, a shrinkage that has produced out-
migration from the area (Postel, 1996).
• Since in-migration increases the population density of
areas of destination, it may affect the environment.
The extent to which land is cleared in areas of
destination depends upon population density, as
suggested by the theories of Malthus, Boserup and
others.
 Question
• Who degrade/destroy (engage in deforestation)
the environment more?
• The poor or the rich? Why ?
• Discuss.
 Are the poor or rich destroying the
environment?
• An important question is whether the poor are especially
involved in causing environmental damage.
• It is true that the poor tend to live on “low potential”, marginal
lands, and that those lands are more likely to become degraded
when used (Barbier, 1997), forcing the poor to migrate to other
marginal areas where the degradation process begins again.
• It is through this process that poor migrants contribute to
deforestation, although the underlying causes of that outcome
include their lack of access to adequate land in the place of
origin. However, in terms of total area of land being cleared in
the developing world, especially in Latin America, most
deforestation is caused by large landholders and agro-business
when clearing the land for pasture in response to global
consumption demands.
 Deforestation caused by
migrants/settlers/colonists/government

Empirical evidences from Latin

America, Asia and African
Rainforests
 Deforestations caused by
migrants/settlers/colonists/government
• A body of research on the impacts of migration on the rural
environment in developing countries has focused on migrant
colonists(settlers) and their impact on the rainforest frontier.
• Such migrants have been the direct agents of a significant
proportion of the tropical deforestation, although non-
demographic factors have often been the main underlying
driving forces.
• Thus Brazil, with 35 per cent of the world’s rainforests, has lost
the largest absolute volume of tropical forests in recent decades
owing to the extension of the agricultural frontier.
Deforestations caused by,…..

• In the context of high rates of population and industrial

growth, national policy (through tax incentives as well
as road construction) thus promoted a westward
expansion to tap the wealth of the Amazon.
• This provided a release valve for peasants who had
insufficient land elsewhere (especially in the north-
east, where drought and population growth from high
fertility contributed to population pressures on the land
and to rural poverty), which helped fuel out-migration
once the Amazon region was made accessible.
Deforestations caused by,…..
• Nevertheless, even more pervasive factors stimulating migration
to the region were high rates of inflation, which spurred land
speculation, and the mechanization of agriculture and shift to
soybeans in the south, which led to out-migration, some to the
Amazon.
• The tax incentives were eliminated in Brazil a decade ago, and
Brazil has also created a number of large protected areas and
indigenous reserves, which protect many areas from land clearing.
• Migration to the rainforest frontier followed by large-scale forest
clearing has also been documented in other countries, including
Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Indonesia,
Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines, Nigeria, Tanzania and the
Sudan.
Deforestations caused by,…..

• In Guatemala, for example, migration into the northern

Petén resulted in the clearing of half the forests in the
region during 1950-1985.
• As in Brazil, high population growth in areas of origin (the
Guatemalan Altiplano), characterized by extreme inequality
in landholdings, led to an increasing fragmentation of plots
over time as they were subdivided among children and
contributed to rising rural poverty, which together with lack
of access to land, stimulated out-migration from rural areas
to both Guatemala City and the Petén (Bilsborrow and
Stupp, 1997; Sader and others, 1997).
Deforestations caused by,…..

• In southern Honduras, government policies played

an important role, promoting cattle ranching and
plantations of cotton and sugar cane to increase
exports, which facilitated the taking over of good
lowland areas by large, commercial landowners.
• These developments forced smallholders to migrate
to nearby mountain slopes to establish new farms.
• The clearing of slopes led to soil erosion and
flooding downstream, exacerbating rural poverty.
Deforestations caused by,…..
• In Ecuador, migration eastward to the Amazon and the massive
deforestation that ensued began in the early 1970s with the
construction of roads by petroleum companies to lay oil
pipelines.
• Those roads facilitated a large influx of migrant colonists, three
fourths from rural areas of the highlands (Pichón, 1997; Pichón
and Bilsborrow, 1999). A longitudinal survey of migrant settler
households conducted in 1990 and 1999 found that many of the
original plots in the Amazon region had been subdivided and
the population of colonists was doubling nearly every nine
years, increasing the proportion of the original plot that had
been deforested from 46 to 57 per cent (Pan and Bilsborrow,
2000; Murphy, 2000).
Deforestations caused by,…..
• Similar findings exist for other continents. Thus
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and
third in terms of tropical forest stock, has been
experiencing the second highest annual volume of forest
loss, some of which has been caused by migrant colonists
(FAO, 1997).
• Both the Government-sponsored Transmigration
Programme, aimed at reducing high population density in
Java and Bali, and the spontaneous movement of
migrants have led to increased population density in
forested areas and caused deforestation.
Deforestations caused by,…..
• In Thailand, substantial deforestation occurred in the north at the
hands of migrant colonists (Panayotou and Sungsuwan, 1994); and
in the southern hill region of Nepal, migrant colonists settled after
a successful dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT) campaign to
reduce malaria, leading to the clearing of forests (Shrestha, 1990).
• In the Philippines, a process occurred similar to that in Honduras,
with the lowlands coming increasingly under the control of large
landholdings devoted to cash crops, such as sugar cane and
cattle grazing, so that the growing rural population could find
new land only on the increasingly steep adjoining mountain
slopes; but once the forests were cleared to establish agricultural
plots, erosion and flooding increased (Cruz, 1997).
Deforestations caused by,…..
• The rising frequency of floods in Bangladesh is also
attributed to extensive forest-clearing in the watersheds
of India and Nepal.
• Rural-rural migration is also prominent in migration-
environment linkages in Africa. In Tanzania, the spread
of cash crops (especially coffee and cotton) was
stimulated by government policy and led to substantial
rural-rural migration to the Usangu plains, depleting their
vegetation.
• The human population of the plains rose fivefold between
1948 and 1988 and the number of cattle doubled.
Deforestations caused by,…..
• However, the ecological deterioration was also
partly due to insecure land tenure and the absence of
social institutions for regulating resource access and
use (Charnley, 1997).
• In Nigeria, the Koyfar of the Jos plateau, responding
to expanding market opportunities rather than
population pressure, migrated from the fertile Benue
plains and changed from being shifting cultivators in
temporarily cleared areas of forest to being
permanent and intensive tillers of family farms in
areas cleared of forest.
 Deforestation for fuel wood consumption
• Deforestation can also be caused by populations
seeking fuel-wood to meet energy needs, especially
the poor and certain migrant groups, such as displaced
persons and refugees.
• In Africa, Central America and Asia, large populations
of displaced persons or refugees have had to live in
makeshift camps for long periods.
• Deforestation has resulted from the use of nearby
forests for fuel-wood, and the depletion of surface and
underground water has also occurred (Sessay and
Mohamed, 1997).
Deforestation by pastoralists/herders
• Population growth and in-migration have also
been linked to vegetation loss in dryland areas,
especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Thus numbers of pastoralists and the animal
herds they depend on have both increased
substantially in recent decades, leading to
increased migration in search of additional
grazing lands and increasing competition for
land with sedentary populations.
 Deforestation by actions of government
• While the case studies indicate that migration to marginal or
fragile areas usually results in environmental degradation,
factors other than migration are often the main precipitating
factors, including the actions of Governments, national and
multinational corporations (logging and mining enterprises), and
large-scale ranchers responding to national and international
demand for wood, beef and other agricultural products.
• Roads and infrastructure have frequently facilitated the arrival of
migrants. At the same time, out-migration may relieve
environmental pressures in areas of origin.
• In the Camacho Valley of Bolivia, for instance, out-migration
resulted in less intensive grazing and improvement of the
environment (Preston, 1998).
 Deforestation by actions of government
• However, in the Peruvian Andes and in an island in Lake
Victoria, out-migration led to a depletion of the labour supply
that made it hard to maintain terraces, and resulted in increased
soil erosion (Collins, 1986).
• In developed countries, the agricultural frontier has long been
closed.
• Rural populations are declining throughout the developed
world, while the area in secondary forest has been stable or
rising.
• In the last half of the twentieth century, out-migration from rural
areas has almost invariably been to urban destinations rather
than to forest frontiers as in tropical developing countries.
 Concluding remarks
• A review of recent literature on population
growth, migration and the rural environment
has provided numerous examples in which the
migration of farmers to the agricultural frontier
has resulted in tropical deforestation or the
desiccation of land in dryland areas.
• These examples also indicate the crucial role
of natural resource endowments, institutions,
local and national policy and, in some cases,
international markets and cultural factors.
Concluding remarks
• Given that many of the areas being settled are
characterized by extraordinary biodiversity and
that tropical forests also play crucial roles in
world climate patterns and in preventing global
warming, it is important to address the root causes
of the migration that leads to deforestation.
• Since most of the migrants involved are poor, a
major challenge is to find ways of combating
rural poverty while promoting a more sustainable
use of the rural environment in areas of origin.
 Individual assignment: Summarizing the text
• Summarize the text Population and development, a
book chapter authored by Dennis Ahlburg and Robert
Cassen on three pages.
• Try to incorporate introduction, main body of the
summary and conclusions.
• Submission date: