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MASS MIGRATION DAMAGING THE PLANET

Britain should fulfil its humanitarian obligation to genuine refugees and asylum-seekers but it must also recognise that mass international migration is harming the planet’s environment as well as its own, according to the Optimum Population Trust.

Much migration is the consequence of areas becoming degraded through environmental damage, says the OPT in evidence to a Parliamentary inquiry on population. The priority is to repair the damage, through local and global action, and enable people to remain in their homes and communities. However, the promotion of migration by governments and international agencies is having the opposite effect. Mass migration is in consequence operating like a “scorched earth” policy on a global scale, with damaged areas of the Earth abandoned to their fate as their inhabitants leave.

In evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Population, Development and Reproductive Health., which is examining the impact of population growth on the Millennium Development Goals (see below) and on migration, the OPT says the current approach by international agencies is too heavily weighted in favour of the advantages of migration. This has occurred largely because attention has focused on short-term economic issues while the broader environmental impacts of mass migration have been ignored.

Worldwide, total numbers of migrants increased by up to 17 million between 2000 and 2005, from 175 million in 2000 to 185-192 million in 2005, according to UN figures. There are an estimated 30 million environmental refugees, a category expected to increase sharply.*

The OPT says the feedback effects of a deteriorating environment are causing further pressures on populations to emigrate – an estimated 135 million people may be driven from their lands by the spread of deserts, for example.* China alone, according to Pan Yue, deputy director of its state environment agency, “will have more than 150 million ecological migrants or…environmental refugees” out of a population currently put at 1.3 billion.** Climate change is a leading cause of degradation; other factors include soil erosion and water shortages.

Being driven from one’s home by environmental degradation is devastating for those involved but using migration as an escape valve is a recipe for disaster in the long run, says the OPT. “When a ship is heading for the environmental rocks, the best policy is to steer it away - not to encourage everyone to escape to areas they perceive to be lifeboats, sink them and drown. If Calcutta were drowned by rising sea levels, for example, London and New York would be inundated soon after.

“Given that migration is at least partly the result of damaged local life-support systems, it may in effect amount to a form of ‘scorched earth’ policy - slash-and-burn on a global scale. The priority must surely be to prevent or cure environmental damage, and help people to remain in their homes and communities, not abandon damaged areas of the planet to their fate.”

OPT says mass international migration exacerbates the world’s environmental crisis in several ways. Not only does it mask global population and environment problems by facilitating the abandonment of damaged areas. Migrants also tend to move from low-consuming regions to high-consuming ones. In the process of becoming Western consumers, they raise their ecological footprint, increase their environmental impact and thus accelerate global environmental damage.

The ecological footprint, or global environmental impact, of an inhabitant of Bangladesh (0.6 global hectares per capita) will increase by a factor of 16 if he or she emigrates to the USA (9.5 global hectares per capita), for example. When a Somali (0.4 global hectares per capita) moves to the UK (5.4 global hectares per capita), his or her global environmental impact increases more than 13-fold. (Living Planet Report, 2004, WWF/UNEP/WCMC/Global Footprint Network.)

Because of their relative affluence, Chinese emigrants have a far greater environmental impact than Chinese residents, despite their much smaller numbers. The 50 million Chinese who live outside China (including Taiwan) now earn a collective annual income equivalent to two-thirds of China's gross domestic product, with its domestic population of 1.3 billion.

The real solution lies in reducing the impact of consumption and population in richer countries and supporting environmentally sustainable development in poorer ones, which will lessen the push factors behind migration. Currently, however, excess immigration into countries which are already densely populated can cause substantial environmental damage and economic costs, the effects of which may not be seen until the pressures on land and natural resources become intense.

The UK, for example, is more densely populated than China: England, by some estimates, is the world’s fourth most crowded country.*** Yet projected population growth of more than 10 million in the UK by 2074 is equivalent to building 57 more towns the size of Luton, even without taking into account household fragmentation, and the construction of over seven million more houses and flats. Government projections show migration accounting for more than 80 per cent of UK population growth. With parts of the country already facing serious water supply problems, population growth on this scale will make the UK increasingly vulnerable to resource and energy shortages and will increase its contribution to climate change.

The OPT says that population growth and migration are together undermining attempts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. It says countries should work out what populations their environments can sustain in the long term, with the best possible quality of life and without damaging the environmental prospects of other countries or the world as a whole. “This requires population policies as well as fundamental changes in consumption patterns, yet allows for sustainable development and international migration flows which do not incur national population growth.”

In separate evidence to the APPG, Prof. Aubrey Manning, broadcaster, OPT patron and emeritus professor of natural history, University of Edinburgh, says the UK has a moral obligation to accept some immigration, given the current world situation, “but we need immigration like we need a hole in the head.”

Prof. Manning, who is also president of the Wildlife Trusts, says the life support systems of the Earth are “clearly under severe pressure.” He adds: “On a global scale, most immigration is a social tragedy, often arising as one result of rapid population growth …which has outstripped the resources to support it. People are in surplus and often those most needed at home are those who leave… [A] gradual reduction to our population is… the only way to secure any quality of life for future human beings.”

NOTES

* Figures and estimates from the UN and the Worldwatch Institute.

**Quoted in Der Spiegel, April 6, 2005.

***Excluding smaller city- and island-states (including Taiwan), the three most densely populated countries are Bangladesh, South Korea and the Netherlands. (Population, Resources and the Quality of Life, James Duguid, Population Policy Press, 2004.)

The inquiry by the APPG includes a series of hearings which began earlier this month (May) and is scheduled to last until July, when the Government’s chief scientist, Sir David King, will be giving evidence. The Millennium Development Goals are eight objectives that all UN member states have set themselves for 2015. They include eradicating extreme hunger and poverty and achieving universal primary education as well as ensuring environmental sustainability.

The OPT’s evidence can be viewed at http://www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk