Population growth a threat to biodiversity
Date: 23-Mar-2010
The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth as a “key threatening process” to Australia’s biodiversity under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act).
“The bigger our population gets, the harder it is for us to reduce greenhouse pollution, protect natural habitats near urban and coastal areas and ensure a good quality of life for all Australians,” said ACF’s director of strategic ideas, Charles Berger.
“More people means more roads, more urban sprawl, more dams, more transmission lines, more energy and water use, more pollutants in our air and natural environment and more pressure on Australia’s animals, plants, rivers, reefs and bushland.
“We need to improve urban and coastal planning and management of environmental issues, but we can’t rely on better planning alone to protect our environment. Rapid population growth makes sustainable planning nearly impossible, so stabilising Australia’s population by mid-century should be a national policy goal.”
The EPBC Act nomination cites many government reports that acknowledge the direct link between population growth and environmental degradation.
The nomination looks at four specific areas where human population growth is directly affecting native species and ecological communities – the coastal wetlands of South East Queensland, Mornington Peninsula and Westernport Bay in Victoria, the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia and the Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia.
ACF is calling on the Government to set a population policy that will:
- Stabilise Australia’s population by mid-century.
- Increase humanitarian migration and continue to support family reunions, but substantially reduce skilled migration.
- Return Australia’s overall migration to 1990s levels.
- Adequately fund strategies to minimise the environmental impact of population growth.
What does population growth mean for environmental policy?
Charles Berger, our director of strategic ideas, gets his hands dirty and looks at what rapid population growth really means for environmental policy: First, carbon pollution. Next water. Finally, land and biodiversity. more »
