Population and the environment
Human population growth is not only a significant threat to our quality of life, but to the very ecological systems that sustain our unique environment.
Our population is booming. Last year the Earth's population hit seven billion, with 21 million of those living in Australia. Our national population is predicted to more than double by 2050.
With a rapidly ballooning society to support, Australia’s natural resources are being placed under extreme pressure. Some of the most direct consequences of unmanaged population growth can be seen in our unsustainable energy use, the excessive generation of waste products and an increasing loss of native habitat.
If we make a commitment to pursuing and promoting policies that stabilise population and consumption levels, we can transform our economy and restore our precious biodiversity.
What are we doing to address the issue?
In a submission under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act), the Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth as a "key threatening process" to Australia’s biodiversity.
We are calling on the government to set a population policy that will:
- Stabilise Australia’s population and resource use to ecologically sustainable levels;
- Drive adequate infrastructure for the environmental consequences of demographic changes in Australian population settlement and distribution;
- Develop and fund strategies that minimise the environmental impact of population growth and maximise biodiversity outcomes;
- Maintain healthy regional and remote communities that include aboriginal communities and actively working on reducing Indigenous demographic disadvantage;
- Assist other nations to achieve population stabilisation and ecologically sustainable lifestyles through non-coercive, holistic development programs;
Encourage migration policy that fulfils environmental, social and ethical obligations, rather than perceived economic needs.
