Overpopulation - The Framing of the Question
Last year, my family and I went on a holiday trip to Croatia.
This was my country of birth, which I hadn't seen since we had emigrated to South Africa over twenty years ago.
It was a great opportunity to reconnect with my extended family, as well as introduce my South African family to my cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews.
Being a holiday in a country that was foreign to my South African family, we also decided to make time for exploring the natural and historical beauty of the region.
One spot in particular drew our attention - The Plitvice Lakes National Park, the oldest and largest one in Croatia.
Our first exposure to the park took place in the form of a night forest drive to our lodgings.
We got to know the natural, carefully tended and preserved forest a little better the following day as we walked along a hiking trail to the nearby lakes.
As we came near the end of the forest at the cliff edge, we spotted an opening in the canopy.
We proceeded to take a panoramic view of the park's centrepiece.
The heart of the park is a sequence of freshwater lakes of various sizes that flow and cascade into each other.
Some are small enough to comfortably walk around, whereas some others are spacious enough to accommodate passenger ferries.
We gazed down at several lakes that we could see from our vantage point, captivated by their calm surface and crystal clear turquoise colour.
There was a surreal quality to the place.
It was humble and majestic, burbling and quiet, ancient and born anew, all at the same time.
The lakes felt alive.
It wasn't merely that they contained life, mostly in the form of trees, birds and fish.
Nor was it simply the work of moss, algae and bacteria that gave rise to them and shaped them.
The place as a whole radiated a living quality.
Beneath the magnificent exterior lay a tender and playful core that made its presence known rather shyly.
Once I became aware of it, I wanted to reach out and touch the soul of the place.
I knew that this could only be done in silence and solitude.
I had to take leave of the busy world in which I lived so that I could absorb the beckoning lakes with all of my senses until I was lost in them.
I also realised that this was not possible.
People were everywhere.
Not only my companions, but visitors of all nationalities and walks of life.
They brought with them busy shuffling along the narrow walkways, smiles of delight and innocent laughter, and cameras with which to capture the surface splendour of the experience.
It was a typical day in the life of the park, which hosts well over a million visitors each year.
The civilisation intruded upon the world of nature and overpowered it, drowning out the song of birds and bubbling of streams with its murmur.
Frustrated by the sense of loss, I resigned myself to sharing in their approach.
I admired the breathtaking beauty of the landscape the way one samples the deft brushstrokes on a painting while remaining oblivious of the painter.
Numerous photographs faithfully preserved our adventures in the park over several days - including walks alongside many of the lakes, climbs to less accessible cliffs and caves, and even a boat and train ride.
It was a picture-perfect outing, or so it seemed.
The experience of Plitvice made me acutely aware of the direction in which our society was heading, and the price we were paying for its gifts.
Having grown up in rural Europe, I was accustomed to having the countryside peppered with villages, sometimes within walking distance of each other.
It was a comfortable environment for a child, but one that made me ponder a rather unexpected question as an adult - is our planet overpopulated? It's not a new idea, of course.
Over the years, I've watched and participated in a number of discussions on the topic.
What startled me this time was the change in perspective that the experience of Plitvice has brought about.
What does it mean for our planet to be overpopulated? The overpopulation debates that I've seen invariably revolved around the question of resources.
Are we able to feed 7 billion people? Can we clothe and shelter them, provide clean air and water, and adequate health care? Can we do these things for the foreseeable future? The discussions were comprehensive, spanning many pages, soliciting opinions from a wide range of authorities, and drawing on wealth of information from numerous sources.
Yet no matter what information the participants were using, and even what side of the debate they were on, they seemed to share the unspoken assumption that more is better, that the more humans we have, the better off we are.
If we can feed 7 billion people, the Earth can't be overpopulated.
If we can find a way to feed 8 billion, then that's how far human population should grow.
My experience of Plitvice has brought this assumption into sharp focus.
By being preoccupied with material necessities, could we be overlooking something less tangible but no less important? Do we even realise what it is that we are losing? Cultures that live close to nature would readily appreciate this loss.
While living with Malaysian aborigines - Sng'oi - Robert Wolff was intrigued by how much their lives revolved around communion with nature.
For their everyday guidance, they relied on dream interpretations, noticing and interpreting signs and omens in nature, and having an intimate, intuitive connection with animals and plants around them.
The tradition of wandering in wilderness in search of guidance is shared by nature-based cultures across the globe.
Like the Sng'oi, and aborigine cultures from Australia to South America, they seek to uncover the underlying theme of their lives, and they seek this insight from spirit helpers that abide in the natural world.
The vision quests themselves bear little resemblance to modern nature vacations.
We have the habit of taking our world with us as we travel - cars for ease of transportation, toiletries and various other little conveniences because they have become indispensable, motor boats, skis, quad bikes, and other power tools to exploit the setting to the full, laptops and cell phones with which to stay in touch with the wider world, and cameras with which to preserve the memory of our adventure for posterity.
In the process, we transform the natural setting where we have ventured into an extension of our culture.
We interact with it on terms that are already all too familiar.
An aborigine in search of a vision ventures into wilderness in an effort to get away from culture, to leave behind familiar ways in order to discover something fresh that speaks to him authentically and uniquely.
There are dangers in wandering in the wilderness, of course, but as John Perkins has discovered in the Amazonian jungle during his time with the Shuar, the risk is not so much one of dying as of not living properly.
Perhaps most importantly, by being prepared to meet nature on its own terms, we recognise that we are a part of it.
We acknowledge that the human world is but one aspect of the natural world, and that there are other aspects no less valid or valuable than our own.
It is a vision that allows each member of the natural world to express itself as it best knows how.
Such self-expression is challenging to come by when the worth of the world is perceived through the tunnel vision of the current economic system; when an animal, a tree, or a meadow has to point to its current economic worth in order to justify its very existence.
The question of human overpopulation of planet Earth takes on new meaning when viewed through the wider lens hinted at by Plitvice.
It is not about how many people we can feed and clothe, but how large the human community can become while still allowing non-human communities to thrive and prosper.
Without them, we can comfortably meet all our physical needs and still lose our souls to the bustle and clamour of civilisation.
Once our culture claims as its own the last forest, stream and mountaintop, where will we turn to distance ourselves from it and seek a vision of its renewal? Is planet Earth overpopulated? That remains a matter for debate.
Hopefully, going forward, that debate will not content itself with looking for ways to meet our material needs - demanding as they may be - but will give equal consideration to why we even bother to have those needs met.
What is it that we are staying alive for? How do we discover it? How do we live it? After all, we cannot meaningfully engage the question of whether there are too many humans without considering what it means to be human in all its intricacy.
This was my country of birth, which I hadn't seen since we had emigrated to South Africa over twenty years ago.
It was a great opportunity to reconnect with my extended family, as well as introduce my South African family to my cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews.
Being a holiday in a country that was foreign to my South African family, we also decided to make time for exploring the natural and historical beauty of the region.
One spot in particular drew our attention - The Plitvice Lakes National Park, the oldest and largest one in Croatia.
Our first exposure to the park took place in the form of a night forest drive to our lodgings.
We got to know the natural, carefully tended and preserved forest a little better the following day as we walked along a hiking trail to the nearby lakes.
As we came near the end of the forest at the cliff edge, we spotted an opening in the canopy.
We proceeded to take a panoramic view of the park's centrepiece.
The heart of the park is a sequence of freshwater lakes of various sizes that flow and cascade into each other.
Some are small enough to comfortably walk around, whereas some others are spacious enough to accommodate passenger ferries.
We gazed down at several lakes that we could see from our vantage point, captivated by their calm surface and crystal clear turquoise colour.
There was a surreal quality to the place.
It was humble and majestic, burbling and quiet, ancient and born anew, all at the same time.
The lakes felt alive.
It wasn't merely that they contained life, mostly in the form of trees, birds and fish.
Nor was it simply the work of moss, algae and bacteria that gave rise to them and shaped them.
The place as a whole radiated a living quality.
Beneath the magnificent exterior lay a tender and playful core that made its presence known rather shyly.
Once I became aware of it, I wanted to reach out and touch the soul of the place.
I knew that this could only be done in silence and solitude.
I had to take leave of the busy world in which I lived so that I could absorb the beckoning lakes with all of my senses until I was lost in them.
I also realised that this was not possible.
People were everywhere.
Not only my companions, but visitors of all nationalities and walks of life.
They brought with them busy shuffling along the narrow walkways, smiles of delight and innocent laughter, and cameras with which to capture the surface splendour of the experience.
It was a typical day in the life of the park, which hosts well over a million visitors each year.
The civilisation intruded upon the world of nature and overpowered it, drowning out the song of birds and bubbling of streams with its murmur.
Frustrated by the sense of loss, I resigned myself to sharing in their approach.
I admired the breathtaking beauty of the landscape the way one samples the deft brushstrokes on a painting while remaining oblivious of the painter.
Numerous photographs faithfully preserved our adventures in the park over several days - including walks alongside many of the lakes, climbs to less accessible cliffs and caves, and even a boat and train ride.
It was a picture-perfect outing, or so it seemed.
The experience of Plitvice made me acutely aware of the direction in which our society was heading, and the price we were paying for its gifts.
Having grown up in rural Europe, I was accustomed to having the countryside peppered with villages, sometimes within walking distance of each other.
It was a comfortable environment for a child, but one that made me ponder a rather unexpected question as an adult - is our planet overpopulated? It's not a new idea, of course.
Over the years, I've watched and participated in a number of discussions on the topic.
What startled me this time was the change in perspective that the experience of Plitvice has brought about.
What does it mean for our planet to be overpopulated? The overpopulation debates that I've seen invariably revolved around the question of resources.
Are we able to feed 7 billion people? Can we clothe and shelter them, provide clean air and water, and adequate health care? Can we do these things for the foreseeable future? The discussions were comprehensive, spanning many pages, soliciting opinions from a wide range of authorities, and drawing on wealth of information from numerous sources.
Yet no matter what information the participants were using, and even what side of the debate they were on, they seemed to share the unspoken assumption that more is better, that the more humans we have, the better off we are.
If we can feed 7 billion people, the Earth can't be overpopulated.
If we can find a way to feed 8 billion, then that's how far human population should grow.
My experience of Plitvice has brought this assumption into sharp focus.
By being preoccupied with material necessities, could we be overlooking something less tangible but no less important? Do we even realise what it is that we are losing? Cultures that live close to nature would readily appreciate this loss.
While living with Malaysian aborigines - Sng'oi - Robert Wolff was intrigued by how much their lives revolved around communion with nature.
For their everyday guidance, they relied on dream interpretations, noticing and interpreting signs and omens in nature, and having an intimate, intuitive connection with animals and plants around them.
The tradition of wandering in wilderness in search of guidance is shared by nature-based cultures across the globe.
Like the Sng'oi, and aborigine cultures from Australia to South America, they seek to uncover the underlying theme of their lives, and they seek this insight from spirit helpers that abide in the natural world.
The vision quests themselves bear little resemblance to modern nature vacations.
We have the habit of taking our world with us as we travel - cars for ease of transportation, toiletries and various other little conveniences because they have become indispensable, motor boats, skis, quad bikes, and other power tools to exploit the setting to the full, laptops and cell phones with which to stay in touch with the wider world, and cameras with which to preserve the memory of our adventure for posterity.
In the process, we transform the natural setting where we have ventured into an extension of our culture.
We interact with it on terms that are already all too familiar.
An aborigine in search of a vision ventures into wilderness in an effort to get away from culture, to leave behind familiar ways in order to discover something fresh that speaks to him authentically and uniquely.
There are dangers in wandering in the wilderness, of course, but as John Perkins has discovered in the Amazonian jungle during his time with the Shuar, the risk is not so much one of dying as of not living properly.
Perhaps most importantly, by being prepared to meet nature on its own terms, we recognise that we are a part of it.
We acknowledge that the human world is but one aspect of the natural world, and that there are other aspects no less valid or valuable than our own.
It is a vision that allows each member of the natural world to express itself as it best knows how.
Such self-expression is challenging to come by when the worth of the world is perceived through the tunnel vision of the current economic system; when an animal, a tree, or a meadow has to point to its current economic worth in order to justify its very existence.
The question of human overpopulation of planet Earth takes on new meaning when viewed through the wider lens hinted at by Plitvice.
It is not about how many people we can feed and clothe, but how large the human community can become while still allowing non-human communities to thrive and prosper.
Without them, we can comfortably meet all our physical needs and still lose our souls to the bustle and clamour of civilisation.
Once our culture claims as its own the last forest, stream and mountaintop, where will we turn to distance ourselves from it and seek a vision of its renewal? Is planet Earth overpopulated? That remains a matter for debate.
Hopefully, going forward, that debate will not content itself with looking for ways to meet our material needs - demanding as they may be - but will give equal consideration to why we even bother to have those needs met.
What is it that we are staying alive for? How do we discover it? How do we live it? After all, we cannot meaningfully engage the question of whether there are too many humans without considering what it means to be human in all its intricacy.
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