|
Copyright Michael Furtman Take
a Number The Not So Little Secret We Never Talk About -- How Population Growth Affects Hunters and Anglers by Michael Furtman Just as there was no shortage of anglers, there was
also no shortage of grumbling about it. Some openly wondered whether the
growth in fly fishing was good for the sport. One older angler, who had
likely seen days past when a fishery like this would have been much less
crowded, had his own opinion, one I’d heard elsewhere. “It’s that damn movie,” he said, referring to
A River Runs Through It, produced by Robert Redford and based on Norman
McLean’s beloved book. I mentally shrugged my shoulders. Anyone who thinks
that a movie, a book, a fishing organization, or the outdoor press are
the causes that have brought ever growing number of people on our
streams and lakes just hasn’t been paying attention. It’s population growth – the not so little
secret we never talk about. No matter how diligently we practice catch and
release, no matter how carefully we practice minimum impact techniques
out of doors, it is a simple fact that there is a limit to how many
people can fish a river. We are now also sharing these resources with
people who have no interest in fishing, but who just want to float them
in a raft, run their rapids in kayaks, or carve out a homesite along the
banks. In addition, riparian areas along streams and lakes are coming
under ever increasing pressure from the timber industry, development,
and agriculture. Whether its a “ranchette” with its leaking septic
system, or a hog farm producing yet another ton of
“the other white meat” for a growing population, or the
economic pressures a rancher faces to get more yield from his land, you
are going to see more people and more pressure on our natural resources.
And none of it is good. In just the next fifty years, America will add
about 150 million people. In just the next twenty years, America will
need to provide for the equivalent of 30,000 new towns each with a
population of 1,600 people. Every year we add the equivalent of the
state of Connecticut; each decade, the equivalent of California. Any and
all environmental gains we make in the mean time will tend to only keep
us marching in place. When I was a teenager in the 1960s, the topic of
population growth seemed to be discussed everywhere. If you were around
then and didn’t hear the term “zero population growth” you must
have been asleep. It was on the national news, it was in the classroom,
it was covered in the paper. Since that time, however, politics have
changed. Discussions on population issues have been stymied by the far
right of the political spectrum who insist on tying it to abortion and
who have consistently fought to defund sex education and family planning
programs both in the United States, as well as abroad by limiting the
amount of money America contributes to the United Nation’s family
planning efforts. Over and over again we hear “flat-earth society”
type statements claiming that we could put the whole population of the
world into Texas. Those who would halt debate on population problems
routinely claim that such discussions are either racist, anti-family, or
pro-abortion. “Those kind of comments are designed expressly to
stifle debate,” says Sharon Stein, Executive Director of Negative
Population Growth (NPG). NPG, founded in 1972, advocates smaller
families and limiting immigration in order to bring the U.S. population
down to 150 million people, a level they claim is sustainable without
grossly affecting our lifestyle. What the flat-earthers ignore is that it isn’t
the amount of land that it takes for the actual homes of our earth’s
billions (they are correct that Texas could hold our entire 5.9 billion
people, and give each of us .03 acres), it is the amount of land,
energy, and food it takes to feed, clothe, employ and even entertain us
that is unsustainable. That concept, called an “ecological
footprint,” is a relatively new area of study, but one that shows that
we’ve already exceeded a sustainable carrying capacity. We’re well
into bankrupting our children and grandchildren. These studies show that
if everyone in the world had a North American lifestyle, we’d need the
arable land, water, and energy resources of two additional earth-like
planets to sustain us all at our current population. “If everyone in America wants to live like people
do in New York City, fine. But we ought to at the very least have a
debate about it,” Stein continued. “I don’t think sportsmen and
women want that kind of life, though. As population grows, pressures on
the land will increase, and the blueprint has already been drawn.
Mankind always wins, and one of the first things to go will be wild
places and recreational uses of land as we need to produce more and more
commodities.” Her statements aren’t just idle threats. The
respected Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA), one of this country’s
oldest and most cautious conservation groups, polled its members in 1993
about how their outdoor experience had changed in just the last 20
years. Almost 94% reported that their traditional outdoor recreation
areas are more crowded; 83% found these areas to be more developed
(homes, malls, etc.); 68% reported fewer fish to be found at these
sites; and a startling 66% stated that the places where they used to
hunt and fish no longer even exist! In response, the IWLA launched its Sustainability
Education Project, which focuses on providing the public with the
information needed to intelligently discuss population issues and the
means to help local communities map out a sustainable future. Like
Stein, IWLA’s Project Director, Ben Hren, also points out that it is
often difficult to get people talking about the problem. “Efforts to bring these issues to the public
attention fade in and out,” said Hren. “Population education isn’t
dealt with through our education system, and often the discussion is
carried by people at the extremes. By linking it to issues like
abortion, which is such a tiny, tiny part of the equation, they make it
seem like no consensus can be reached, and so people just decide not to
talk about it.” Americans, who now number 263 million (compared to
150 million in 1950) have been lulled into complacency over the last
three decades. Our fertility rate is 2.0, which many of us may believe
is at what demographers call a “replacement level.” Yet America is
the fastest growing industrialized nation in the world. Added to this is
an annual increase of one million legal and illegal immigrants. The
result, the U.S. Bureau of the Census says, will be that our population
will reach about 400 million by the year 2050. That’s the equivalent
of adding a city the size of Chicago to each and every state. We are the
victims of the culture of growth, one that is dependent upon an ever
increasing supply of consumers – a snake eating its own tail – and
victims of a society in which the vocal few have been successful in
shouting down any who would talk about population growth. But we do need to be talking about these issues.
There are solutions. If steps are taken today, the solutions don’t
need to be grievous and can be voluntary in nature. But if we allow
population growth to continue, I fear what may come. Governments will be
forced to enact ever tougher laws on development, pollution, even,
perhaps, family size. Personal freedoms will disappear. Quality of life
will diminish. Recreational opportunities will have waiting lists. We can either talk about it, and then do something
about it, or we can do nothing, and enjoy what we have while we can. I
sometimes fear that the latter will be the norm, if the response of one
sportsman I talked to is typical. “After all,” he said, “no one saved any
buffalo for me.” For More Information: IWLA
(Author's Note: A version of this article appeared in Midwest Fly Fishing magazine.) Copyright
Michael Furtman. No distribution or reprinting without the
author's written consent.
|