NEWS
Some researchers argue that popu-
Are More People
Necessarily a Problem?
As world population surges, debate surrounds studies suggesting that
population growth can have economic and environmental benefits
IN 1937, A BUREAUCRAT SERVING IN THE
British Empire’s Kenya Colony penned an
alarming memo to his bosses about con-
ditions in the Machakos Reserve, a hilly,
drought-prone farming region 50 kilometers
south of Nairobi. “Benevolent British rule”
had encouraged the explosive “multipli-
cation” of the “natives,” he reported, lead-
ing to massive environmental degradation.
“Every phase of misuse of land is vividly and
poignantly displayed in this Reserve, the
inhabitants of which are rapidly drifting to a
state of hopeless and miserable poverty and
their land to a parching desert of rocks, stones
and sand.” The apocalyptic warning came as
the region’s population approached 250,000.
Today, more than 1.5 million people call
Machakos home. Rather than a cautionary
example of the perils of overpopulation,
however, for some experts Machakos has
become a symbol of something very dif-
ferent: the idea that rapid human popula-
tion growth, even in some of Earth’s driest,
most challenging environments, is not nec-
essarily a recipe for disaster—and can even
bring benefits. They argue that, over the past
75 years, population growth in Machakos
544 29 JULY 2011 VOL 333 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
Intense shift.
lation growth made possible land use and farm
productivity improvements in Kenya’s Machakos
region.
bers alone don’t determine the consequences
of population growth, and that a complex
mix of culture, socioeconomics, and biol-
ogy also plays a role. The findings are also
renewing interest in the work of a pioneering
Danish economist who challenged conven-
tional notions about the dire consequences
of more people—and are raising hopes that
even the poorest, fastest-growing regions
could, with the right mix of policies, ride out
the global population tsunami.
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on May 28, 2014
Along with this cautious optimism, how-
ever, come profound doubts. Some experts
wonder whether the “Machakos miracle”
can be replicated elsewhere or sustained in
regions experiencing unprecedented popu-
lation growth. “Although local successes
offer hope, it is dangerous to generalize,”
warns Jules Siedenberg of the University
of East Anglia in Norwich, U.K. “We need
to be sure we are drawing the right lessons,
since people’s lives are at stake.”
Doomsters and boomsters
The question of whether population growth
poses a dire threat or a potential opportunity
is an old one. Not long after Thomas Robert
and nearby Nairobi has triggered social and Malthus made his now-famous 1798 pre-
economic shifts that have made it possible for diction that more people would doom us to
residents to regreen once-barren hillsides, “gigantic inevitable famine,” an opposing
reinvigorate failing soils, reduce birth rates, camp of population “boomsters” emerged,
and increase crop production and incomes. highlighting the potential benefits of repro-
“A landscape that was once declared good duction. More people, they argued, meant
for nothing is now like a garden when the more labor, technological innovation, and
rain falls,” says Michael Mortimore, a geo- economic growth. Ever since, the rhetori-
grapher with Drylands Research, a United cal doomster-versus-boomster battle lines
Kingdom–based nonprofit have barely shifted: Today,
organization, who helped Video featuring author for instance, even as many
document the turnaround David Malakoff. experts warn that more peo-
in More People, Less Ero- www.scim.ag/nY4t8K ple threaten to exacerbate
sion, a 1994 study that is still hunger, poverty, and envi-
influential—and controversial—today. “Too ronmental problems, others respond by not-
many people still have the simplistic notion ing that nations with some the world’s high-
that too many people is a problem,” he says. est population densities—such as Singapore
CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES/DORLING KINDERSLEY
“What happened in Machakos challenges and the Netherlands—also have some of the
that pessimism.” world’s strongest economies and environ-
And Machakos isn’t alone. In other hard- mental commitments.
pressed regions, researchers are finding that One recurring flashpoint in the debate
even explosive population growth can be has been the ultimate impact of population
accompanied by some surprising trends— growth in the world’s “drylands,” the driest
such as increased tree cover, more produc- and often poorest farming areas of Africa,
tive farms and economies, and improved Asia, and Latin America. They hold nearly
well-being. Such results are adding new fuel one-third of Earth’s people, and some of these
to long-standing arguments that sheer num- populations, especially in Africa, are grow-
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 SPECIALSECTION
ing rapidly at 2% to 3% per men who went off to fight in
year. Many see crisis looming World War II brought new
in those numbers for people ideas back home. In 1994,
and the environment. Others, the researchers distilled their
however, see some hope for conclusions into a detailed,
a transition to more sustain- nuanced, and often provoca-
able livelihoods and cite Ester tive 300-page compendium
Boserup, a Danish econo- with a bold, counterintuitive
mist who died in 1999, as one bottom line: More People,
source of their optimism. Less Erosion.
In 1965, the then-little- The book “hit the pol-
known Boserup, who spent icy world with a storm,” the
most of her career consult- Association of American
ing for international develop- Geographers noted in giving
ment institutions, published a Mortimore a major award in
slim volume titled The Condi- 2008. In particular, the study
tions of Agricultural Growth: “controverted” Malthus and
The Economics of Agrar- backed Boserup, conclud-
ian Change under Popula- ing that “increasing popula-
tion Pressure. It examined the tion density has had positive
history of subsistence farm- effects.” In Machakos, more
ing and offered a theory that people had provided both
essentially turned Malthus the labor and the “necessity”
upside down. Instead of ris- for a transition to intensifica-
ing population density leading tion and better land steward-
to barren fields and starvation, ship. Rising populations had
Boserup suggested it could also created a rich social
naturally trigger “intensifica- milieu for innovation, infor-
tion”: the use of new technolo- mation-sharing, and political
gies and more labor to get big- involvement. Meanwhile, in
ger harvests from less land. Rebirth. By the 1990s (bottom), extra labor had enabled Machakos farmers to ter- nearby Nairobi, more people
“The idea was that people race and revegetate hillsides that were barren and eroded in the 1930s (top). had helped create demand
weren’t just mouths to feed but for the farm products grown
also brains that could think and hands and legs Malthus controverted? in Machakos and also seasonal jobs for
that could work very hard,” Mortimore says. In the 1990s, such questions prompted the young people from the region. This provided
So, for instance, a farmer who once might World Bank and other institutions to launch Machakos with income for further, capital-
have been able to weed a field just once during a range of studies, including the one that intensive improvements. Greater economic
the growing season could now justify using enabled a large team led by Mortimore and stability also led families to have fewer chil-
more abundant labor to weed it three times, Mary Tiffen of the U.K.’s Oversees Devel- dren and invest more in education. Politi-
increasing yields and maybe even providing opment Institute and Francis Gichuki of the cians had helped out by mostly getting out of
the income needed to dig an irrigation ditch or University of Nairobi, to spend 2 years dis- the way and letting markets create the right
haul in animal manure to restore soil fertility. secting what had transpired in Machakos incentives for farmers. What’s more, the
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): KENYA NATIONAL ARCHIVE; MICHAEL MORTIMORE

Boserup’s work carried some provoca- between 1930 and 1990, as its population authors argued, “Machakos is not unique.”
tive implications. One was that “under- roughly quadrupled. Drawing on a trove of Other places in Kenya, and communities in
population,” not overpopulation, was a bar- data—including historical documents and Nigeria and Indonesia, had also experienced
rier to development. Another was that, con- photos, field surveys of everything from restoration miracles despite growing popu-
trary to the conventional wisdom, dry areas soil fertility to household finances, and lations, they noted in a 1994 follow-up paper
might not have a fixed “carrying capacity”; numerous interviews—the team charted in the journal World Development. It was a
instead, with more labor, they might be the demographic and socioeconomic forces message, Mortimore says, “very out of step
able to sustain more people over time and that had buffeted Machakos households with the doom and gloom about population
thus hasten the “demographic transition” and how they responded. The research- at the time.”
to lower birth rates. Finally, her work sug- ers documented how, for example, farm- Nearly 2 decades later, More People, Less
gested that dryland farmers, given the right ers built terraces to control erosion, Erosion has become an important—and con-
incentives, could be counted on to invest in stepped up their use of animal fertilizers, tentious—scholarly classic. Recently, the
and take care of their land, solving, rather and began selling food to burgeoning mar- head of the United Nations agency that deals
than aggravating, natural resource damage. kets in nearby Nairobi. They also exam- with desertification paid homage to the study
Still, many were skeptical: Was this another ined the growing influence of women, the in a speech, hailing a promising trend of
beautiful theory destined to be destroyed by church and community groups, the impact “more people, more trees, and less erosion”
ugly facts? of the end of colonialism, and how local in some drylands. Critics, however, have

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 333 29 JULY 2011 545

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 raised questions about the study’s methods New synthesis In some parts of Africa, meanwhile,
and conclusions and argued that it ignored At the same time, many scholars are devel- researchers are documenting a notable,
or downplayed some issues, such as a cof- oping a view of population impacts that Machakos-like “regreening” of arid areas
fee-planting boom in the 1970s that may fuses Malthusian and Boserupian perspec- with fast-growing populations. Studies by
have provided a one-time economic jolt. tives. And, like realtors, they say one key fac- geographer Chris Reij of the University of
Although overall incomes are up and birth tor in predicting consequences is location, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and others
rates are now down in Machakos, some location, location. “The dynamics play out have shown that in the Sahel, the tree- and
experts note that it still doesn’t grow enough differently, depending on where you are,” shrub-growing trend has been boosted by
food to feed its population. And the poorest says Erle Ellis of the University of Mary- policy changes, such as giving farmers own-
families may not have benef ited ership of trees that grow on their land
from the “miracle,” which appears to and some technical assistance. There’s
have favored families that already some evidence that the extra greenery
had land and other assets, British is helping to make poor farm commu-
scholar John Murton concluded in a nities more resilient to droughts and
1999 study published in The Geo- economic setbacks, but the long-term
graphical Journal. Conservation- outlook remains at best unclear.
ists, meanwhile, note that intensifi- In the forest frontiers of South and
cation can actually worsen problems Central America, researchers have
like biodiversity loss and water pol- found both Malthusian and Boseru-
lution. Researchers have also added pian forces at work in deforestation.
to the debate over whether Macha- Depending on local circumstances,
kos is an exception or the rule in a families faced with growing popula-
string of technical papers. They have tion densities have responded by both
titles such as “Fewer people, less migrating to clear new farms in for-
erosion: The twentieth century in ested areas, the agricultural “extensi-
southern Bolivia,” and “More peo- fication” predicted by Malthus, and
ple, more soil degradation: The intensified land use à la Boserup, a
Malawi experience.” team led by David Carr of the Uni-
East Anglia’s Seidenburg, for one, versity of California, Santa Barbara,
believes it is a mistake to assume reported in a 2009 study in Population
that the Boserupian processes seen and Development. Paradoxically, the
in Machakos are “an automatic result is that areas with relatively low
result” of population growth. The population densities can have much
study showed “solid outcomes” higher deforestation rates than those
for one region but has perpetuated with higher densities.
“unhelpful hyperbole,” he argued in What’s needed now, Carr’s team
a 2006 critique in Development Pol- argues, are careful, Machakos-like
icy Review. The problem, he says, studies that “tease out the effects”
is that there are countless instances of changing demographics in remote
where fast-growing farming com- forest frontiers. Other research has
munities have not been innova- Fruits of labor. Machakos markets are now a source of produce for found that a farmer’s age, gender,
tive enough and are suffering as a nearby Nairobi and surrounding areas. and land tenure, for instance, can
result. Some farmers lack the market affect his or her willingness to put
demand created by a nearby city, whereas land, Baltimore County. His own studies in capital and labor into the land, with older
others lack access to capital, fertilizers, or China of areas that have been farmed for male farmers sometimes deciding to forgo
CREDIT: DUNCAN WILLETS/ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY/NEWSCOM
information. He fears that “focusing on sim- thousands of years, for instance, taught him improvements. Understanding such nuances
ple take-home messages, like ‘farmers will that “Boserup was right.” Intensification has could help forge better forest-protection
figure it out,’ distracts from addressing supported extensive population growth and and land-use policies, experts say. And Carr
the barriers that often prevent scaling-up ultimately urbanization, which has led to the and his colleagues predict that new studies
local successes.” abandonment and revegetation of less fertile “will surely test” what they say has become
Mortimore sees merit in some of the cri- lands (a process experts call “land release”). a Boserupian “orthodoxy of population den-
tiques and agrees that there is no single rec- But the trend “doesn’t necessarily mean life sity leading to agricultural intensification.”
ipe for success. And many drylands experts is easier,” he cautions. “People are working If so, it will open a new chapter in the long
believe that more people need not mean catas- harder than ever,” as Boserup predicted. And and rich debate over how population growth
trophe. “The trick is getting good policy that the specter of Malthus looms over China’s affects the planet, and when and where more
addresses local conditions and recognizes coercive one-child policy—which implic- people are a problem. Maybe the book could
the needs and knowledge of local people,” itly recognizes the downside of popula- be titled Less People, More Deforestation.
Mortimore says. “Local ‘win-win’ outcomes tion growth—and in the nation’s growing –DAVID MALAKOFF
are clearly possible,” Siedenburg says. environmental problems. David Malakoff is a writer living in Alexandria, Virginia.

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