The Thirteenth Corbishley
Memorial Lecture - 27 June 1989
Interdependence and Survival:
Population Policies and Environmental Control
by Baroness Seear P.C.
FOREWORD by Professor George Wedell
Having in the eleventh and twelfth Corbishley lectures had the opportunity to consider the role of the Commonwealth and the European Communities, two international institutions, in the promotion of a peaceful world order, the Council decided, for the thirteenth lecture, to invite Baroness Seear to explore some of the major issues on which peace depends.
Lady Seear identified four major issues in the international field, which are currently claiming the attention of politicians and people alike. These are the population explosion, the global environmental threat, the poverty of the less developed world, and the position of women in society.
Lady Seear's analysis shows not only the cumulative threat posed by a failure to resolve these issues, but also how the solution of one can aid the solution of the others. Lady Seear's varied and distinguished career in industry, as an academic and as a politician, has enabled her to develop to an exceptional degree the capacity for lateral thinking. This capacity has, in the lecture, resulted in a formidable analysis of the relationships between these four issues. The mist hopes that the lecture will be widely read and acted upon by those concerned, in government and in the voluntary bodies.
Interdependence and Survival: Population Policies and Environmental Control
I began the preparation for this talk much intimidated by the eminence of previous speakers and with the gravest doubt as to whether anything I could say would add to the insights and the wisdom contained in the twelve preceding Corbishley Memorial lectures.
After I had rashly agreed to give this lecture, I decided to base what I had to say on issues to which I have been introduced as a director of the Marie Stopes International Organisation, and in particular by a visit to India I undertook earlier this year on the organisation's behalf. This experience focused my mind on the interrelation of four areas of major concern. These four areas are the population explosion: the global environmental threat:
The poverty of the less developed world: and the position of women. Each of these is a well-worn theme and I feel it may well seem presumptuous for me to suggest that there is anything I can usefully add to the many discussions taking place among experts in the field.
My aim is not so much to add to existing knowledge on any of these subjects but to stress the manner in which the problems they raise interlock and the consequent need to look at the issues as a whole. Even more important is the urgency of these matters and of the need for speedy and effective responses. Such responses must certainly be at the level of governments, but, as certainly, not at that level alone.
Having decided that I would risk tackling this theme I was fascinated and encouraged to read the eleventh Corbishley Memorial lecture by Sir Shridath Ramphal. May I remind you of one compelling, even prophetic, paragraph in that lecture:
"Now, in strange reversal of man's predicament, the threat to human survival comes not from forces ranged against the human race on a hostile planet, but from the power which man's genius has vouchsafed him over the planet itself. The threat of human extinction comes now from man. When we speak of human survival today, we no longer mean survival of family, of tribe, of race, of culture, or even of civilisation. We mean, comprehensively, what we say: saving the human race from self destruction."
That was spoken only two years ago. No doubt this audience understood the message. But to the great mass of people it would have meant little - another bit of preaching to be heard but not to be heeded. It is a measure of the urgency of the issue, and also perhaps of the growing opportunity to tackle it, that, today, only two years later, these words would be heard and pondered on by a vastly wider audience.
Let us recall the most significant facts, so far as they can be established. The scale and speed of the population explosion is well known, but hard fully to comprehend. It was not until the early nineteenth century that the world population reached its first billion, with the second billion achieved about 1920. It increased in the 1950s at a rate of 50 million a year and the expected annual increase for 1990-2100 is some 87 million a year, or a little over one and a half times the population of the United Kingdom. The total population reached over five billion in 1987 and is expected to exceed ten billion before it levels off in the 21st century. 96 per cent of future growth is forecast to take place in developing countries. In some countries, as for example in India, birth rates have fallen from 44.1 per 1,000 in 1950 to 31.7 per 1,000 in 1980-85. But that will not prevent the 1980 population of 750 million rising to an expected 1,700 million before the figures begin to level off. In Africa, peak growth rates are still to come. It is forecast that Nigeria's existing 96 million will rise to 528 million before the year 2100.
To bring us right up to date the World Health Organisation Statistics Annual for 1988 shows an annual population increase for the world as a whole as 17 per 1,000, but one of 41 per 1,000 in Kenya, of 30 per 1,000 in the Eastern Mediterranean including the Middle East - a figure to ponder especially when we consider the significance of this issue for the status of women - of 27 per 1,000 for Africa, of 21 per 1,000 for South East Asia as a whole, of 7 per 1,000 for the USA' of minus 1.7 per 1,000 for West Germany and, for some strange reason, of minus 3.8 per 1,000 for the Isle of Man.
If there were no other pressures adversely affecting the environment, the impact of such rapidly increasing numbers would be serious enough. But, as we all know, there are many other such pressures. Much of the damage is undoubtedly being done by the developed countries in their use of fossil fuels and CFCs (chlorofluro carbons). To talk about the effect on the environment of the population explosion in developing countries without first facing, and acting to halt, the threat from the developed world is neither morally nor politically defensible. Commercial logging severely threatens the great rain forests. South East Asia in 1986 alone sold 2.9 billion dollars worth of logs and log products to Japan and the European Community. May I quote Sir Shridath Ramphal again:
'Today, the developed countries of East and West (which account for a quarter of the world's population) consume around 80 per cent of its commercial energy and metals, 85 per cent of its paper, and over half the fat intake of foods. Is it any wonder that poor and hungry people eat next year's seed corn to stay alive, that they over-exploit their soil, over-graze fragile grasslands and cut down disappearing forest stocks for firewood?"
It is no wonder - and the relative contribution to environmental hazards from rich countries makes it far harder for the rich leaders of the international community to call for restraint and change in the developing world.
Yet restraint and change there unquestionably need to be. As long as the acute poverty of these countries remains, soil erosion and forest destruction will persist, with the inevitable environmental consequences. At present tropical forests the size of Ireland are being destroyed each year with replanting taking place at the rate of one tree for every ten destroyed.
But it is not only by such destruction that the population increases threaten the environment. As the standard of living of some at any rate of these countries rises, they will be able to command a greater share of the fuel and mineral resources so lavishly consumed by the rich countries today, thus adding to the overall destruction. So, hope lies only in insuring that before they join the rich man's club, that club will have introduced and enforced tough rules to give survival a chance.
But for the great majority entry to that club is a long way off and meanwhile it is grinding poverty that characterises their lives - per capita GNP (gross national product) in Bangladesh is under 160 dollars and in Burma under 200 compared with 17,500 in the USA. And there is a link between poverty and population growth. In the rich countries children, however much beloved, are undoubtedly a cost. In the poor countries of the world they are seen as a benefit. When there are no old age pensions, no free health service, no sick pay or unemployment pay, the only security to be found is the security that stems from the belief that, in life's inevitable emergencies, your children will come to your aid.
A vivid scene from Delhi remains with me. I was in a traffic jam in a long line of cars. A little girl of seven or eight, carrying a thin little baby of a few months, slipped between the cars tapping on the windows to ask for money. To the extent that she went home with a few coins she was a benefit.
Students of changes in fertility rates have said that reduction in family size correlates with increasing personal security. If you have enough money you do not need to have all those children for an insurance policy. The security may come from personal wealth but that, even in rich countries, has never been possible for the majority of people. For them security has come from collective action, from all the many variations of what is loosely termed 'the welfare state' - though it could be better and perhaps more acceptably called 'the welfare ~ central brutal truth is that for the developing countries such provision on an adequate scale is not remotely even on the horizon - and, without it, dependence on children continues.
But how many children? Traditional rates of infant mortality in poor countries have dictated the need for a large number of children to be born if enough are to survive to serve the family's needs. To this must be added other considerations, including religious considerations, leading to a determination to have two sons, regardless of how many unwelcome daughters are born in the attempt. Slowly, as more children survive - itself a major cause of the population explosion -the need for so many children begins to be questioned.
There is some encouraging evidence that birth rates tend to fall when infant mortality rates fall. For example, in Sri Lanka the IMR (infant mortality rate) of 66 per 1.000 births in 1956 had fallen to 31 in 1988 with a fall in the birth rate (BR) per 1,000 population from 36 to 27. In Chile, the changes between 1956 and 1985 were from 109 to 19 in the IMR and from 34 to 24 in the BR~ In Mexico the IMR fell from 97 in 1947 to 47 in 1981 and the BR from 45 to 34. This shows movement in the right direction but is clearly far from sufficient to stabilise the population.
There are also signs that as women's education improves so they tend to have fewer children than women with no education. But in developing countries women's education has lagged far behind that of men. In India the male illiteracy rate is 45.2 per cent, the female rate is 74.3 per cent. In Ghana the comparable figures are 56.9 per cent and 81.6 percent. In Africa by 1986 85.1 per cent of boys but only 67.4 per cent of girls were attending primary schools, the figures falling to 38.2 per cent and 20.9 per cent for secondary education. In Asia the attendance figures at secondary level are 47.2 per cent for boys and 33 per cent for girls.
There is ample room for improvement here, and better-educated women will be quicker to realise that they have much to gain from smaller families provided essential needs, now met by larger families, can be supplied in other ways. Better education will also enable them to earn money themselves and to contribute to the reduction of poverty on which so much depends.
So what is to be done? This is no academic question. As it is being discussed the situation gets worse by the hour. From the time I started this talk to the time we go downstairs, the world population will have increased by about 9,000 - which is the size of a medium-sized town. But it raises hideously difficult issues in both morals and politics, The organisation with which I am connected, the Marie Stopes International, works in the developing world only at the request and with the continuing approval of the countries in which it serves. We carry out family planning, sterilization and abortion.
Today's lecture is being given in memory of Father Corbishley, a distinguished member of the Society of Jesus. I am an Anglican, though very much only a woman in the pew. But I have to ask what leadership and guidance can churches give to help us in this vast dilemma? In parts of the world the antiabortion lobby, of which some churches are so influential a part, has hindered work in this field and has no doubt considered it to be its cardinal duty to do so. Have these churches faced the problems caused by the population explosion? Is it not true that when teachings in the subject were being developed, the term population explosion' had not yet been coined? No one can deny that there are moral issues arising from the population explosion as well as moral issues connected with the attempts to arrest it. We are under an obligation to leave the generations which come after us a planet in which they have a reasonable chance of a decent life. This is not a choice between black and white, between evil and good. Given the position in which we find ourselves there is no plainly right answer. Some of you do not like abortion. Neither do I, but I see it as the lesser of two evils and, as so often, that appears to be the only choice on offer.
We all need help in tackling these problems and we politicians need it more than most. Politicians have to attempt both to exercise leadership and to be representative. There is a limit to the extent that they ought to be, as well as to the extent that they can be, away ahead of their constituents. They also have to attempt, like everyone else, to clarify their own moral positions and to relate them to the policies of their parties. Contrary to popular belief, nearly all the politicians I know, and I know a great many, take these matters very seriously indeed. I think I am right in claiming that the percentage of practising churchmen of all denominations in both Houses of Parliament is considerably greater than the proportion in the population as a whole. May I say, to such an audience as this, that we are entitled to expect more help than we get in attempting to grapple with these issues, remembering always that time is not on our side.
But as I have said, I speak mainly as a politician and it is to political issues, broadly interpreted, that I now wish to turn. Aware as we are of what is happening, to 'do nothing would be indefensible. What policies should we advocate and what action should be taken to implement them? So far as the rich countries are concerned, we need as a matter of urgency to put our own houses in order, both to make the substantial contribution to environmental improvement that only we can make and to give us credibility in discussions with developing countries. Putting our own houses in order is not a simple matter. Ill thought out or naive policies can do a great deal more harm than good. It has been suggested, for example, that the United Kingdom should 'disengage from international money markets' but this country is not an island. Such a policy would send the pound crashing and cripple industry. Similarly, a flat-rate tariff on imports has been proposed. This does not recognise how much we genuinely need from abroad. It would isolate Britain and, perhaps most important of all, would impoverish and penalise the Third World. I could go on but will refrain. Suffice to say there is moral obligation to use head as well as heart.
While tackling our own problems intelligently, we must recognise that poverty lies at the heart of the population problem and therefore of the environmental problem in developing countries. Whereas in the past, action by the rich countries to relieve Third World poverty has been seen primarily as a moral obligation, it now becomes also a matter of self-interest for the developed world. For in the poverty of the Third World lie the seeds of our own destruction. The problem is ours as well as theirs and we are part of the problem.
The response of many people will be to demand an increase in aid and, given the level of aid so far provided, in most circumstances and in the short run this can hardly be wrong. But what kind of aid and on what, if any, conditions? Is it justifiable to link aid, in some cases, to population and educational projects? To some, this smacks of neo-colonialism. But in all the circumstances, and given our own pressing and legitimate interest in the matter, may not such neo-colonialism, if that is what it is, be the lesser of two evils - only, of course, if it works?
And that raises the issue of the compulsory or semi-compulsory nature of the programmes. China, greatly alarmed by its population problem, adopted a policy of incentives and penalties. To many of us the Chinese approach would not have been acceptable - even if it did apparently produce results. In India, too, it is widely felt that the tough approach adopted by the late Sanjay Gandhi was counter-productive. There are a number of other practices that are widely opposed. Apparently in India, much against the policy of the government, the growing practice of determining the sex of the fetus is leading to abortions when it is known that a girl baby is on the way. To many of us - and this is certainly the policy of Marie Stopes - it is clear that schemes must be run on a genuinely voluntary basis and must be given in response to an expressed need for assistance. But such a method is slower than compulsion and may not reach the people who in reality need it most.
The fundamental problem remains, however, the problem of poverty. Seen in the context of the population explosion the material prosperity of the Third World becomes for us, as well as for them, a matter of life and death.
As an immediate and obvious issue there is the question of Third World debt, a problem made worse by high interest rates. There is a belatedly growing acceptance that means must be found to reduce if not eliminate the debt burden at least in those countries with little in the way of natural resources. The debt question is difficult to crack, but far more difficult, and in the longer run far more important, is the issue of Third World trade.
We all agree in theory that while aid may be good, trade is better. But when it comes down to the detailed application of improving trade with the Third World, we hit classic examples of 'not in my back yard'. As the economy becomes increasingly global we are simultaneously moving into a world which shows an increasing tendency towards protectionism. Textiles, cane sugar, cheap manufactured goods whatever they are, there are always plausible local reasons why they should be protected. GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) struggles on, but often appears to be fighting with its back to the wall. Yet, if Third World poverty is to be overcome, trade must flow -and if the Third World poverty is not overcome, then where are the resources to be found to provide the social security, the pensions. the education, which make reduction of family size a practical proposition? "It is easy for you", I hear my younger friends say. "You've got your pension and have no job to lose". "It is easy for you" say my colleagues in the Commons, "You don't have to stand for re-election." All absolutely true, and absolutely nothing to do with the basic issue. We dare not face the problems, and we dare not fail to face them, Clearly, if Third World trade is allowed to flow freely; the price must not be paid exclusively by those immediately affected, in many cases put out of work, by the competition from the cheap Third World goods. In the restructuring that has taken place in this country over the last ten years. much of it long overdue, such burden sharing has not, it is widely felt, been adequate, and the price has often been paid by those least able to afford it. This gives us some indication of the political problems involved if governments are really to take the action needed to raise Third World living standards through improved trading opportunities. As Sir Shridath Ramphal, to return to him once again, stressed, only an international approach with integrated economic and social policies has a hope of success. It has to be admitted that a global scheme seems little more than a pipe dream but this is certainly the direction along which we have to travel, and the Journey must be made with the support of public opinion and not against the grain.
Again and again it has been shown that the involvement of those to be affected by a policy is the only way to gain the acceptance without which nothing enduring can be achieved. In relation to Third World poverty, the population explosion and the environment, the involvement of a wide range of organisations and individuals is doubly important. It is important as a way - perhaps the only way - of getting enough people to understand and so to accept the need for change that may, and in some cases certainly will, affect them personally and adversely. But it is also important because, if done on a wide enough scale, it could have a substantial and beneficial direct effect, The Band-Aid response surprised and impressed the world as a whole. It showed that there are resources that, given the skill and the will, can be tapped to very good effect. Surely something of the kind could be done on a sustained basis to tackle the related problems of poverty, population and environment at grass roots level by appropriate twinning or similar arrangements. Some work is already going on. Some churches have reciprocal arrangements with churches in Third World countries. There are established relations with schools and colleges. But the scale and the scope need to be greatly extended - and fast. Given that the education of women is of such importance, women's groups everywhere could be establishing invaluable links, especially in relation to education and training. Each scheme would be small, but the aggregate result could be very considerable. The world has become increasingly impatient of governments, both of their action and of their inaction. But the other side of the coin is the willingness of men and women everywhere to lend a hand. It could be that, on that willingness, the fate of our kind may hang.