"The other prerequisite for sustainable occupation of Tikopia is a stable, non-increasing population. During Firth’s visit in 1928-29 he counted the island’s population to be 1,278 people. From 1929 to 1952 the population increased at 1.4% per year, which is a modest rate of increase that would surely have been exceeded during the generations following the first settlement of Tikopia around 3,000 years ago. Even supposing, however, that Tikopia’s initial population growth rate was also only 1.4% per year, and that the initial settlement had been by a canoe holding 25 people, then the population of the 1.8-square-mile island would have built up the absurd total of 25 million people after a thousand years, or to 25 million trillion people by 1929. Obviously that’s impossible: the population could not have continued to grow at that rate, because it would already have reached it's modern level of 1,278 people within only 283 years after human arrival. How was Tikopi’s population held constant after 283 years?
Firth learned of six methods of population regulation still operating on the island in 1929, and a seventh that had operated in the past. Most readers of this book will also have practiced one or more of those methods, such as contraception or abortion, and our decisions to do so may have been implicitly influenced by considerations of human population pressure or family resources. On Tikopia, however, people are explicit in saying that their motive for contraception and other regulatory behaviors is to prevent the island from becoming overpopulated, and to prevent the family from having more children than the family’s land could support. For instance, Tikopia chiefs each year carry out a ritual in which they preach an ideal of Zero Population Growth for the island, unaware that an organization founded with that name (but subsequently renamed) and devoted to that goal has also arisen in the First World. Tikopia parents feel that it is wrong for them to continue to give birth to children of their own once their eldest son has reached marriageable age...
Of traditional Tikopia’s seven methods of population regulation the simplest was contraception by coitus interruptus. Another method was abortion, induced by pressing on the belly, or placing hot stones on the belly, of a pregnant woman near term. Alternatively, infanticide was carried out by burring alive, smothering, or turning a newborn infant on its face. Younger sons of families poor in land remained celibate, and many among the resulting surplus of marriageable women also remained celibate rather than into polygamous marriages. (Celibacy on Tikopia means not having children, and does not preclude having sex by coitus interruptus and then resorting to abortion or infanticide if necessary.) Still another method was suicide, of which there were seven known cases by hanging (six men and one woman) and 12 (all of them women) by swimming out to sea between 1929 and 1952.
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Much commoner than such explicit suicide was “virtual suicide” by setting out on dangerous overseas voyages, which claimed the lives of 81 men and three women between 1929 and 1952. Such sea voyaging accounted for more than one-third of all deaths of young bachelors. Whether sea voyaging constituted virtual suicide or just reckless behavior on the part of young men undoubtedly varied from case to case, but the bleak prospects of younger sons in poor families on a crowded island during a famine were probably often a consideration. For instance, Firth learned in 1929 that a Tikopian man named Pa Nukumara, the younger brother of a chief still alive then, had gone to sea with two of his own sons during a sever drought and famine, with the express intent of dying quickly, instead of slowly starving to death on shore.
The seventh method of population regulation was not operating during Firth’s visits but was reported to him by oral traditions. Sometime in the 1600s or early 1700s, to judge by accounts of the number of elapsed generations since the events, Tikopia’s former large saltwater bay became converted into the current brackish lake by the closing-off of a sandbar across its mouth. That resulted in the death of the bay’s former rich shellfish beds and a drastic decrease in its fish populations, hence starvation for the Nga Ariki clan living on... Tikopia at that time. The clan reacted to acquire more land and coastline for itself by attacking and exterminating the Nga Ravenga clan. A generation or two later, the Nga Ariki also attacked the remaining Nga Faea clan, who fled the island in canoes (thereby committing virtual suicide) rather than await their deaths by murder on land. These oral memories are confirmed by archaeological evidence of the bay’s closing and of the village site.
Most of these seven methods for keeping Tikopia’s population constant have disappeared or declined under European influence during the 20th century. The British colonial government of the Solomons forbade sea voyaging and warfare, while Christian missions preached against abortion, infanticide, and suicide. As a result, Tikopia’s population grew from its 1929 level of 1,278 people to 1,752 people by 1952, when two destructive cyclones within the span of 13 months destroyed half of Tikopia’s crops and caused widespread famine,The British Solomon Islands’ colonial government responded to the immediate crisis by sending food, and then dealt with the long-term problem by permitting or encouraging Tikopians to relieve their overpopulation by resettling onto less populated Solomon islands. Today, Tikopia’s chiefs limit the number of Tikopians who are permitted to reside on their island to 1,115 people, close to the population size that was traditionally maintained by infanticide, suicide, and other now-unacceptable means." 1
As you can read from the previous paragraphs overpopulation causes mandatory sacrifice, desperation, and war over resources. If one can understand how it would be vital for a civilization to control its population on an island such as New Guinea or Tikopia one should understand the imperative for this to occur in modern society and around the world. (See Abortion and Contraception Benefit the World) Individuals must be able to understand and extrapolate these issues to a worldwide problem. Humanity must realize that it is on an island in the vast sea of space. Earth is the only home we have ever known and the only home we know of. It is vital we cherish and care for the continuation of resources it provides because humanity depends on it. I previously stated reasons which points to worldwide human overpopulation. However, Professor Diamond expands on this issue as well.
"The population crisis is already solving itself, because the rate of increase of the world’s population is decreasing, such that world population will level off at less than double its present level.’ While the prediction that world population will level off at less than double its present level may or may not prove true, it is at present a realistic possibility. However, we can take no comfort in this possibility, for two reasons: by many criteria, even the world’s present population is living at a non-sustainable level; and, as explained earlier in this chapter, the larger danger that we face is not just of a two-fold increase in population, but of a much larger increase in human impact if the Third World’s population succeeds in attaining a First World living standard. It is surprising to hear some First World citizens nonchalantly mentioning the world’s adding ‘only’ 2½ billion more people (the lowest estimate that anyone would forecast) as if that were acceptable, when the world already holds that many people who are malnourished and living on less than $3 a day.
'The world can accommodate human population growth indefinitely. The more people, the better, because more people mean more inventions and ultimately more wealth.’ Both of these ideas are associated especially with Julian Simon but have been espoused by many others, especially by economists. The statement about our ability to absorb current rates of population growth indefinitely is not to be taken seriously, because we have already seen that that would mean 10 people per square yard in the year 2779. Data on national wealth demonstrate that the claim that more people mean more wealth is the opposite of correct. The 10 countries with the most people (over 100 million each) are, in descending order of population, China, India, the U.S., Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. The 10 countries with the highest affluence (per-capita real GDP) are, in descending order, Luxembourg, Norway, the U.S., Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The only country on both lists is the U.S.
Actually, the countries with large populations are disproportionately poor: eight of the 10 have per-capita GDP under $8,000, and five of them under $3,000. The affluent countries have disproportionately few people: seven of the 10 have populations below 9,000,000, and two of them under 500,000. Instead, what does distinguish the two lists is population growth rates: all 10 of the affluent countries have very low relative population growth rates (1% per year or less), while eight of the 10 most populous countries have higher relative population growth rates than any of the most affluent countries, except for two large countries that achieved low population growth in unpleasant ways: China, by government order and enforced abortion, and Russia, whose population is actually decreasing because of catastrophic health problems. Thus, as an empirical fact, more people and a higher population growth rate mean more poverty, not more wealth." 2
Related Posts:
1. Diamond, Jared. “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fall or Succeed.” Penguin Group, Penguin Books. 2005. p.289-291
2. Diamond, Jared. “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fall or Succeed.” Penguin Group, Penguin Books. 2005. p. 511
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