Immigration and the environment: is Australia overpopulated?
By Reihana Mohideen The long-held image of Australia has been that of a sparsely populated country rich in resources. But in the context of a global ecological crisis, concerns are being voiced about Australia’s population “carrying capacity”. Sections of the environment movement argue that to achieve ecological sustainability in Australia, there have to be immediate measures to limit increases in population. The argument that the sheer growth in human numbers is destroying the planet is rooted in the biological concept of the carrying capacity of local environments. The term was originally used to refer to the population density of a given species that a natural habitat such as a fishery or grassland could sustain indefinitely. While populationists such as US academic Paul Ehrlich acknowledge that human beings, unlike other animals, are capable of significantly changing their living environment, they still argue that the carrying capacity concept is relevant to looking at a society at
