ABSTRACT

We now have at our disposal a set of tools that give us the capacity to trace out many of the population-environment linkages. Here we will make a somewhat arbitrary, but still useful, distinction between frameworks and models. By frameworks, we refer to complex sets of ideas suggesting how different conditions are linked together. We shall make a further distinction between two commonly used types of frameworks: sectoral and institutional. In the first, we look at different sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, industry, energy or transportation. For each sector, certain conditions can be described, such as the need for labour, or the provision of goods, implying arrows that connect one sector with another. In the second, we identify specific human institutions that influence the relationship between population and the environment. Here one can trace connections between markets, political systems, women’s status, values, and the international economic order on the one hand, and certain outcomes for the environment on the other. We shall have an opportunity to see both of these types of frameworks.