The mantra of reduce, reuse, and recycle has long been the rallying cry of environmentalists seeking to preserve our planet’s natural resources and ensure availability of clean air, water, and arable land.

But while protecting the environment and focusing on ecological sustainability would be commendable and necessary, it should not blind us to a looming crisis of greater importance: the sustainability of the human race itself.

Governments across the world have long feared the specter of overpopulation and its supposed impact on natural resources. Influenced by the Malthusian theory, which warned that unchecked population growth would outpace food production and resources, many countries have implemented aggressive population control measures.

China’s infamous one-child policy was a prime example of government intervention to control population growth. The policy now stands as a cautionary tale. China faces a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce, and the grim prospect of demographic collapse.

The infamous policy has resulted in China’s fertility rate falling below replacement level over the years to an all-time low of 1.28 children per couple in 2020, a far cry from the ideal level of “usually around 2.1 – one for each woman, one for her partner, and an extra 0.1 to counteract those that die as infants.”

Alarmed by the decreasing birth rate, China abandoned the one-child policy in 2015, allowing two children per couple, and raising it to three in 2021. To encourage couples to have more children, government granted tax deductions, housing subsidies, longer maternity leave, and other incentives.

But the incentives did little to arrest the decline as couples became disheartened by rising education costs and living expenses. Many couples are still discouraged by “stagnating wages, fewer job opportunities, and grueling work hours that make it both difficult and expensive to raise one child, let alone three.”

But China is not alone. Nations across Europe, as well as highly developed countries in Asia like Japan and South Korea, are grappling with similar challenges. Fertility rates have plummeted well below replacement levels.

South Korea has the distinction of having the lowest fertility rate in the world. It dropped to just 0.721 in 2023. But data released last May 28 show the current fertility rate at 0.82, up by 7.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2024, and the “highest first-quarter increase recorded since 1981.”

In Japan, available data show the fertility rate fell to a new low of 1.15 in 2024, from 1.2 in the previous year. 2024 was the 16th straight year of decline and “the first time the number of newborns fell below 700,000 since records began in 1899.”

Skyrocketing living costs, intense career demands, and the delay or abandonment of marriage and parenthood have combined to create the so-called “population implosion.”

In his 2024 book, “No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children,” demographer Paul Morland foresees a grim future. Some places will see their population crash faster than others… there will be nobody there to care for the elderly. And the entire economic system will creak and perhaps collapse as those too old to work will grow in number while those of working age shrink. Great powers will wane. The elderly will die unattended and alone.”

Ironically, the very development strategies meant to improve quality of life — urbanization, technological advancement, and educational achievement — are contributing to the erosion of the human population base.

This presents us with a profound contradiction: What is the point of preserving a pristine, green planet if there are fewer and fewer people to enjoy it? Why aim for cleaner air, clearer oceans, and healthier ecosystems, if humanity — nature’s steward and its intended beneficiary — is fading into demographic oblivion?

It’s clear that a rebalancing is needed. Sustainability must not be viewed solely through the lens of environmental conservation; it must also encompass human continuity. The goal should not merely be a greener world — but one in which human life thrives in both number and dignity.

Of paramount importance is a more holistic vision — one that recognizes people as the heart of development, not just consumers of resources. It means promoting policies that make family life viable and desirable: affordable housing, parental support, flexible work arrangements, and accessible childcare. It means framing development not as a race toward technological supremacy but as a means to nurture human potential.

A flourishing human population and a healthy environment can, and must, coexist. Sustainability, therefore, should not be about choosing between trees and children, or clean rivers and expanding families — but about ensuring that both endure and enrich each other.

While reducing, reusing, and recycling remain important pillars of environmental responsibility, they must not overshadow the more urgent need to sustain human life itself. Of what good would be a world teeming with forests, birds, and oceans, but bereft of children’s laughter, of future generations? ([email protected])