Dear Ms. Castiglioni,
Thanks for your e-mail. It is not clear to me if you are adressing us as a private consultancy (Ecolas) or as the Belgian National Co-ordinator for EuroEnviron.
Our newsletter is in Dutch, so it will not much use to you. The Belgian branch of EuroEnviron doesn't have a newsletter. For information about Ecolas I send you our company presentation. We also have a website, which is a little bit outdated and will be updated : www.ecolas.be
The website for EuroEnviron is www.euroenviron.com. There you can find information on planned activities and such.
Overpopulation is not inside our competencies
Arnoud Lust
P.S.: NOTEER A.U.B. MIJN NIEUW MAILADRES / PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL
ADDRESS
Ecolas tel (+32)(0)3 233 07 03
Lange Nieuwstraat 43 fax (+32)(0)3 233 81 20
2000 Antwerpen mail arnoud.lust@ecolas.be
Belgium http://www.ecolas.com
Pas a.u.b. uw adresboek aan / please update your address book
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Ecolas [mailto:ecolas@ecolas.be]
Verzonden: donderdag 20 juli 2000 15:55
Aan: inge.vermeire@ecolas.be; arnoud.lust@ecolas.be
Onderwerp: Fw: For the determination of an optimal local demographic
density.
Ecolas N.V.
Lange Nieuwstraat 43
2000 Antwerpen
Tel: 0032-3-2330703/ fax:0032-3-2338120
e-mail: ecolas@ecolas.be (NIEUW MAILADRES - NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS)
http://www.ecolas.com
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: 528390@hyperlinker.com <528390@hyperlinker.com>
Aan: ecolas@pophost.eunet.be <ecolas@pophost.eunet.be>
Datum: woensdag 19 juli 2000 22:58
Onderwerp: For the determination of an optimal local demographic density.
>National EUROENVIRON Project Co-ordinator
>Mr P. Vanhaecke/Ms Els van Cleemput
>ECOLAS N.V.
>Lange Nieuwstraat 43
>B-2000 Antwerben
>Belgium
>Tel: +32 3 233 07 03
>Fax: +32 3 233 81 20
>e-mail: ecolas@pophost.eunet.be
>
>
>
>Kind Mrs. Els van Cleemput, Mr. P. Vanhaecke,
>
>many thanks for your precious efforts in building a better world!
>
>We are a little Italian laboratory of global researches and the environment
is at the first place in our list of concerns. We are very interested in
your activities, and for this reason, we would be very happy if you could
add our e.mail:
>
>528390@hyperlinker.com
>
>to your newsletter or mailing list.
>
>Probably, you are interested in overpopulation themes, like we are, so we
send you the call below for the determination of an optimal local
demographic density on the European territory.
>
>We heartily hope to meet your adhesion and contribution in this initiative
and to keep in touch each other.
>
>Receive our best greetings, thanks for all in advance,
>
>Marinella Castiglione
>
>
>---
>EUDAEMONY LABORATORY oOOo What will you sow today?
>Piazza del Municipio - 64100 - Teramo - Italy
>tel: ++39 861 415655 - e.mail: 528390@hyperlinker.com
>http://www.hyperlinker.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>--##--
>
>Call
>to the European Political Forces
>and Governmental Organizations
>for the determination
>of an optimal local demographic density.
>
>
>
>
>Kind Madame, kind Sir,
>
>We send you our warmest greetings!
>
>
>As you certainly know, in the last few months the world's population has
reached and exceeded the amount of six billion units, that of India having
exceeded one billion. These facts, although they represent a serious
demographic issue that should be faced with immediate and extreme care, have
not been treated with the necessary attention by the general public. Even
the people and groups most socially committed are almost all indifferent to
that which contributes heavily to the rise of the most serious social
illnesses of our era.
>
>With the purpose of encouraging debate and awareness of a theme that
urgently calls to be examined attentively, the issue has been condensed
under the form of a Resolution of Interest and other material published on
an Internet site activated specifically for this purpose with the related
International Forum of reflection and action. (Address below).
>
>Imagining that you, like us, are also feeling these same impulses of
healthy personal involvement, we permit ourselves to contact you at this
point in the hopes that you will want to treat this theme within your Group
and in the administrative and politic local Assemblees. Far from being an
issue that relates only to places far from our Nations, this demographic
problem has, in fact, for some time and in the general unawareness, fully
expressed itself also within those Nations, even made worse by heavily
industrialized ways of life.
>
>And in effect, observing the average of the European Union, we remember
that (according to data of 1997) the population density of the whole
territory is of 127 individuals per square kilometer, that means that every
European, ideally dividing the territory of our Union, has at his disposal
an area of only 0.78 parts of hectare (note 1) from which to get his life
needs (note 2) and on which to enjoy his individuality and to express his
creative power.
>
>It is rather complex to determine through a scientific method a total
optimal inhabiting density or the highest reasonable for a society, and to
establish how many individuals a territory can support without degrading
itself; however, with the simple comprehensive view we get by living this
situation personally, it is easy to understand that we have already for some
time exceeded a certain threshold of psychophysic wellbeing and healthiness,
and also of sound economic indipendence, since the European's life, their
territory no longer being enough to satisfy the exigencies of a widely
excessive population, by now depends much more from other zones of the Earth
than from Europe itself.
>
>For these reasons of internal overpopulation, without forgetting the
current phenomena of wild immigration onto European ground, deriving from
external overpopulation and certainly destined to grow, we think it is right
that the international demographic issue should be faced at, and should
receive contribution from, various levels. It must be discussed, made clear
and decided in a global ambient, with the intervention of overnational and
world political forces, being the problem of a planetary burden, but also in
a local ambient, at a national, regional and even provincial level,
observing both right and duty, as the demographic issue manifests itself
also locally and can find also locally effective solutions.
>
>In particular and to begin, it would be more than opportune to start a
diligent multidisciplinary study on the demographic situation, in every
Region and Nation, on the effects, not at all positive, that the local
overpopulation, not only urban but also rural, produces on the individuals
themselves, on the society and the environment. In this way it could be
finally possible to attribute a more precise responsibility to many of the
problems, still with a vague paternity, that worry us today, and to present
them the solutions they are waiting for. In the same time it would be
extremely auspicable to make clear in what measure we are real children of
our land and in what other we are instead dependent on far zones of the
world, in order to try to re-establish, with time, a sound equilibrium
between these two economic modalities (note 3).
>
>>From this study immediately it would emerge that our present demographic
density has already reached and exceeded evident danger signals and that a
further growth of the local population (whether for endogenous motives:
restarting of local birth-rate, or exogenous: for immigration) would
ulteriorly and terribly overburden our already precarious situation. In this
case, even if it is late, this same study should then determine an optimal
number, for our epoch and from the point of view of the individual, the
society, and the environment, of inhabitants per Nation and for the whole
European Union, that can serve as a point of referral for all our errands of
present management and plans of future development (note 4).
>
>Also aware of the numerous implications that such an initiative would
involve, we believe that the local and planetary situations demand an
immediate and intense engagement in this direction. We believe also that
this engagement of self-discipline not only would secure a serene future to
our Nations, but would also furnish an important point of reference both to
the less developed Countries, generally affected by exponential growth of
population, and to the other more developed, generally affected, like we
are, by hyperurbanization, both being still immersed in the torpor,
distracted and undecided on which direction to take.
>
>For all this, we hope that the demographic issue will rise powerfully to
the attention of our consciences and soon become theme of wide local debate,
and similarly we hope the study here augured will soon become concrete
reality (note 5).
>
>
>Kind Madame, kind Sir, thanking you deeply for your courteous attention,
and auguring ourselves that this initiative of ours, though modest, has met
with you some degree of consensus, we extend to you our best wishes.
>
>
>Danilo D'Antonio
>Laboratorio Eudemonia
>
>
>
>
>NOTES
>
>1) For a brief comparison, and starting with our Country: an Italian
(national average) has at his disposal only 0.52 parts of hectare, an area
much smaller than everyone would wish to, and be opportune to, have at his
disposal. In this heavy, sad situation Italy finds inside the European Union
crowded companions in Germany (235 inhabitants per square Km - 0.42 hectares
per person), in England (243 inhabitants per square Km - 0.41 hectares per
person), in Belgium (310 inhabitants per square Km - 0.32 hectares per
person), and in Holland (457 inhabitants per square Km - 0.21 hectares per
person). The European average is: 127 inhabitants per square Km, equal to
0.78 hectares per person; the world average is: 44 inhabitants per square
Km. equal to 2.27 hectares per person (but mind that in this count are
considered also deserts and ice-caps, otherwise the area per person goes
down further: about 1.3 hectares).
>
>Inside the planetary situation, there are cases as those of the United
States in which every one has at his disposal still an area of 3.44 hectares
of national territory, and Australia, where every one can enjoy 50 hectares
(and we hope they will be able to preserve them); but there are also case of
atavic carelessness as those of India, where every one has 0.31 parts of
hectare, and of Bangladesh, where a human being has only 0.10 parts of
hectare, the which gives light of greater clearness to many tragical facts
we see in the daily chronicles told by the media.
>
>2) Some researchers of the University of British Columbia, in Canada, have
determined, even though with a large approximation, the ecological footprint
that an individual, based on the style of life he leads, leaves on the
territory. And so, through a special calculator available on the Internet,
it is possible to derive that for the middle european individual needs of
food, lodging, transports, consumer goods, services and what other he uses
to live, it is necessary an area between 6 and 7 hectares. Even though
certainly the measure is rough, we cannot not keep it well in mind in the
important decisional processes relating our Region and Nations. Measure your
own ecological footprint going to:
>
>http://www.lead.org/leadnet/footprint/intro.htm
>
>3) Both an economy that expresses itself locally and one that expresses
itself globally have both values and faults. Here is not the place to face
this argument, but we would however remember that a local economy makes the
society that practices it more solid but gives it a scarce innovation; an
economy that bases itself on exchanges with distant countries certainly
enriches but at the same time creates instability and dependence from
outside. The climate of continuous emergence and of insane economic chase we
are living today derives in great part just from the lack of balance born
from having given too much space to the global economy taking it away to the
local one. A re-equilibrium of these two components is the wisest choice to
which one could today dedicate himself in the economic field.
>
>4) With regard to our future development, we permit ourselves to remember
that today, in times of science and no longer of brute force, this
development is favoured in an enormously greater way by a qualitative growth
of people, then by their intellectual maturity and preparation, that not by
a simple quantitative growth of population. More than favouring this last,
then, we need to cultivate and organize as best we can the existing
population: so doing, people that today may even be a burden for the society
and are abandoned will tomorrow become able to accomplish authentic
prodigies and to be a positive guide for others. Consider, moreover, that
after such a great exterior, material development like that reached by our
society, a natural organizational evolution, a real interior development,
must necessarily be added now, otherwise the former not supported by the
latter would fall down very soon on itself.
>
>5) Concede us this one last note. In case the study would confirm what we
are here hypothesizing (that our territories already support too much
humanity) we must engage ourselves even more, or begin very eagerly, to
contribute in making better the conditions of life in those Countries whose
inhabitants would have wished to move next to us. Maybe, just intensifying,
or sending for the first time, temporaneous invitations to some of them in
order to freely furnish them the knowledge that we have, that could help
their Community to reach a full self-sufficiency.
>
>At the same time, to avoid that our dutiful respect for an ideal
demographic density could even in the least thwart the positive process of
universalization of cultures and union of peoples that is already in act, we
should promote even more cultural exchanges of excellent quality (mostly
telematic, being immensely more effective than the simple transport of
organic matter activated by conventional tourism) with all the Countries in
the World.
>
>
>
>--##--
>
>Data on the demographic density are derived from:
>www.istat.it
>www.worldbank.org
>
>
>For updates (also deriving from your precious feedback: thanks in advance!)
and other matter on the same theme, please see our web site:
>
>The World Demographic Issue
>http://www.hyperlinker.com/spg/pop.htm
>
>Every kind of contribution (adhesion, divulgation, articles, links, etc.)
you can give to this call will be very useful to favour the awareness on the
European heavy demographic situation.
>
>--##--
>
>
>
>
>