Prior to being integrated into a combined Michigan Fellows Newsletter, PE Fellows' work was featured in the Population-Environment Fellows Newsletter. Click the links below to download archived issues*:

PE News Winter '02
PE News Winter '01
PE News Winter '00
PE News Spring '99
PE News Fall '98

Report from the U.S.-Mexico Water Workshop

A workshop entitled, "The Future of the U.S.-Mexico Border: Population, Development, and Water" was held May 7-9, 2001, in Tijuana, Mexico, by the Population, Environmental Change, and Security Initiative and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. The workshop highlighted both the opportunities and the constraints likely to beencountered by border citizens and decision-makers in the coming 25 years regarding transboundary water, health, and demographic issues. Special attention was given to the viability of existing binational, federal, and non-governmental institutions and their capacity to meet future challenges in these areas. The workshop report provides a summary of proceedings and includes abbreviated versions of the following papers: The Demographic Challenges and Quality of Life on the North Mexican Border by Rodolfo Cruz Piñeiro of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte; and Water Management on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Mandate Challenges for Binational Institutions by Stephen P. Mumme of Colorado State University and Nicolas Pineda of El Colegio de Sonora.

A Power Beyond Measure: How Fear of Population Growth has Changed the Way People Think About the World

This paper by Matthew Connelly of the University of Michigan focuses on how population growth and its anticipated consequences have prompted both policy scientists and policy-makers to rethink international relations. Population issues provided new reasons and new ways to divide up the world, but they also contributed to critiques of the very idea of sovereignty and helped shape an emerging global identity. Discussions of these issues drew from and contributed to a discursive tradition that shapes perceptions of both population growth and its potential impact on international security. While this tradition continues into the present, this paper narrates the period 1890-1970, beginning when population growth and movement first appeared to threaten the great powers until it was finally given the attention and resources sufficient to mount an officially sponsored family planning campaign that spanned the globe.

Please note: A Power Beyond Measure is available by e-mail request only. Individual copies may be obtained by e-mailing popenv@umich.edu.

Migration, Population Change, and the Rural Environment

This paper by Richard E. Bilsborrow of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill considers the linkages among rural populations, migration, and environmental degradation in developing countries, focusing on the latter part of the twentieth century. The author examines rural populations, including size, density, recent growth trends, and patterns of migration; theories and approaches to the study of migration; and especially evidence on the environmental consequences of migration, based on recent publications and organized by region. Environmental degradation as a cause of out-migration is examined based on the limited evidence on the topic, as are the effects of out-migration on rural areas of origin. The paper concludes with research recommendations as well as policy options for both improving the lives of populations subjected to migratory pressure as well as assisting migrants in places they migrate to, notably fragile frontier environments, with minimum cost to the environment.