Ecopop (''ECOlogie et POPulation'', "Ecology and Population") is a Swiss voluntary association established in 1971 dedicated to the preservation of

non-renewable resources A non-renewable resource (also called a finite resource) is a natural resource that cannot be readily replaced by natural means at a pace quick enough to keep up with consumption. An example is carbon-based fossil fuels. The original organic mat ...

and the reduction of

overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scal ...

. Ecopop is a member of ''European Population Alliance'' (founded 2012). Founded under the mathematical trend of exponential growth of

world population In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for th ...

and the finiteness of natural resources, and inspired by the Club of Rome, the association is formed as part of the nascent

ecology movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists advoc ...

as ''Arbeitsgruppe Bevölkerungsentwicklung'' ("working group for population development"). It was renamed to its current name in 1987. It was active throughout the 1970s to 2000s in organising conferences and podiums on population growth.

Popular initiative

In 2011, the general assembly decided to launch a

popular initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a p ...

with the aim of reducing population growth in Switzerland. The initiative was officially declared valid on 4 December 2012. It was submitted to the voters on 30 November 2014, who rejected it (74.1% NO votes). The initiative proposes to insert two articles into the Swiss Federal Constitution: #reduction of net population growth due to immigration to a maximum of 0.2% of total population per year #at least 10% of Swiss federal development aid is to be invested in programs to encourage voluntary family planning. Throughout the 40 years of its existence the association had ostensibly been part of the ecology movement, proposing degrowth out of

Malthusian Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...

concerns mostly aimed at an academic or intellectual public, and during the 1970s it explicitly denounced populist or xenophobic motivation for immigration control advocated by

James Schwarzenbach James Schwarzenbach (August 5, 1911 – October 27, 1994) was a right-wing Swiss politician and publicist. In the 1970s he was head of the short-lived Republican Movement. He also was publisher of fascist, völkisch, and antisemitic literat ...

. Nevertheless, in the political climate of the immigration debate in Switzerland, especially due to the proximity of Ecopop's initiative to the immigration referendum of February 2014, which resulted in widespread fears among the political and economic elite of deteriorating relations with the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, critics tended to accuse Ecopop or its supporters of (variously) xenophobic, racist, fascist, selfish or hypocritical motives. These attacks were mostly based on the initiative's second paragraph dedicated to global rather than national population growth, as the idea of foreign aid invested in curbing population growth in developing countries was attacked as politically incorrect and some leftist critics went as far as equating it with child euthanasia in Nazi Germany. Recommendations by parties and organisations were predominantly negative, even

Green Party of Switzerland The Green Party of Switzerland (german: GRÜNE Schweiz; french: Les VERT-E-S suisses; it, VERDI svizzeri; rm, VERDA svizra) is the fourth-largest party in the National Council of Switzerland and the largest party that is not represented on t ...

, the

Green Liberal Party of Switzerland The Green Liberal Party of Switzerland (german: Grünliberale Partei der Schweiz, glp; french: Parti vert'libéral, pvl), abbreviated to glp, is a centrist green-liberal political party in Switzerland. Founded in 2007, the party holds sixteen s ...

and Greenpeace Switzerland took a negative stance, as did the notoriously immigration-critical Swiss People's Party (on the national level, with several cantonal sections in support). While leftist opposition to Ecopop is mostly expressed as criticism of xenophobia, centrist and right-of-center parties oppose it because of its economic repercussions, as a cap on

immigrant worker Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worke ...

s in Switzerland would deprive the economy of flexible recruitment of specialists as well as deteriorate Switzerland–European Union relations.Ruedi Studer
«Ecopop schadet unserem Land»
''Blick'', 31 October 2014.

References

{{Authority control Environmental organisations based in Switzerland Population concern organizations Degrowth Anti-immigration politics in Europe Politics of Switzerland Environmental organizations established in 1971 1971 establishments in Switzerland

Popular initiative

See also

References