Smaller human populations are still not a necessary condition for biodiversity conservation: A response to Cafaro et al. (2023)

The persistence of the “population size problem” in conservation-related debates suggests that, despite all evidence accumulated (Hughes et al., 2023), the sophism of population growth as the central driver of human-environmental issues continues to persist. The origins of this scapegoat for problems that have to do with political economy dates back to Thomas Malthus' work: Essay on population (Malthus, 1798). Though very influential at the time of publication, the mechanisms that generate scarcity are well understood today and a large body of evidence supports the argument that population size plays a minor role when compared to social, economic and political structure of populations. So, why does the population problem come into play over and over? Despite advancements in the field of biodiversity conservation, Cafaro et al., 2022, Cafaro et al., 2023a, Cafaro et al., 2023b echo the Malthusian hyperfocus on population size, obscuring nuanced perspectives that highlight mechanistic drivers of biodiversity loss (IPBES, 2019). Instead of responding to each argument point by point, our response reinforces our original arguments and clarifies our position that a central focus on population is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure biodiversity conservation across diverse ecological contexts.