Ethics of Humanitarian Aid
An ecological argument that some types may not be sustainable
There is a common misconception among first-world residents that all humanitarian aid of any form, must necessarily be beneficial to those who receive it. I would like to explain why this is not necessarily the case.
Simply put, there is a natural number of people that a specific plot of land can support. In ecology, this is called the carrying capacity of that land. While technology can to some measure increase this carrying capacity, there is only so far even technology can go. Thus, ultimately, there is this upper limit, this natural carrying capacity, which the land can successfully support. Left alone, the population will hover around this level: the land can only produce X amount of food to sustain X number of mouths. Bluntly, when the population exceeds this level, part of the population starves to death and dies until the population is again at this level. This is what happens in nature and in animal species. Obviously, this is a gross simplification: the amount of nourishment that a land can provide is also dependent on how hard this land is worked, the number of people working the land, and many other potential travesties of misfortune. However, as a whole, this system is in a natural balance: the land must be able to support the number of people who live on it.
What we do not realize is that when we simply throw food at populations of people whose land cannot support them, we can upset this balance or exasperate differences between the actual population and this ideal carrying capacity. Thus, population imbalances that should have been reverted by nature will be worsened by the introduction of this additional food source. There has been an artificial introduction of food beyond that of the capacity of production of the land those people live on. What then? We now have a population that is even further away from the carrying capacity of the land and, without continued humanitarian support, has no hope of surviving on the production of that land alone. If the population already could not be sustained by the land, the population after the artificial introduction of an additional food source, which due to the additional nutrients is likely even larger than the original, really has no chance of being sustained by their land alone.
On the flip side of this is the ethical question of whether or not we can let people die, when we have the capability to save them. When we have gross inequities in resources such as we see in the world today, where half the world lives in gluttonous excess (obesity plagues developed nations like the United States) while others lives in abject impoverishment and malnutrition, there is always a desire among those with excess to help those without. And there should be—however, the form that this aid takes does matter in terms of their long-term impact on their beneficiaries.
We must take into account the long-term impacts of our actions and strive for sustainable benefits from humanitarian aid. From an ecological standpoint, aid such as that described above looks helpful and beneficial in the short-term but may not have the long-lasting impacts we would hope for.
How does this translate into action?
We should save people but help people save themselves too.
Humanitarian aid should be technology-focused and skill-focused. This way, rather than artificially increasing the availability of food in the land, we are actually increasing the capability of the land to support its people in the long-term. This can be done through the introduction of crops that offer nutrients the land previously did not provide or increasing technological equipment to increase output of land or harvesting/planting capabilities of its people. Further, only with skill-focused aid can populations have a chance at drastic improvements in quality of life.
Much of the vicious cycle of poverty lies in excess population, beyond that which the native land can provide for. Thus, we should invest in contraceptives and other forms of birth control. When a population is burdened with people in excess of what it can provide for, people suffer as a result of too few resources and the population as a whole, worried more about how to provide basic sustenance for all its mouths than how to advance itself, is stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty.