According to the EPA report of September 1999, approximately 6,500 acres of Vermont land were developed per year between 1982 and 1992 and this rate was increasing. This is a loss of approximately 10 square miles of wildlife habitat every year. Clearly this is unsustainable. Undeveloped land is not a renewable resource and we will have less and less every year for wildlife. We need to act now and continually to ensure the conservation of enough habitat to sustain all of Vermont’s native flora and fauna. We don’t want to wait until it is too late for some of these species.
Optimum Sustainable Population
Jim Andrews contributed the “Biodiversity” chapter in What is an Optimum / Sustainable Population for Vermont?, a report published in 2013 by Vermonters for a Sustainable Population.
You can download and read it for free.
Download Report 
The amount of land we consume is the result of the number of people times the amount of land used to sustain each person’s material standard of living. Most of our conservation efforts have been focused on minimizing the impact of our resource consumption without addressing the core issues of population growth or resource consumption per person. We need to openly discuss and address, in a humane and informed way, population growth, its impacts, and the sustainability of a perpetual growth economy.
Help conserve wildlife, ecosystem processes, and our quality of life. Promote population impact education and a sustainable economic model. To learn more about these issues visit:
