Mauritius Case Study: Alternative Histories Since 1962

This Working Paper constitutes Chapter 17 of the book manuscript, "Understanding Population-Development-Environment Interactions: A Case Study on Mauritius". The Mauritius case study was carried out by IIASA in scientific collaboration with the University of Mauritius and funded by the United Nations Population Fund (WNFPA). The paper presents and discusses findings from the interdisciplinary computer model simulating alternative population-development-environment interactions for the historical period 1962 to 1987, a period of rapid change in Mauritius. In a first step, population, economic, and environmental developments during the last 30 years are reconstructed by the PDE-Mauritius model on the basis of observed trends. This reconstructed history, which also evaluates the accuracy of the model itself, is used as a reference to which alternative histories are compared. In subsequent sections, five alternative population histories and nine alternative holistic histories are considered. The role of socio-demographic development, and of the fertility decline in particular, is compared to the importance of the economic boom for the rapid development of Mauritius. Also, the influence of specific economic strategies, like agricultural exports (mainly sugar), industrial exports (mainly textiles), or tourism, and in particular their impact on the environment, are investigated