Raising our profile, from France to Kenya - September Supporters' Update

Unsubscribe

View in your browser

POPULATION MATTERS SUPPORTERS' UPDATE

SEPTEMBER 2021

Director's message

This has indeed been a season of 'mellow fruitfulness' for PM, with the team and our partners raising our profile worldwide. The only organisation explicitly addressing population at the IUCN Congress in Marseille at the start of September, PM’s pre-event spadework ensured IUCN’s Europe Programme acknowledged population as a key driver of biodiversity loss:

"The current societal production and consumption patterns, especially in the Global North, including the EU, coupled with a growing human population, have exceeded our planetary boundaries and accelerated the biodiversity crisis."

PM highlighted World Contraception Day (26 September) and Safe Abortion Day (28 September), and the sobering fact that hundreds of millions of women are still unable to use safe family planning; a lack of access worsened by Covid. This is further proof of the value of our partnerships with groups working in some of the hardest-hit, least-resourced communities, such as Komb Green Solutions. Active in Nairobi’s Korogocho slum, Komb Green provide family planning advice and practical support, making the links between smaller families and their consequent economic and environmental benefits (see their brilliant 'billboard' below).

In another creative venture, PM materials are part of the education 'toolkit' underpinning the cross-Kenya outreach for the award-winning film The Elephant Queen. A converted Bedford truck with an on-board solar-powered cinema is "taking the Elephant Queen back to the children of Kenya". Supported by the Kenyan Government, the film will reach 100,000 children in a country where 45% of the population is under 16. PM's logo is on the side of the truck, alongside other leading conservation organisations.

- Robin Maynard, Director, Population Matters

NEWS FROM POPULATION MATTERS

Safeguarding rights, empowering communities

Grassroots providers of sexual and reproductive health services continue to face unprecedented challenges in ensuring access to contraceptives and comprehensive abortion care for the world’s most vulnerable women and girls. Population Matters’ Empower to Plan Coordinator, Catriona Spaven-Donn, explains what we are doing to help.

Talking population at the World Conservation Congress

From 3-10 September, we attended the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Marseille, France. The Congress brought together thousands of people from diverse sectors to discuss the state of nature and how it can be protected. Senior Campaigner Andrew Howard reports how PM made its presence felt, and how we ensured the recognition of population growth as a key driver of biodiversity loss.

POPULATION

How far will global population rise? Researchers can't agree

This Nature news feature provides a good overview of the most authoritative recent population projections, as well as their limitations, and explains the difficulty of predicting future population size.

Lower birth rates are good for economies

In this article for The Overpopulation Project, Jane O'Sullivan and Susann Roth lay out the economic and social benefits of ending population growth.

ENVIRONMENT

More than half of all tree species could face extinction

A comprehensive new assessment of the conservation status of all trees reveals that 30-60% of species are at risk of extinction, mainly due to habitat destruction for agriculture.

EU farmland squeezing out wild species

A recent study shows the continued conversion of land to agriculture to feed growing populations in Europe will have devastating impacts on important species like wild bees, plants and earthworms.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS & SEXUAL HEALTH

The long road to equality

This powerful infographic from UN Women shows how far away we still are from achieving global gender equality. World leaders must accelerate efforts to empower women and girls.

Partha Dasgupta: aid cuts "very disappointing"

PM Patron and renowned economist Sir Partha Dasgupta criticised the UK Government’s cut to overseas family planning aid. His independent review on biodiversity specifically called for the advancement of women's rights and family planning. We've been lobbying the Government on this issue also - you can join our call to reverse the devastating aid cuts here.

TAKE ACTION

Countdown from 30

There are only 30 days until COP26, the critical climate change conference in Glasgow, and just 30 years for us to implement the positive changes we need to save our planet. If you haven’t already, please give to our 30th anniversary appeal and make a better future possible.

Donate now

Quote of the month

"The global slowdown in population growth rates is not a transitory demographic problem: it signals important durable successes. It has encouraging implications for climate change and the environment. Couples are having fewer children in an increasingly urbanized world while men and women pursue education, employment and careers and live longer than ever before."

- Joel Cohen & Joseph Chamie in N-IUSSP