Population Services International (PSI) joins more than 150 organizations to support the Thriving Together: Environmental Conservation and Family Planning initiative. As an organization that believes in putting the consumer at the center of healthcare, we know that meeting the unmet need for voluntary modern contraception is an important tool in combatting climate change. As such, we sign on to the following statement:

People and nature are interdependent, and health underpins both. Human communities and ecosystems best support each other when the needs of each are met in tandem.

We know that:

  • Successful biodiversity conservation requires taking into account people, our health, and our interactions with the natural world.
  • The United Nations considers it likely that the world population will rise from 7.7 billion today to 9.8 billion by 2050. Most of this growth will be in low and middle-income nations.
  • Poor rural communities in developing nations face the greatest barriers to use of and access to reproductive health services, including family planning. These barriers prevent women from choosing freely when and whether to have children, threaten family health, create challenges for girls who want to complete their education, and lead to higher levels of fertility and more rapid rates of population growth.
  • Poor rural communities often depend most directly on natural resources for their livelihoods, food, water, shelter and cultural practices. When localized, or combined local and global human pressures on ecosystems intensify, both community health and environmental health suffer.
  • There is very often an overlap of areas facing the greatest need for improved reproductive health services and for conservation.

Read the full article about contraception and the environment at Population Services International.