Population Action International

Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests

May 1, 2000
The world's forests provide goods and services essential to human and planetary well-being. But forests are disappearing faster today than ever before. Due both to deforestation and human population growth, the current ratio of forests to human beings is less thn half what it was in 1960. Yet we not only need more forests, we need forests more than ever before–to protect the world's remaining plant and animal life, to prevent flooding, to slow human-induced climate change, and to provide the paper on which education and communication still depend. More efficient consumption of forest products and eventual stabilization of human population–a prospect that appears more promising today as birthrates decline–will be needed to conserve the world's forests in the coming millennium.

Nature's Place - Human Population and the Future of Biological Diversity

January 10, 2000
Nature's Place discusses how humans can preserve Earth and all its living species through the implementation on conservation programs. Questions raised in the report include, Does human population growth really matter to species loss? And Can policies and programs significantly influence human population trends, and can they do this while upholding the basic human right of couples and individuals to make their own decisions about reproduction, free from interference?

People in the Balance - Population and Natural Resources at the Turn of the Millennium

January 1, 2000
The interactive maps and data tables presented on these Web pages chronicle this growing scarcity in many of the world's countries. In each of the natural resource categories-water, land, forests, fisheries, carbon dioxide and biodiversity-a paragraph summarizes the global situation and leads to tabs that can be clicked to view an interactive map for that resource, along with one or more illustrative charts or world maps, a complete set of country data and a search engine that allows queries about specific countries and their natural resource availability or use.

Getting Down to Business: Expanding the Private Commercial Sector's Role in Meeting Reproductive Health Needs

May 24, 1999
Governments in developing countries have an important role to play in making reproductive health products and services affordable for the poor and other under-served groups. Accordingly, efforts to improve access to family planning and other reproductive health care have focused primarily on the public sector.

Forest Futures - Population, Consumption, and Wood

January 1, 1999
The accelerating loss of the world's forests presents one of the major environmental challenges of the next century. The growth of human population-from a few million people in prehistory to 6 billion today-looms large among the factors contributing to this loss. Yet many analyses of forest decline despair that population growth is an inevitable force that must be reckoned with but cannot be influenced. This publication challenges that view. Its purpose is not only to examine population's role in forest loss, but also to highlight the value of population policies that simultaneously improve human well-being and brighten the prospects for conserving the world's remaining forests.

Plan and Conserve - A Source Book on Linking Population and Environmental Services in Communities

April 15, 1998
In recent years, dozens of environmental and development projects in developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia have attempted to integrate or otherwise link community-based activities related both to natural resources and to reproductive health. This publication profiles 42 such projects for which Population Action International (PAI) was able to document both natural resource conservation and reproductive health activities that included improved access to family planning services.

Paying their Fair Share - Donor Countries and International Population Assistance

March 8, 1998
Paying their Fair Share - Donor Countries and International Population Assistance outlines the need for more financial support from donor countries to improve reproductive health while slowing population growth.

Educating Girls: Gender Gaps and Gains

February 5, 1998
The world has made remarkable progress towards expanding access to education over the past several decades, a formidable achievement given the growth of the school age population during this period. Historically, girls have lagged behind boys in school enrollment; women represent two-thirds of almost one billion illiterate adults worldwide. Although school enrollment rates have increased for both sexes, in many countries girls still lack equal access to education.

Africa's Population Challenge - Accelerating Progress in Reproductive Health

January 1, 1998
This report is the fourth in a series, including studies on China, India and Pakistan, which examines family planning and other reproductive health services in the developing world. The report highlights the progress countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made towards expanding access to these services and the key challenges they face, drawing on research by and interviews with experts on Africa, and information the authors gathered during visits to African countries.

Profiles in Carbon - An Update on Population, Consumption, and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

January 1, 1998
Profiles in Carbon highlights the neglected linkage of population and climate, and illustrates the contribution that sound population policies could make to international efforts to slow climate change.