Maintaining the Balance Between People and the Environment

USAID's Population and Environment programs recognize the connection between humans' health and their environments. Since 1993, USAID has supported projects that provide family planning and reproductive health services in areas where biological diversity is threatened and species are endangered. These projects operate in remote and sensitive landscapes where communities have little access to health services.

	Source: © 1988 Andrea Fisch, Courtesy of Photoshare

When family planning information and services are widely available and accessible, couples are better able to achieve their desired family size. This not only directly impacts the well being of families, but also contributes to better management and conservation of natural resources. Ironically, unmet demand for family planning is often highest in the areas where the richest and most unique arrays of plants and animals are clinging to a precarious and threatened existence.

USAID supports integrated population and environment program activities in regions critically important to the conservation of biologically diverse ecosystems. Research has shown that programs focused on the interactions between health and family planning, environment, income generation, and agriculture will be more efficient and sustainable than will similar programs pursued separately.

For those working in family planning and reproductive health, this approach increases access to underserved communities where women have expressed a need for family planning and related services that governments cannot meet. By partnering with environmental organizations, which have on-going projects and established relationships with these communities, integrated programs can reach these underserved populations in a cost-effective manner.

Environments benefit as well. Achieving desired family size not only impacts the well-being of families, but contributes to better management and conservation of natural resources and eases population pressures on local ecosystems. On another, more immediate level, providing family planning and related services help environmental organizations build goodwill in communities by responding to their needs in a holistic fashion.

The parallels between the fertility of human beings and the fertility of nature have been used to explain concepts relevant to both sectors. For example, comparing birth spacing to the need to let land lie fallow to recover its productivity, health workers have successfully conveyed its importance to male agriculturists who did not understand the role of birth spacing in improving women's health.

How USAID's Family Planning Programs Help

Successful Communities from Ridge to Reef, Kenya. Designated a UNESCO reserve in 1980, Kiunga National Marine Reserve boasts outstanding marine biodiversity of over 11,000 species, of which 60-70% are unique to the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The reserve's remoteness and its isolation from other economic centers has meant that communities living in and near the reserve depend on the reserve's resources for their traditional livelihoods of fishing and mangrove harvesting. It has also meant that health and family planning services are non-existent. With funding from USAID, WWF has been able to provide these communities with access to family planning through a mobile clinic which provides family planning information and services. Although WWF has worked in the area for over 25 years, they now report that community members are more likely to participate in their conservation activities now that they know WWF is willing to help them meet their basic health needs.

Healthy Families, Healthy Forests in Cambodia. The Cambodia/Vietnam war that began in the 1970s drove the indigenous Khmer Daeum communities from their homes in the tropical Cardamom forest. When they returned to their traditional land in the 1990s, they found that it had been depleted by logging and agriculture. With USAID support, Conservation International has helped the Khmer Daeum replenish their land and provided their communities with their first-ever access to family planning information and services. Integrated messages about the link between a healthy environment and smaller, healthier families have encouraged these villagers to develop long-term land use plans for their settled land and conservation plans for the lands bordering the forest. One immediate outcome was the creation of local women's associations that play an important role in mobilizing the community to increase income earning opportunities, providing access to health and family planning programs, and strengthening participation, particularly of women, in conservation activities.

Linking food security and family planning in Philippine coastal areas. In the Philippines, only 3% of the original primary forest cover remains intact and 5% of the coral reefs remain in pristine condition. Rapid population growth due to high fertility and internal migration threatens both natural resources and the rural Filipinos who depend on these resources for their livelihood. With support from USAID, the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) project focuses on communities in the Philippines' most endangered coastal reef areas. IPOPCORM works to improve food security by sustainably managing fisheries and promoting family planning in fragile coastal areas. The program garnered strong support from local mayors and community members who appreciate IPOPCORM's focus on improving livelihoods of their villages.

Population and natural resource management in Madagascar. In Madagascar, home to Africa's greatest concentration of unique plant and animal species, the search for a solution to rapid deforestation, coupled with high rates of population growth, led to the development of an innovative population and environment program. USAID/Madagascar links community-based natural resource management with interventions to improve health and family planning in remote, rural areas of Madagascar, allowing for better preservation of the island's unique biodiversity while improving the health status of communities living in and around these forest corridors. The program works with local communities to support family planning services, sustainable agriculture, good governance, improved food production, income generation, and environmental education.

Community-Centered Conservation in Tanzania. Through funding by USAID/Tanzania, The Jane Goodall Institute's TACARE project works to eliminate poverty and support sustainable livelihoods while halting the rapid destruction of natural resources. The project's aim is to improve the lives of the human population in the Tanzania, while promoting conservation and an understanding of the need to preserve the biodiversity of the area for the benefit of all who live in it. The community-based approach of providing family planning methods, information, and counseling by community volunteers has resulted in a greater acceptance of family planning. TACARE's innovative community-based approach is now being replicated in the Democratic Republic of Congo with funding from USAID/Washington.

Updated June 2006

Resources

1. Population Reference Bureau. (2005). 2005 World Population Data Sheet. [PDF, 308KB]
2. National Wildlife Federation:
   www.nwf.org/popandenvironment/
3. Center for Communication Programs. (2000). Population and the Environment: The Global Challenge. Population Reports, series M, no.15.
4. United Nations Development Programme
5. Center for Communication Programs. (2000). The Environment and Population Growth: Decade for Action. Population Reports, series M, no. 10.
6. USAID Family Planning

Related Technical Areas

• Population and Environment