Population and the Environment
Human populations and the environment influence one another in countless ways. PRB helps advocates and decisionmakers understand these critical connections so that policies are created to protect valuable natural resources and promote sustainable development. Our population and environment work includes:
Making Connections
Improving Human and Environmental Well-Being in the Philippines
With funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, PRB worked with local groups in the Philippines to establish a national population, health, and environment coalition that includes policymakers and nongovernmental organizations. PRB convened the world's first national Conference on Population, Health, and Environment to build more than 200 local partners' capacity for analyzing population, health, and environment information and presenting it to policymakers.
Now, the coalition works actively throughout the country to ensure that decisionmakers understand the connections between population and the environment when creating policies. For example, the coalition helped organize an International Earth Day celebration on the banks of the endangered Pasig River in Manila.
Increasing Local Capacity
Natural Resource Planning in Madagascar
With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, PRB collaborated with a consortium of local organizations to conduct two capacity-building workshops in Madagascar focusing on integrating population issues into conservation efforts.
During the first workshop, nongovernmental organizations and government ministry representatives learned how to conduct a demographic appraisal to understand how a community will affect its environment. The second workshop focused on developing a compelling fact sheet for policymakers to explain the complex linkages between population, health, and the environment and identify actions for policymakers to take. Participants left each workshop with valuable tools to aid them in their daily work and new skills to share with their colleagues.