É por isso que a defesa dos direitos das mulheres, nomeadamente o da educação, é tão importante: porque reduz drasticamente a pégada humana no planeta.

To save the environment, let’s put humans on birth control

Only 13 years ago, we were 6 billion; just seven years later, we hit 7 billion and by 2100 we could be as many as 12.3 billion people. Shockingly, with each child a woman has, her carbon emissions legacy is increased six-fold. It cannot be denied that our size, density and growth rate all increase wildlife extinctions.

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But all is not lost. Fertility rates decline the longer a girl spends in school. By simply providing better female education, the overall population in 2050 could be 1 billion less than current projections.

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A small but growing number of organizations are beginning to integrate wildlife conservation with family planning. Blue Ventures, a marine conservation organization in Madagascar, has trained local women to provide contraception in rural villages close to protected areas. In three years, the project reduced its own ecological footprint by 267 global hectares purely by providing access to family planning.