As the United Nations Conference on Population and Development reported, "Efforts to slow population growth, to reduce poverty, to achieve economic progress, to improve environmental protection, and to reduce unsustainable consumption and production patterns are mutually reinforcing."

On a personal level, there are a number of things each of us can do. Most importantly, we can control our own fertility. (This means having two or fewer children. Being child-free is also an option.) We can also lower our own consumption and environmental impacts, and we can support political and structural solutions to stabilize population.

Obviously, individuals can’t effect political and structural solutions on their own. But they can help raise awareness, promote discussion, and influence local, regional and national policies. Many of these solutions can be implemented at state, county, city, or even neighborhood levels, through land use actions and budget priorities and allocations. Many are already being implemented at some level around the world. Individuals can support and contribute to groups involved in that work, lobby their representatives to support and fund that work, and join in that work as volunteers.

The most important structural solution to population growth is universal access to reproductive health care, including family planning and sexual health. If every couple in the world could reliably and affordably choose the number and spacing of their children, world population growth would slow by an estimated 20 percent almost immediately.

Investment in community health care is also necessary. Adequate health care would significantly reduce infant, child and maternal mortality, and allow community members to be more socially and economically productive. In much of the world, parents now expect one or even two of their children to die of hunger or disease before age five. If they have a reasonable expectation that their children will survive and be healthy, they won’t need to have "extra" children.

Educating and empowering women is extremely important. Women with higher levels of education tend to marry later, bear children later, and have fewer, and healthier, children. More educated women generally have higher incomes, more economic options, and more power in their families and communities.

Universal access to education is another essential piece in stabilizing population. More highly educated people tend to have fewer children because they also tend to have higher incomes. At a certain level of income, children cease to be an economic asset and become a liability, so people have fewer of them.

Protection and enhancement of human rights is necessary so that all people have access to the requisites of a decent life. Focused anti-poverty efforts, including micro-development and access to credit, are also key components. Improving people’s social health and economic well-being can move them out of poverty and away from needing more children for survival.

Environmental protection and restoration efforts that take into account economic needs and realities must also be accelerated. Focus points include conservation and enhancement of critical renewable resources through regulatory and tax strategies, development of sustainable technologies (especially energy), and transfer of those to developing regions. 

Women in a Bangladesh fishing village learn how they can receive and manage credit. FAO photo

We know that these solutions work. Since 1950, total fertility has fallen 50 percent worldwide. Infant Mortality has declined by more than half in the last 35 years, and average longevity has increased from 45 to 65 years. More people are literate, more live under democratic governments, and more environmentally sensitive areas and threatened species are under some sort of protection.

We need to enhance, expand, and accelerate all these efforts, however. Because of population growth and consumption, there is less farmland, less fresh water, and less forested area available per person every year. Pollution is increasing, more species are going extinct, and roughly one-third of all people are malnourished.