TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity has mailed Endangered Species Condoms to the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Environment Program, and the United Nations Secretary General to encourage the organization to talk about how continued unsustainable population growth negatively affects biodiversity. The message is exceptionally important as humanity exceeds 8 billion people on Nov. 15.

“Our growing population and the voracious consumption patterns of countries like the United States is putting unprecedented pressure on the environment and driving the wildlife extinction crisis,” said Sarah Baillie, population and sustainability organizer at the Center. “We can address these issues with rights-based solutions like voluntary family planning, education, and empowering women and girls, which are good for people and the planet.”

In the past 50 years, the human population has doubled, and wildlife populations have dropped by 70%. We are currently on track to lose 1 million species to extinction in the coming decades. Meanwhile 257 million people around the world face an unmet need for modern contraception and are not fully empowered with the education and healthcare they need to ensure their reproductive freedom.

The U.N. is the organization that announced Nov. 15 as the day the population hits 8 billion people. In doing so it cautioned against alarmism and relied on optimistic messaging about infinite possibilities even as we race toward a population of 10 billion people in the next 25 years amid the climate and extinction crises.

“The U.N. Population Fund needs to acknowledge the negative environmental and health effects that come with a population of 8 billion,” said Baillie. “I hope they’ll use their platform to help people understand that rights-based solutions will improve quality of life for all species on Earth.”

The Center also just released a report on 10 U.S. species that are threatened by our increasingly crowded planet. Species like the Florida panther, monarch butterfly and Carolina madtom are rapidly losing habitat as the human population expands, while others are seeing their habitat dangerously altered by pollution, drought, logging and fragmentation.

The Center’s Population and Sustainability program uses creative media to promote a range of ethical, common-sense solutions like access to family planning and reproductive health services, as well as education, opportunity, and equal rights for women, girls, and gender-diverse people.