April, 19 2012, 03:52pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: (520) 623.5252,Email:,center@biologicaldiversity.org
100,000 Endangered Species Condoms to Be Given Away for Earth Day
Condoms Highlighting Human Overpopulation to Be Given Away in All 50 States, 80 College Campuses
TUCSON, Ariz.
The Center for Biological Diversity is marking Earth Day this Sunday by giving away 100,000 free Endangered Species Condoms around the country. The condoms arrived this week in the mailboxes of 1,200 volunteer distributors who will hand them out at hundreds of Earth Day events and more than 80 college campuses. In recent years the condoms have become a wildly popular, innovative way to get people talking about the connection between the rapid growth of the human population and the diminishing survival prospects of endangered plants and animals around the globe.
"What better day than Earth Day to get people talking about overpopulation and its environmental impacts?" said Amy Harwood, coordinator of the Center's human population campaign. "The world population has doubled since the first Earth Day 42 years ago, and yet today that rarely gets talked about. But the fact is that we add 80 million people to the planet each year, leading to pollution, habitat destruction, and the prospect of extinction for thousands of species already living on the brink."
The Center collaborated with artist Roger Peet to create a special edition of the colorful condom packages featuring a suite of species -- from the dwarf seahorse to the polar bear -- threatened by the world's growing human population.
More that 3,000 people responded to a request in March for volunteer distributors in the United States, where nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. For this Earth Day, the Center has prioritized reaching out to college students.
The Center is the only environmental group with a full-time campaign highlighting the connection between unsustainable human population growth and the ongoing extinction crisis for plants and animals around the world. Since 2010, it has handed out nearly 500,000 free condoms as a part of the 7 Billion and Counting campaign.
Please contact Amy Harwood to be connected with a condom distributor in your area for interviews and local responses.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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