A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge (Book Launch)

Return to Event List

October 27 2009, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Event Summary

Laurie Mazur, Director, Population Justice Project

John Bongaarts, Vice President, Population Council

Jacqueline Nolley Echegaray, Associate for International Programs, Moriah Fund

Roger-Mark De Souza, Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations, Sierra Club

Through a series of essays by leading demographers, environmentalists, and reproductive health experts, A Pivotal Moment offers a new perspective on the complex connection between population dynamics and environmental quality. It presents the latest research on the relationship between population growth and climate change, ecosystem health and other environmental issues. It surveys the new demographic landscape—in which population growth rates have fallen, but human numbers continue to increase. It looks back at the lessons learned from half a century of population policy—and forward to propose twenty-first century population policies that are sustainable and just.



Laurie Mazur, the editor of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice & The Environmental Challenge, is the director of the Population Justice Project, and has worked for years as an independent writer and consultant specializing in population, environment, and sexual and reproductive health and rights issues. She is also the editor of Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption and the Environment (Island Press, 1994), a contributed volume that explored and articulated the Cairo consensus. Mazur founded and, for several years, directed the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health and Rights.

John Bongaarts is a Population Council vice president and distinguished scholar. He has worked at the Population Council since 1973. His research focuses on a variety of population issues, including the determinants of fertility, population–environment relationships, the demographic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, population aging, and population policy options in the developing world. Bongaarts is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.

Jacqueline Nolley Echegaray is an associate for International Programs at the Moriah Fund, a family foundation based in Washington, DC. Promoting human rights, social justice, and grassroots empowerment are priorities across Moriah’s five program areas; in 2008, grants made by the foundation totaled $9.8 million. Ms. Nolley’s work at the foundation includes three program areas: Women’s Rights and Health, Guatemala, and International Development and Trade. Prior to joining Moriah in 2005, she at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a regional NGO dedicated to promoting human rights in the Americas through international litigation.

Roger-Mark De Souza is the director of Foundation and Corporate Relations at the Sierra Club, where he plans, directs and implements the Club's foundation and corporate fundraising program, supporting work at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Prior to working at the Sierra Club, De Souza served as technical director for population, health, and environment at the Population Reference Bureau. Previous work includes the World Resources Institute and the Pan American Development Foundation and teaching high school in France, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Environmental Change and Security Program
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
Email: ecsp@wilsoncenter.org
Tel: 202/691-4000