'Green' sex call to help save the Earth

GLENDA COOPER

Sex is the biggest environmental issue for the last years of the 20th century, the environmentalist David Bellamy says.

With half a billion young people entering their reproductive years before 2000, Dr Bellamy, president of the charity Population Concern, is calling for more people to practise "green sex" to protect Earth. "They must be able to separate their ideas about sex from those of reproduction," he said. "This will protect their future."

There are 85 million people born every year and 70 per cent of the world's population increase is taking place in cities.

The annual report from Population Concern states: "Today's urban-rural shift is the largest migration in human history. Rural poverty, high fertility and land degradation continue to drive an annual 30 million of the world's poorest people off the land into the promise of city life - a promise that often becomes a nightmare of slums, polluted water and air, no jobs and loss of personal dignity."

Dr Bellamy said a critical contribution towards safeguarding the planet is equipping women and men everywhere with reproductive rights.