However, the current slowing of world population growth offers hope for easing the pressure of human activities on these ecologically valuable, yet fragile areas. These extinctions are proceeding at least a thousand times faster today than in the pre-human past. The rate is expected to accelerate in the twenty-first century. PAI stated that its findings are in line with those of the scientific community. A 1998 opinion survey, it stated, found that nearly 70 per cent of the biologists questioned believe that a mass extinction is already underway, and that one fifth of all living species could disappear within the next 30 years.
Population is growing fastest in western Ecuador, the Tropical Andes and Madagascar, it states.
PAI proposes a plan of action to help save a critical mass of the earth's remaining biological diversity, including steps to ensure that people everywhere can determine for themselves the timing of childbirth and the size of their families. This, it states, will strengthen the trend towards slower population growth and, in turn, help the environment. Among PAI's recommendations are that the United States Congress ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty to save the planet's biodiversity and share its benefits.