In Ethiopia, environmental activism might appear a little uncustomary to some. Health workers can be seen going door-to-door delivering pamphlets about restoring the country’s forest—and they might be handing out condoms while they’re at it.

The effort is part of Population Health Environment - Ethiopia Consortium’s (PHE) initiative to show residents the intractable link between overpopulation and its toll on the environment. The nation has experienced population growth and land depletion caused by drought but is now focused on reforestation efforts, which also includes family planning.

Access to voluntary birth control—which typically means pills, condoms and IUDs—to reduce the 40 percent of unintended pregnancies per year worldwide will cut our collective human carbon footprint, and an increasing number of countries are factoring this in to their climate change plans, experts point out.

“More population pressure is creating a lot of burden on the environment—as well as on health care systems, education systems and unemployment,” Yetnayet Asfaw, vice president of Strategy and Impact at EngenderHealth, PHE Ethiopia’s umbrella group, told The Huffington Post. “And more and more governments are recognizing the interrelationships. We see family planning as one response.”

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

The reality is that while most of the world’s population growth is taking place throughout Africa and India, industrialized countries’ energy consumption levels take a larger toll on the environment.