Dear John,

October saw the release of our brand-new report, Vanishing Icons, which looks at six case studies of "charismatic megafauna" - tigers, elephants, mountain lions, chimpanzees, orcas and hedgehogs - all of which are at risk of extinction due to the pressures of human population growth.

This month we published blogs on a variety of subjects, including upcoming fundraising projects in the festive period, a look at International Repair Day and a piece celebrating International Day of the Girl Child. 

Finally, our action item this month involves our brand-new autumn magazine, released last week. Please do read and share it if you can! 

As always, thanks for your continued support.

- The PM team

We were incredibly sad to learn that John Vidal passed away earlier in October. A trusted and courageous environmental journalist and friend to Population Matters, he was a recipient of one of our Change Champions 2023 awards in July, an honour which he described as, "...the award I am most proud of!"

Population Matters' President, Sir Jonathon Porritt, paid tribute in his obituary;

“I’ve never known any journalist who so effectively combined uncompromising integrity, understated courage, mischief, irreverence and hard-hitting, compassionate eloquence in all his writing. He was just a wonderful friend and true champion for the environment.”

After the Conservative MP Robert Jenrick suggested the need for British families to have more babies to care for an ageing population, we were pleased to see a number of letters in The Guardian rejecting his position. This included a contribution from our Head of Campaigns and Communications, Alistair Currie;

"Jenrick proposes we build more houses to encourage more babies, who will in turn need more houses. Where does he imagine this pyramid scheme ending?"

Have you read our Autumn 2023 magazine yet? It's filled with information about our work over the last 6 months, including our projects around the globe, how we observed World Population Day 2023 and a goodbye to our departing Executive Director, Robin Maynard.

Please also consider sending this online version of the magazine on to one more friend, family member or colleague. It's vital that we spread the population conversation far and wide and the magazine perfectly distills the way in which the organisation works towards its goals and objectives!