environment and poverty

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INTRODUCTION

The poor have traditionally taken the brunt of the blame for causingsocietys many problems. The most recent accusation directed against them is thatthey cause environmental degradation. The general consensus seems to be thatpoverty is a major cause of environmental degradation. For example, in one of theconclusions of the Bruntland Commission report, which incidentally has beenaccepted as the blueprint for environmental conservation, it is explicitly stated thatpoverty is a major cause of environmental problems and amelioration of poverty isa necessary and central condition of any effective program to deal withenvironmental concerns. Along similar lines, Jalal (1993), the Asian DevelopmentBanks chief of the environment department argues, It is generally accepted thatenvironmental degradation, rapid population growth and stagnant production areclosely linked with the fast spread of acute poverty in many countries of Asia.

The World Bank (1992) joined the consensus with its the World DevelopmentReport, where it explicitly states, poorfamilies who have to meet short term needsmine the natural capital by excessive cutting of trees for firewood and failure toreplace soil nutrients.

Poverty and environmental deterioration are among the gravest challenges faced inthe developing world today. These are interlinked and they reinforce each other ina downward spiral, and the increasing population exacerbates both. However, thisrelationship is complex and highly influenced by the socio-economic factors of acountry or region. Poverty-environment nexus can be explained through twointerlinked processes. In the first case, environmental degradation reinforcesincidence of poverty by reducing the availability of natural resources and makingthe poor vulnerable to natural disasters. In other case, poverty force people todegrade the environment through over-exploitation, in the absence of otheralternatives. Reduction of poverty has been the primary objective of themacroeconomic policies of developing countries like Bangladesh. Consideringobvious nexus of poverty and environmental issues, there is an urgency to betterunderstand the relationships and to identify the priorities.

Characterizing PovertyEconomists have traditionally defined poverty on the basis of household income orconsumption, taking this as the best proxy for welfare. Using this approach, peopleare considered poor if their level of consumption falls below a given poverty line.This can either be relative; for example, a line set at 50 percent of averageconsumption for the country or region, analysis has traditionally aimed tounderstand the determinants of income poverty.


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Now, however, the definitions are moving beyond this single dimension of povertyto include utility- and capability-based concepts. This includes inequality (bothwithin a country or region and within a household), health, education, security,political voice, and discrimination (Sen 1981; Putnam 1993). Not all of thesemeasures are necessarily at work in every context, but generally each is needed tocapture something missing in the others (Ravallion 1996). Poverty analysis is thusnow broadening to encompass an understanding of the determinants of these otherdimensions (such as the factors that lead to poor child-nutrition outcomes). It isclearly more difficult to find a single measure for this multidimensional analysis,and most studies consider each dimension separately. 1

Various studies have attempted to group these dimensions of poverty. Oneapproach employs a fivefold asset vulnerability framework, which includes

labor, human capital (health and education), household assets (such as housing),household relations (mechanisms for pooling income and sharing consumptionwithin the household) and social capital (potential for reciprocity withincommunities and between households) (Moser 1998). Other authors mentiongeographic capital to capture the evidence that certain geographic areas arepersistently poor (Ravallion 1996).

The 2000/2001 World Development Report groups the different dimensions ofpoverty as opportunity, empowerment, and security. Much recent work in the Bankfollows this approach, but also includes capabilities (or human capital) as aseparate category. 2 Figure 1 shows how different factors or determinants caninfluence different dimensions of poverty, affecting peoples opportunity,capability, security, and empowerment in many different ways. In this paper wehave chosen the relationships indicated by solid lines (shown in figure 1) asexamples of how these categories might relate to each other.


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1 Bourguignon and Chakravarty (1998) attempt to find a composite measure taking into accountelasticities of substitution between different dimensions of poverty. In general, however, analysts takeeach dimension separately.2 The WDR includes capabilities within opportunity.

Defining EnvironmentEnvironment generally refers to a natural-resource base that provides sources(material, energy, and so forth) and performs sink functions (such as absorbingpollution). The term can include resources that people relied on in the past but nolonger rely on (either because they are depleted or because they have beensubstituted by some other resource or technology). Similarly, it can includeresources that people do not yet use, but could use with a change in knowledge ortechnology (Leach and Mearns 1991). Environmental issues are often concernedwith public or semi-public goods, such as an open-access air- and watersheds, or

common-property grazing land. Some aspects of the environment can also involveprivate goods, such as air inside a house or workplace or household drinking water.In this paper we use the term environment in a broad sense to include these variousmeanings of the term.

Environmental degradation is a subset of environmental change. The termdegradation can be interpreted in different ways indicating different forms ofland use (Blakie and Brookfield 1987). As a working definition this paper uses theterm environmental degradation to imply:

(a) Depletion: Damage to a natural resource system that affects present or futurehuman needs negatively. This harms welfare indirectly by reducing productivity.We refer to depletion of a renewable natural resource beyond its rate of renewal,rather than depletion of a finite resource.

(b) Pollution: Leading to damage to human health or decline in the capacity of theenvironment to sustain natural systems, thus directly harming welfare.

Environment-POVERTY NEXUS ACROSS THE WORLD

The poors exposure to environmental degradation is distinctive mainly for tworeasons. First, the surroundings of the locations inhibited by the poor are oftenenvironmentally vulnerable or degraded. The areas where the poor can gain accessare often fragile and hence the riskiest for health and income generation. Second,lack of strong resource base makes it difficult for the poor to opt out of thedegraded environment and try to eke out living with alternative sources of


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livelihoods which are less degrading. In that sense they are more victims ratherthan degraders of the environment. Thus there exists a two-way relationshipbetween poverty and environment in the developing countries. Poverty causesenvironmental degradation, and in turn, the degradations in environmentexacerbate poverty. Again, poverty is itself a product of unequal resourcedistribution between groups and classes. Environmental degradation depressesability of the poor to generate income through two channels. First, it requires thepoor to divert an increasing share of their labor to routine household activities suchas fuel wood collection, and second, it decreases productivity of those naturalresources from which the poor wrest their livelihood (Mink, 1993).

Diverting labor. Environmental degradation can lower the labor productivity, evenwhen they are healthy. For example, as fuel wood becomes scarce, poorhouseholds must spend an increasing amount of time collecting it. Time taken

away from other productive activities like agriculture has an opportunity cost forthe poor and can result in their lower incomes. Further, families are not able tocompensate for this diversion of labor resulting in a reduction in household incomefrom agriculture and deterioration in food consumption levels and nutritionalstatus. All these have implication for the poors livelihood.

Reduced productivity of the poors natural resources. Where the poor depend onbiomass fuel and confront increasing fuel-wood scarcity, they often shift to usinganimal dung, fodder, and crop residues for fuel. Since reduced quantity of thesematerials are returned to the soil, its fertility may decline. Growth in ruralpopulation can put extra pressure on land resources resulting in shortening offallow land in the community in the process. This too can have negative impact onthe health of the soil and hence its productivity. Poverty may also constrainfarmers ability to maintain soil productivity through more intensive application ofvariable inputs.

Impact of poverty on resource management. The extreme poor struggling at theedge of subsistence levels of consumption are pre-occupied with survival strategieson a day-to-day basis. Their ability to plan ahead is often restricted to a critically

short time horizon, measured in days or weeks. However, the horizon of the poor isshort partly as a result of their high rate of pure time preference, which declineswith income rise. They have less ability to save rather than present consumption.As a result they cannot opt for investment in natural resources, which is likely togive return in the medium- and long-run. A high subjective discount rate impliesrapid resource extraction to meet present income or consumption needs, and low


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investment in natural resources to improve future returns. This has dynamicimplication for growth and subsequently on poverty reduction.

Higher risks faced by the poor. Generally higher risks are faced by the poor thantheir rich counterparts from different sources. The poor farmers may perceive theiraccess to land as tenuous because of conflicts inherent in it. With other claimantsor overlap of different land # 3 rights, the poor are mostly marginalized. Better-offrural families are more likely to be able to establish farm claims to land where atransition is occurring from common property to private property system, or wherethere are lengthy and costly administrative procedures for establishing legal title toland. Under such circumstances, the poor peasants interest in longer-terminvestments in the productive capacity of land is likely to be severely diminished.Common property resource (CPRs) often serves as a form of insurance that thepoor rural residents can turn to if they face setbacks in their primary income

generating activities. A degrading environment significantly affects the access tothis natural insurance of the poor.

The poors constraints to manage risks. Poor households mostly at risk of fallingbelow the subsistence levels of consumption treat available natural resources as anasset to be drawn down in times of emergency. The options for managing theresources are often limited or not always available to the poor. Their assets andagricultural stores are minimal and quickly depleted. Credit and insurance marketsfor the hardcore poor are frequently fragmented or non-existent. Again, women,who play a significant role in managing natural resources are frequentlyunderserved by agricultural and forestry extension services. All these imply higherlevel of uncertainties and insecurities with implications on the management ofenvironmental resources. However, environment affects poverty situations in threedistinct dimensions (Jehan and Umana, 2002): a. by providing sources oflivelihoods to poor people, b. by affecting their health, and c. by influencing theirvulnerability

Diagram 1: Dimensions of poverty and its linkages to environment Source:Grimble et al (2002).

On the other hand, poverty also affects environment in various other ways: byforcing poor people to degrade environment, by encouraging the countries topromote economic growth at the expense of environment, and by inducingsocieties to downgrade environmental concerns, including failing to channelresources to address such concerns. Bangladesh very often experiences naturaldisasters like flood, cyclone, and drought and river bank erosion. While comparedwith not so high disaster-prone area within Bangladesh the level of migration of


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people faced with frequency of disaster is found to be significantly higher (seediagram 2).

Impact of climate change on poverty in the Asian countries

It is apprehended, perhaps rightly, that the health of Asian people, agriculture,forestry, water availability, coastal infrastructure, and land cover will be affectedby changing climate patterns and more extreme weather events in the future.Moreover, food security is likely to be affected by changing variability of rainfalland ever-changing seasonal patterns. This has implications both for the economicgrowth of agriculture-based economies and also on the food security of the poor.Rain-fed agricultural systems will be affected by increased variability in the timingand intensity of the rains. In particular, high yielding varieties the basis for thegreen revolution in Asia may prove more susceptible to early flooding,

Stalinization and drought than hardier traditional varieties. Food production will beaffected by changing seasonal patterns and temperatures. In India, a temperaturerise of 2C could lower yields of staple crops, wheat and rice by 10 per cent andreduce farm revenues by up to 25 per cent. Increasing frequency of El Nio eventswill cause declines in marine fish productivity along the coasts of south andSoutheast Asia, affecting food security and fish exports in developing countrieslike Vietnam and Cambodia.

Health will be affected both directly through increased mortality from extremetemperature and weather events, and also indirectly through increased incidence ofvector-borne diseases and poorer nutrition. Malaria is currently mostly endemic inthe South Asian and Southeast Asian region, but there are risks that it may spreadas a result of changing climate, urbanization, irrigation, agricultural practices anddeforestation. There is a risk of increased levels of respiratory problems as a resultof increased frequency and extent of forest fires. Already there is a concern acrossSoutheast Asia, that the forest fires are associated with intense droughts and couldincrease with climate change. The loss of forestry resources also has seriousconsequences for forest-related economic activities, livelihoods and ecosystemservices. Water security is also likely to worsen across large parts of Asia, with

implications for irrigated agriculture, human water consumption andhydroelectricity generation. It is estimated that even without climate change,Indias per capita renewable freshwater supply will fall by 40 per cent based onprojections of population growth, water demand and run-off within the major riverbasins. Climate change could significantly worsen this picture, decreasing rainfallsupplies to major river basins. Glaciers in the Himalayan mountain ranges willretreat further, as temperatures increase: they have already retreated by 67 per cent


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in the last decade. Glacial melt would lead to increased summer river flow andfloods over the next few decades, followed by a serious reduction in flowsthereafter.

Poor laborers and rickshaw drivers formed the highest proportion of the 1,000people who died in India during an intense heat wave in May 2002, and the 1,400deaths in the heat wave in 2003. Following disaster floods in Central Vietnam inNovember 1999, poor households were the slowest to recover, and unable to affordlabor to clear their fields and return to agricultural production (DFID, 2004a). Thevery recent (2004) flood in Bangladesh affected more severely the ultra poor livingin fragile areas like river banks, chars (land raised by siltation).

1.1 LINKAGES BETWEEN POVERTY AND ENVIRONMENT

Since the 1970s it has been almost universally agreed that poverty andenvironmental degradation are inextricably linked. The World Commission onEnvironment and Development (Brundtland Commission) wrote (1987): Poverty isa major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile toattempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective thatencompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.

The links between poverty and environment were also seen to be self-enforcing.The Commission also wrote: Many parts of the world are caught in a viciousdownwards spiral: poor people are forced to overuse environmental resources tosurvive from day to day, and their impoverishment of their environment furtherimpoverishes them, making their survival ever more difficult and uncertain.

Today, the dominant viewpoint on poverty and environment reflects this image ofa vicious downward spiral of need. Population growth and economic change arealso seen to contribute to this process (see Brown et al, 1998). When rapid changeoccurs in ecologically vulnerable urban or rural areas (poverty reserves), then theenvironmental implications are greatest. Such views are generally pessimistic

about managing environmental degradation and poverty. They are also associatedwith solutions directed at macroeconomic poverty eradication measures plus short-term land management or protection schemes excluding certain land uses whichseek to protect fragile ecosystems from encroachment by poor people. Such top-down approaches to poverty reduction and environmental protection havethemselves come under critique both for their failure to meet local livelihoodneeds, and because exclusionary measures alone generally fail to protect


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environmental resources when peoples livelihoods depend on them. Hence manydonors and policy-makers especially since UNCED - have embraced morelocalized, community based approaches to natural resource management andsustainable development.

However, all too often these approaches reiterate flawed assumptions aboutcommunity, environment and their relationships, leading to disappointingresults in operational terms.

The Environment-poverty Nexus: an overall perspective

The environment-poverty nexus is a two-way relationship. Environment affectspoverty situations in three distinct dimensions: by providing sources of livelihoods

to poor people, by affecting their health and by influencing their vulnerability. Onthe other hand, poverty also affects environment in various ways: by forcing poorpeople to degrade environment, by encouraging countries to promote economicgrowth at the expense of environment, and by inducing societies to downgradeenvironmental concerns, including failing to channel resources to address suchconcerns.

Environment matters a lot to poor people. Their well-being is strongly related tothe environment in terms of, among other things, health, earning capacity, security,physical surroundings, energy services and decent housing. In rural areas, poorpeople may be particularly concerned with their access to and control over naturalresources, especially in relation to food security. For poor people in urban areas,access to a clean environment may be a priority. Prioritization of environmentalissues may vary across different social groups. For example, poor women,reflecting their primary role in managing the household, may regard safe water,sanitation facilities, and abundant energy services as crucial aspects of well-beingfor poor people.

Some of the environmental degradation reflects truly global concerns, such as

global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer. Some is international, likeacid rain, the state of the oceans, or the condition of rivers that run through severalcountries. Some is more localized, though it may often occur worldwide, like urbanair pollution, water pollution, or soil degradation. Even though poor people alsofeel the impact of global environmental degradation, it is local environmentaldamage that affects the lives of poor people more.


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The impact of environmental degradation is unequal between the poor and the rich.Environmental damage almost always hits poor people the hardest. Theoverwhelming majority of those who die each year from air and water pollution arepoor people.

So who are those most affected by desertification and by the floods, storms andharvest failures brought about by global warming. All over the world, it is poorpeople who generally live nearest to dirty factories, busy roads and dangerouswaste dumps. The loss of biodiversity is most severe for poor rural communities.Environmental degradation, by depleting the health and natural support systems ofpoor people, may make them even more vulnerable.

Box 1 provides some quantitative estimates of the human impact of environmentaldegradation in the developing world. Because of the nature of the degradation, it is

poor people in general who bear the brunt of this impact and with the poorestbearing the hardest burden. Impoverishment pushes them to the most ecologicallyfragile lands; they are at the bottom of the energy ladder and they are nearest totoxic dumps. Women also bear a disproportionate burden. Since mostly womenand girls in developing countries stay indoors for cooking and other householdwork, they constitute 80% of the 1.8 million deaths from indoor pollution. Theeffect of biodiversity loss is the most severe for indigenous people, as they dependmore on biodiversity for their livelihoods, energy, and medicine.

BOX 1: IMPACTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN THEDEVELOPING WORLD

Water-related diseases, such as diarrhoea and cholera, kill an estimated 3 millionpeople in developing countries, the majority

of whom are children under the age of five. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria account for 2.5 million deaths a year, andare linked to a wide range of environmentalconditions or factors related to water contamination and inadequate sanitation.

One billion people are adversely affected by indoor pollution.

Nearly 3 million people die every year from air pollution, more than 2 million of

them from indoor pollution. More than 80% ofThese deaths are those of women and girls.

Nearly 15 million children in Latin America are affected by lead poisoning.

As many as 25 million agricultural workers 11 million of them in Africamaybe poisoned each year from fertilizers

More than one billion people are affected by soil erosion and land degradation.


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Some 250 million people are at risk from slashcrop yields.

Desertification already costs the world $42 billion a year in lost income.

Over the last decade, 154 million hectares of tropical forests, covering almost

three times the land area of France, have been lost. About 650 million poor people in the developing world live on marginal andecologically fragile lands.Source: UNDP (2002, 2000 and 1998

Deconstructing some specific environment-poverty myths

Poor people are the principal creators of environmental damage. Not true.Even though poor people bear the brunt of environmental damage, the irony is thatthey are not its principal creators. It is the rich who pollute and contribute most to

global warming. They are the ones who degrade the global commons, makingresources scarce for poor people. In many areas, the non-poor, commercialcompanies, and state agencies actually cause the majority of environmentaldamage through land cleaning, agro-chemical use, and water appropriation. Therich also generate more waste and create stress on natures sink. Thus poor peoplebecome victims of the consumption levels and patterns of the rich.

The per capita emission of CO2 in the developed world is 11 metric tons per year,compared to 2 metric tonnes in the developing world. The continent with the

greatest share (74%) of dry land suffering from moderate to severe desertificationis North America. In the Philippines, during the Marcos regime, 50% of the forestwas lost to commercial logging a few hundred families shared $42 billion inrevenue, leaving 18 million forest dwellers impoverished (UNDP, 1998).

One of the environmental challenges that stem from growing poverty andenvironmental damage is that it pushes more and more people to the peripherytothe most ecologically fragile land where they become even more vulnerable. Yetthere are many examples in which poor people take care of the environment andinvest in improving it.

Population growth leads to environmental degradation. Theres no necessarycorrelation. While initially degradation may occur as population increases, whathappens next is context-specific. Rapid population growth is not incompatible withsustainable management of the environment and in some cases, as has beendemonstrated in the Machakos experience in Kenya, increasing population densityis required for environmental sustainability.


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Until the late 1930s, significant soil degradation and erosion a large-scalepopulation- induced degradation have been observed in the district. Between1932 and 1990, the population of Machakos increased from 240,000 to 1.4 million.The population growth affected the situation positively in two ways. First, theconcern about soil degradation led to such measures as bench terracing to conservesoil.

In the 1950s more than 40,000 hectares of land were terraced and in the 1980smore than 8,500 kilometers of terraces were constructed annually. Second,increasing population density leading to land scarcity promoted investment, both inconservation and in high-yielding improvements. Integrating crop and livelihoodproduction improved the sustainability of the farming system. Many social andinstitutional factors a good policy framework, better physical infrastructure, a

secure land tenure system, indigenous technology, an improved health andeducation systemfacilitated the agricultural change in the Machakos district. Theresults have been impressive. Between 1930 and 1987, the productivity of food andcash crops increased more than six-fold. Horticulture productivity grew fourfold(Montimore and Tiffen, 1994).

The Machakos experience clearly demonstrates that even in an area vulnerable tosoil degradation, a large population can be sustained through a combination ofendogenous and exogenous technological change supported by a conducive policyframework and much local initiative.

The poverty-environment nexus basically stems from low incomes. Its not thatsimple.Arguments that maintain that poor people degrade the environment basicallyexplain the poverty-environment nexus in terms of income levels only. Thepoverty- environment nexus is more complex. Questions of ownership of naturalresources, access to common resources, the strength or weakness of communitiesand local institutions, the way information about poor peoples entitlements and rights to resources is shared with them, the way people cope with risk and

uncertainty, the way people use scarce timeall these are important in explainingthe environmental behavior of poor people.

Many of the natural resources that are degraded are communal property. Rights areill-defined, often because they were originally defined within a local social andpolitical framework that is no longer there. Institutions for managing commonproperty that reflect the consensus of owners and can control use are lacking. In


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ecologically fragile ecosystems, people tend to minimize risks, not maximizeoutput, whether they are poor or rich. Over-exploitation of sources of fuel-wood islinked more to the time available to women than to their poverty status. There is agender dimension, but not necessarily an income dimension.

Many factors shape human behavior towards the environment, some related topoverty or affluence, others independent of either income or poverty.

Revisiting conventional wisdom in the environment-poverty nexus

Downward spiral hypothesis: The hypothesis maintains that poor people andenvironmental damage are often caught in a downward spiral. Past resourcedegradation deepens todays poverty, while todays poverty makes it very difficult to care for or restore the agricultural base, to find alternatives to deforestation toprevent desertification, to control erosion and to replenish soil nutrients. People in

poverty are forced to deplete resources to survive, and this degradation ofenvironment further impoverishes people (Ostrom et. al. 1999).

While this can and does happen, as an overarching model, it is a rather simplisticview of a much more complex reality. Environmental degradation can sometimesbe associated with poverty, but there is not necessarily a direct causal relationship.Other factors also shape human behavior to the environment. The danger of theDownward Spiral Hypothesis is that it may often lead to policies that either reducepoverty (often in the short run) at the expense of the environment or protect theenvironment at the expense of poor people.

Environmental Kuznets Curve: The Environmental Kuznets Curve shows arelationship between air pollution and economic growth. It maintains that pollutionwill increase initially with economic growth, but if growth continues and as societybecomes more affluent, pollution will be reduced. Thus, by measuring economicgrowth in terms of per capita income in an economy, it establishes an invertedUshaped curve implying increases in pollution initially, but a decline as per capitaincome continues to grow.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve has been severely criticized on conceptual,statistical as well as policy grounds (Banuri, 1998). Conceptually, an invertedU-shaped relation may exist between a few selected pollutants and income, but notnecessarily at an aggregative level. In the area of statistics, there are the problemswith aggregation, with identification of appropriate variables, and from weaknessof the data. Evidence indicates that there is nothing inevitable about the link


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between economic growth and environmental degradation. In fact, policies andinstitutions can significantly influence the Environmental Kuznets Curve.The removal of perverse subsidies, the internalization of externalities and theidentification of property rights can change the relationship between income levelsand levels of environmental degradation.

Delinking economic growth and natural resource use

If it becomes possible to use less and less natural resources in the productionprocess, it would mean dematerialization of the production process and wouldimply delinking natural resources from economic growth. Studies have shown thatresources can be used at least four times as efficiently as they are currently.

Looking at the total impact of human interference with the biosphere, experts haveconcluded that material turnover should be reduced by at least 50% on a global

scale. Since per capita resource use is five times greater in industrial countries thanin developing countries, it has been asserted that sustainable levels of materialflows will not be reached unless the material intensity in industrial countries isreduced by a factor of ten.

The critical issue with regard to delinking is not to establish its advantages, but toface the practical question as to whether such a delinking is possible. There ishistorical evidence that it is possible in many areas. Between 1791 and 1830, thevolume of coal used to produce one tonne of iron was reduced by over 50%. It hasbeen shown that industrial countries could continue their present growth rates andyet reduce their energy use by a third.

Technology has played a major role in the delinking process. Increases inproductivity and efficient use of resources because of technological developmenthave made it possible to get the same amount of output with lesser amounts ofinputs. In a survey of four major materials such as cement, steel, copper, timbercovering 11 countries (eight being industrial), the elasticity of material use toeconomic growth has been found to be zero from 1970-85, implying a delinkingphenomenon. Per capita use rates of steel, timber, and copper have generally

stabilized or even declined in industrial countries.

Recycling also had an impact on the dematerialization process. It reduces both thedemand for primary resources and many of the adverse environmental impactsassociated with waste disposal. Every tonne of iron recycled not only replaces atonne that would have been mined, but also avoids several tonnes of hiddenmaterial flows associated with iron mining and processing. Recycling can also save


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energy: recycled aluminum requires only 5% of the energy needed to refine andsmelt new aluminum from bauxite. Today in industrial countries, the recycling ratefor paper is about 45% and for glass 50%, compared with 33% and 26%respectively in the mid-1980s. Recycling is yet to be of significance in developingcountries.

There are instances where private action in developing countries, particularly bywomen, has been quite successful. On the one hand, it has become a flourishingbusiness and, on the other, it has contributed to the solution of waste disposalproblems.

However, recycling is not always environmentally benign, particularly wherehazardous recyclable wastes are involved.

Some concerns have been raised on various aspects of delinking. First, it has beenargued that evidence of declining material intensities is restricted to certain specificmaterials. The issue is whether it can be generalized as a reflection of anaggregative picture in the production function. Second, in recent years, industrialcountries are taking a large part of their production activities to developingcountries.

Thus the material intensity in industrial countries might have declined, but thesame may not be true in developing countries. The issue then is whether overalldelinking is taking place. Third, some of the recent studies have found evidence ofre-linking even in industrial countries. These studies argue that the energy shocksof the 1970s and the heightened environmental awareness led to policyinterventions that increased resource efficiency across a wide range. However,with the utilization of the unexploited opportunities, the economies returned totheir long-term growth trajectory in which resource use rises with income.In spite of all these limitations, the delinking of economic growth and naturalresource use has three important benefits:

Delinking of economic growth and natural resource would mean

dematerialization of both production and consumption. Economic activities wouldbe undertaken at the same level, but with less resources. It would release resourcesthat could be used in alternative areas of economic growth and humandevelopment.

The new technology could also make industrialization in developing countriesmore affordable.


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If production were delinked from natural resource use in terms of using lesser andlesser amounts of natural resources per unit of GDP, it would also imply lessenvironmental degradation. One corollary of delinking is that if economic growthis delinked from natural resource use, every country may be able to maintain itsenvironmental space (defined as the amount of renewable and non-renewableresources that a country can afford) without depriving future generations of theirrights to the same use of natural resources.

The delinking issue has also led to the idea of a knowledge-based society, inwhich technology will be more human resource-dependent. Such a society couldarrange both its production processes and consumption patterns with lessdependence on natural resources.

THE LINKAGES

Environment-Poverty Relationship from Economic growth Viewpoint

Economic development should help reduce poverty and improve the environment.But the unplanned development activities contribute to severe environmentaldegradation in developing countries. A significant problem in environmentalregulation in developing countries arises from difficulties in controlling small scaleenterprises, because of their limited financial and human resources, and low-levelof technology.( Markandya,2000:12). The vulnerable are often the users ofmarginal resources and also dependent on the common resources of the communityin which they live. (Dasgupta, 2001:10). Hence it is these groups that are mostimpacted when deforestation, soil erosion and other negative incidence occur,often as a result of natural disasters. (Dasgupta, 2001:10). We can here show asilent feature of infrastructure development activities such as construction of roads,railways, set-up of modern industrial units, massive industrial plantation,plantation of exotic trees, tea plantation, construction of office buildings,settlement of people in the hilly areas, unplanned and haphazard urban andindustrial development process, modern agricultural production system and trade

and commerce and business etc. that created tremendous ecological imbalance dueto indiscriminate utilization and destruction of natural resources.

Most traditional economic activities comprise the transformation ofresources into products and services useful to human beings. Thus,regardless of the income level or stage of development, practically anyeconomic activity would alter the state of the environment in one way or


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another and has the potential to cause a number of negative impacts in theform of unsustainable depletion of resources and deterioration in the qualityof resources and the environment. For example, agricultural activities forproducing food and generating employment and income in rural areas are themajor sources of methane flow to the atmosphere. Commercial energy is themost crucial input which enables economic activities to take place but is themajor source of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and, togetherwith manufacturing and other user sectors, contributes significantly toatmospheric and aquatic pollution.

The environmental impacts of household consumption activities are nolonger negligible. The use of resources such as freshwater and theproduction of wastes are examples of two such impacts. The consumption ofvarious forms of energy including the increasing use of fossil fuels by

private vehicles, increases direct and indirect environmental stress throughthe burning of fuel are increasing day by day.

In the agricultural sector in the region, particularly in Asia, pressure toincrease production and improve the yield to cope with the growingpopulation has led to the intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides and water forirrigation. There is no doubt that this process has contributed to thesubstantial increase in agricultural production and associated beneficialeffects, including the reduction of rural poverty. However, such resource-

intensive agriculture has also posed various environmental problems which,in turn, have an adverse effect on agricultural productivity. For instance, theoverexploitation of freshwater resources has in some cases resulted in thedrying-up of spring-fed rivers; the intensive use of fertilizers and pesticideshas contributed to water pollution; and the overuse of surface water forirrigation has resulted in aquifer depletion, land subsidence or sea-water/saline intrusion.

In industry, the adverse environmental impacts of production activities arewell known. For instance, the use of energy is essential for undertaking

almost all industrial activities and operating transport infrastructure andservices, but the production and use of a major part of the energy consumedin industry and transport have a detrimental environmental impact. However,the process of industrialization and economic development could entailimprovement in resource efficiency and relative shifts into less resource-intensive industries, as well as the adoption of clean technologies andincremental improvements in the enforcement of environmental regulations,


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which have beneficial mitigating impacts. Nevertheless, rapidindustrialization in the region, the resulting increase in energy productionand consumption and the associated pollution have often outweighed suchbenefits.

Environment-poverty

Four observations highlight the strength and importance of the interlinkagesbetween the environment and poverty:

Observation 1. The poor live in places which are ecologically more vulnerable andare forced to earn their living from low-productivity natural resources.8 The ruralpoor often live in low-lying, flood-prone areas, on steep mountain slopes or on dryland and possess low-productivity marginal land devoid of any irrigation facilities.

The number of the rural poor in developing countries living on marginal landcould be twice the number found on better-developed land.9 The urban poor arefound in the shanty towns of big cities, which are often built on floodprone, low-lying areas or around city drains; many of the poor earn their livelihood fromenvironmentally hazardous scavenging. Environmental deterioration in the form ofland degradation, frequent flooding, increased pollution and other hazards reducesthe income of both the rural and urban poor and worsens their healthdisproportionately by comparison with the rich. 8 Fifty per cent of the poor in Asiaare found in fragile ecosystems and mainly remote and ecologically vulnerablerural areas.

See International Fund for Agricultural Development Combating environmental

degradation,(, 5 November

2002). 9 Department for International Development, United Kingdom, European

Commission, UNDP and World Bank, Linking poverty reduction and

environmental management, policy challenges and opportunities, January 2002,

p. 5.

Observation 2. It is commonly observed that poor households, especially in rural

areas, derive their livelihood income from natural resources, for example, landresources for agriculture and water resources for fishing. It is also found that thepoorer the household, the greater is the share of its income from environmentalresources.10 In addition to providing a livelihood, the environment plays a verysignificant part in influencing the health of the poor; while the incidence of diseasein poor countries is about twice that of rich countries, the disease burden fromenvironmental risks is 10 times greater in poor countries.11 Environmental


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degradation has a disproportionate negative impact on both the livelihood and thehealth of the poor.

Observation 3. It is apparent that the intensity of suffering of the poor from theadverse impacts of environmental shocks is much higher than that of the rich.However, because of the lack of proper assets, the poor are less capable of copingwith those impacts. The vulnerability of the poor to environmental shocks is muchhigher than that of the rich in both rural and urban areas.

Observation 4. Against the background of the observation that the poor, especiallyin rural areas, derive a large part of their livelihood income from environmentalresources, especially land resources used for agriculture, some of the practices theyfollow can be damaging to the environment. Clearing forest areas to create land foragricultural use, including slash-and-burn practices, is an example showing that the

poor are responsible for environmental degradation. Certain consumption practicesof the poor, such as damaging the forest to acquire firewood to be used for cookingand heating could also be detrimental to the environment. The urban poor, most ofwhom live in shanty towns and ghettos, often create unhygienic sanitary conditionsbecause of their lack of access to formal toilet facilities. However, there isoverwhelming evidence12 to show that the 10 It may be worth mentioning that asimilar situation exists even at the level of countries; the shares of GDP (andexports) originating from sectors whose production is directly connected withenvironmental resources in poor countries are higher than those in rich countries.11 Linking poverty reduction ..., op. cit., pp. 5 and 8. 12 As much as 70 per centof the worlds consumption of fossil fuels and 85 per cent of its chemical productsare attributable to 25 per cent of the worlds population who are not poor. Theconsumption pattern of forest products and many other commodities has the samedirect inverse proportion to the size of the population of the top 20 per cent of therichest societies. See International Fund for Agricultural Development, op. cit.impact of poverty on the environment is weak compared with the damage tolivelihood and health which the poor suffer owing to environmental degradationnot caused by them. Against this background, the impact of poverty on theenvironment will not be taken up explicitly in the present discussion and analysis.

It can be seen from the above arguments that the environment has strong linkageswith the livelihood, health and vulnerability of the poor. These linkages need to beidentified in some detail before options for appropriate policy interventions tobenefit the poor can be studied. Environmental goods and services which arecrucial to all, particularly the poor, can be classified into three broad categories:natural resources, environmental conditions, including environmental stresses, andthe ecosystem. The nature and extent of their linkages with poverty, encompassing


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the livelihood income and health of the poor, are somewhat different. These arediscussed below.

Natural resources

Natural environmental resources can be atmospheric, land-based or sea-based. Ofthese, the resources which have a major bearing on thepoors livelihood and healthare the following:

Land used for agricultural operations, including grazing land for animal husbandry,provides an important (often the only) source of rural livelihood. Land degradation,either natural or due to the overuse of chemical fertilizers, and the mechanizationor depletion of groundwater, which increases soil salinity, could erode the mostimportant modality of livelihood of the rural population, especially the rural poor,

who do not possess the means to counter such adverse impacts.

The widespread use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals forfarming poses a formidable health hazard to the rural poor. Illiterate farm laborerswho lack appropriate training in the use of poisonous chemicals are unable to readthe instructions written on them and cannot afford protective devices can easily fallprey to a number of associated diseases. The poor, in both rural and urban areas,often do not have the luxury of access to safe drinking water. They have to rely onwater sources which are frequently contaminated for various reasons. Water-related diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera kill a large number of people everyyear in the developing

Any improvement in water quality is likely to yield rich dividends in terms ofimproving, the health standards and productivity of the poor.Fishing provides income and protein for the poor living near the sea, rivers, marshylands and swamps. However, in many developing countries fishing sources arecommercially over harvested in an unsustainable manner, which has a negativeeffect on the livelihood of the poor. Many commercial fishing ventures result in a

number of adverse environmental impacts which could constitute health hazardsfor the poor who are associated with them. Coordinating policies and programmesat the regional and subregional levels aimed at the conservation and sustainabledevelopment of fisheries forms an important element of the Plan ofImplementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, of whichpoverty reduction to achieve the relevant target is a major objective. Other areas


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highlighted in the Plan of Implementation that have implications for poverty aregiven in box IV.1.Forest products often provide livelihood income to the rural poor. Twigs and woodcollected from forests provide a major part of the energy used by the poor forcooking and heating. Forests prevent soil erosion, flooding and mud slides in hillyareas during heavy rains. The unsustainable destruction of forests causes muchmisery to the poor, both directly and indirectly.

Environmental conditions Worsening of the quality of atmospheric resourcescould be extremely harmful to the poorer sections of the population. There are twomajor environmental conditions which affect both the livelihood and health of thepoor:

Indoor air pollution due to the use of biomass fuels (e.g., wood, crop residue) for

cooking and heating in poor households affects the health of a large number ofpeople, causing various respiratory diseases. The incidence of this type of healthhazard is higher in women and children as they face primary exposure. Nearly 2million women and children die every year from indoor pollution.14

A large number of people (2.1 million) die every year from diarrhoeal diseases(including cholera) associated with inadequate water supply, sanitation andhygiene. According to WHO, the majority are children in developing countries. 14Linking poverty reduction ..., op. cit, p. 9.

As many of the poor live in ecologically vulnerable places (e.g., lowlands,mountain slopes, dry areas), atmospheric changes, both gradual (climate change)and sudden (disasters), can cause severe damage to the livelihood and health of thepoor. Disasters, which include hurricanes, cyclones, floods and earthquakes, havebeen known to have a devastating impact on the poverty situation, giving rise alarge number of new poor almost overnight. These concerns and the extent ofsuch damage have been highlighted in a recent publication.15

Ecosystem

Forests, grasslands and the coastal ecosystem, including coral reefs, provide a widevariety of services which contribute to the continuation of economic activities inboth rural and urban areas. One important activity which exploits the existence ofthe natural ecosystem is ecotourism.


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Ecotourism is often labor-intensive and employs persons from the most vulnerablegroups in rural areas, including those in remote and isolated areas and islands.Some examples of other ecosystem services include the provision of natural habitatfor wild pollinators that are essential to food crops; watershed protection and themaintenance of hydrological regimes (recharging of water tables) by naturalprocesses, including rainfall; and the natural breakdown of waste products andpollutants. It is apparent that the livelihood and health of a large number of thepoor are intimately related to the activities facilitated by the ecosystem and itsservices, and any deterioration in their availability on quality could be detrimentalto the reduction of poverty. 15M.H. Malik, The new poor, ESCAP, Bulletin on Asia-Pacific Perspectives2001/02 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.02.II.F.2), pp. 67-72.

and environmental potentials. Strengthening the capacity of Governments, local

authorities and communities to monitor and manage the quantity and quality ofland and water resources and the adoption of policies and the implementation oflaws that guarantee well-defined and enforceable land and water-use rights andpromote legal security of tenure are important steps to be undertaken byGovernments. Technical and financial assistance should be provided to developingcountries as well as countries with economies in transition that are undertakingland tenure reform in order to enhance sustainable livelihoods.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity, which plays a critical role in overall sustainable development andpoverty eradication, is currently being lost at an unprecedented rate owing tohuman activities. Several measures have been suggested to reverse this trend.These include the promotion of concrete international support and partnership forthe conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, including in ecosystems, atWorld Heritage sites and for the protection of endangered species, in particularthrough the appropriate channelling of financial resources and technology todeveloping countries and countries with economies in transition, and the provisionof financial and technical support to developing countries, including capacity-

building, in order to enhance indigenous and community-based biodiversityconservation efforts.

IV. Environment-poverty nexus revisited: linkages and policy options

Conservationists have shown concerns on this aspect. For example, it wasindicated that the tourism development plan under the Governments economic


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stimulus scheme for the archipelago of Koh Chang in Thailand could threaten itsrich biological diversity and genetic resources. Most of the projects under thetourism master plan are likely to cause damage to the islands ecosystem. A studyhas found that the island is home to 1,513 species, including ferns, mosses, algae,lichens, fungi, flowering plants and various insects. It is alleged that efforts todevelop the area for tourism without addressing environmental concernsadequately, could destroy these rare species.

It has been found in another study that the construction of tourism facilities in KohChang would definitely drive away rare insects, particularly fireflies, which are ahuge source of income for the local people.16 Firefly watching is one of theislands most popular ecotourism activities. This perpetuates the dilemma ofwhether to develop a resort to generate income opportunities or to put greateremphasis on the protection of the natural ecology. Such trade-offs could occur in a

range of other similar concerns.17

Environmental Problems and Poverty

With 80% of the country situated on the flood plains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra,Meghna and those of several other minor rivers, the country is prone to severeflooding.

While some flooding is beneficial to agriculture, high levels of flooding have been

found to be a retardant on agricultural growth[14]. On average, 16% of householdincome per year is lost due to flooding, with roughly 89% of the loss in propertyand assets. Of these, households engaged in farming and fishing suffer a greaterloss relative to income[15].

A positive relationship exists between flood risk and poverty as measured byhousehold income, with people living under the poverty threshold facing a higherrisk of flooding, as measured by their proximity to rivers and flood depth[15].Property prices also tend to be lower the higher the risk of flooding[16], making itmore likely that someone who lives in a flood-prone area is poor and vice versa, asthey might not be able to afford safer accommodation. Also, they tend to dependsolely or largely on crop cultivation and fisheries for their livelihood and thus areharder hit by floods relative to their income.

Important to the finances of farmers operating small farms is their self-sufficiencyin rice and floods adversely affect this factor, destroying harvests and arable land.
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Farmers hit are often forced to undertake distressed land selling[17]and in doing so,risk being pushed into or deeper into poverty. In areas hard hit by floods,especially disaster floods such as the 1988 flood, several researchers have foundthat many of the affected households have resorted to selling off assets such asland and livestock to mitigate losses[18][19].

Also, in an area hard-hit by poverty and prone to floods, it was found that many ofthe poor were unwilling to pay for flood protection. The main reason cited hadbeen lack of financial resources although it was found that many of these peopleare willing to substitute non-financial means of payment such as labor, harvest orpart of their land[19]

The above is problematic as it creates a vicious cycle for the poor of Bangladesh.Because the poor may not be able to afford safer housing, they have to live near the

river which raises their risk of flooding. This would result in greater damagesuffered from the floods, driving the poor into selling assets and pushing themfurther into poverty. They would be further deprived of sufficient resources neededto prevent extensive damage from flooding, resulting in even more flood damageand poverty. It then becomes even harder to escape this cycle. Even those farmersslightly above the poverty line are but just one bad flood away from the ranks ofthe poor.

Policy Recommendations for Bangladesh

Weve concluded in this study that the relationship between poverty andenvironment is indeed complex and a simplistic view of the poverty-environmentlink may lead to policies that reduce poverty at the expense of the environment or

protect the environment at the expense of the poor. Overall, it is the non-poor wealthier farmers and encroachers, agricultural investors, influential politiciansand corrupt government officials who use the most resources and have thegreatest environmental impact. Some of the possible policy options are discussedbelow.

Expand and protect the asset base of the poor
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From the survey findings it was revealed that, 36 percent of the respondents werefacing eviction pressure and 73 percent reported to have such pressure from theforest department (see Figure 5 and 6). Thus there is a serious urgency to createan environment where poor people can maintain their asset base. Policy makersshould encourage policies that protect and strengthen the resource rights that thepoor already have by focusing on the legal system, traditional authorities, localland boards and tribunals, the government, and other intuitions and policies thatinfluence locallevel resource access, control and benefit-sharing. It should alsohelp develop policies that augment the asset base of the poor through the expansionof environmental entitlements (for instance, through land reform or by turning overthe management of resources like wetlands or forests to local groups). Protectingwomens traditional use rights and securing land tenure rights for women shouldalso be priorities. Many capacity building and community-based projects havebeen successful in preserving environmental resources, strengthening community

rights-based approaches and establishing ownership of property and resources. Forexample, the government of Bangladesh in partnership with NGOs and withsupport from UNDP establishes natural resource management projects to preventenvironmental degradation, promote sustainable use of resources, and ensurecommunity participation in sustainable management plans.

Reduce the vulnerability of the poor to natural disasters Key policy options interms of mitigating the effect of natural disasters include strengthening earlywarning systems and indicators, participatory disaster preparedness and preventioncapacity; supporting the coping strategies of vulnerable groups; and expandingaccess to insurance, emergency work programmes and other risk managementmechanisms. Policy measures to address the poors vulnerability to environment-related conflict include improving conflict resolution mechanisms for naturalresource management and addressing political questions that affect access and use.Incorporating women into these participatory planning processes as well as conflictresolution mechanisms and ensuring that emergency and recovery plans aregender-sensitive is critical. In order to accomplish these priorities, the governmentshould engage all concerned institutions in improving local capacity that promoteslocal initiatives and self-sufficiency.

Give poor a chance to co-manage forest resources Policies that allow thegovernment and poor communities to join forces in improving and managingnatural resources can work well when the resource has multiple stakeholders withconflicting objectives and unequal power. In the case of coinvesting, the state helpslocal communities improve resources they already own, such as an irrigationsystem; in the case of co-managing, the state gives local people specific benefits in


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return for various responsibilities for protecting the resource (like a forest). In thesurvey findings we have also found that, respondents were in favour of naturalforestation and greater participation of local residents in the forestation program(see Figure 16). Also, empowering, engaging and providing incentives to the poorfor positive poverty-environment outcomes, intensifying collective efforts tomanage and conserve biodiversity, and implementing community-based natural-resource management systems should be priority policy areas for policy makingauthorities. Ensuring that women and their organizations take part in the decision-making processes and benefit from these schemes is critical. Good practicesinclude improved environmental conservation, access to clean water and sanitation,biodiversity protection, food security, and energy efficiency through co-management practices.

Develop rural infrastructure and alternative fuel for poor people Sixty six

percent of the respondents were with the opinion that the fuel wood supply hasdecreased over the past five years (see Figure 10). Hence, policy measures shouldbe designed to develop alternative fuel for poor people. Most technologydevelopment is directed toward the needs of the non-poor, and infrastructuredevelopment is heavily influenced by powerful elites. Supporting policies that spurthe development of environmentally friendly technologies and infrastructuregeared toward the needs to the poor, especially poor women, on whom the burdenof environmental degradation and hazards largely falls, should be a priority inpolicy making. Priorities should include: rural energy services and communitywater access; garbage collection, and sanitation; renewable energy; and access toenergy services (heat, light). Use of alternative fuels like bio-gas and other bio-fuels like solar energy should be explored and if feasible, should be popularizedand made available to rural households at an affordable cost.

Employ and compensate the poor Some macro-environmental improvements,such as the establishment of nature reserves and reduction in greenhouse gasses,are public goods whose economic benefits accrue only partly to poor local people.However, many such endeavours are labor-intensive and they offer employmentopportunities for local communities, such as guards in national parks, forests and

biodiversity reserves. These should be supported as these are win-win outcomesin policy options. Government or the appropriate authority should encouragepolicies that compensate the poor for managing natural resources sustainably, forinstance by paying local farmers to control agricultural burning.

Focus on energy services that are efficient Increasing the level of energyservices can help people meet their basic needs. Indeed, small improvements in the


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level of commercial energy services available to the very poor could generatedramatic changes in their quality of life. One way to ensure that the poor do indeedbenefit is to focus policy not on increasing the supply of energy (in other words,the supply of fuels or electricity), but rather on improving the level of energyservices (such as efficient lighting and water-pumping technologies and efficientcookstoves). In many countries, projects are underway which provide appropriate,cost-effective energy solutions to rural poverty, improving the livelihoods of ruralinhabitants through improvements to health, education, and enterprisedevelopment.

Promoting cross-sectoral programming Though there has been some progress onthe conceptual level (at least in term of seeing the role of poverty issues inenvironmental programming), operationally, poverty experts and environmentexperts, sitting in different ministries, by and large still work se

tely, and environmental and poverty policy, plans, and programmes are developedon different tracks. The rigid functional divisions that characterize governments, aswell as international development agencies, work against integration. 32Government and NGOs have an important role to play in encouraging thedevelopment of cross-sectoral policies and approaches, promoting macro-levelcoherence for local-level impacts, and sharing what it learns with its partners toshape the policy agenda. Bringing the poverty dimension into environmentalprotection and resource management plans and considering environmentalquestions in national poverty reduction plans and strategies is something policymakers should strongly advocate.

Underscoring the governance dimension There is no denying the fact that goodgovernance is the linchpin of development; this is certainly the case when it comesto addressing poverty-environment issues. Empowering the poor and counteractingthe influence of power strongholds can only be achieved through governancereform, such as improving accountability, transparency, participation, andrepresentation at all levels. Priority areas include engaging poor and marginalizedgroups in policy and planning processes to ensure that the key environmentalissues that affect them are adequately addressed; putting the poverty-environment

needs of women and children higher on the agenda; implementing measures totackle ills that stem from corruption such as illegal logging, unregulated mining,and the construction of huge power and water investments; and improving peoplesaccess to environmental information. Promoting decentralization and localenvironmental management of both natural resources and environmental services isalso the key.


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Making womens equality an explicit goal Recognition that women are moreseriously affected by the effects of environmental degradation and particularlyvulnerable to environmental hazards like pollution and biological pathogens haveled to many projects that address womens immediate needs as users ofenvironmental services and managers of natural resources. Some of these projectshave taken an instrumentalist approach that overburdens women; others haveacknowledged that lack of property rights reduces womens capacity to conserveenvironmental resources, but have not then addressed this important fact. Overall,the aim of gender mainstreaming in environment projects and policies primarilyhas been to make those initiatives more effective in the short term and moresustainable in the long term -- not to promote equality between men and women.There is an opportunity for policy makers to promote equality by encouragingeveryone involved to address underlying questions of property rights and access toand control over environmental assets.

Environmental impact of the afforestation program Afforestation programsdesigned to encourage forestation should also consider the environmental impactof the foreign fast-growing tree species. Respondents in the survey claimed thatland productivity, wildlife, fishing, medical plants etc. have decreased over the lastfive years (see Figure 10). Also interviews with the local residents revealed that,the high growth trees like Akshmoni consumes a lot of water and have a dryingeffect on the surrounding natural trees. All these claims, though not scientificallyproven yet, deserve immediate attention and further studies. Before going forplantation, environmental impact assessment of a particular species of tree shouldbe conducted.

Regulating the protector Seventy one percent of the respondents blamed forestdepartment for deforestation (see Figure 13). In different sections of the surveyquestions, respondents held forest department and other power pressure groupsresponsible for the decrease in forest resources. Hence, there is serious lack ofunderstanding and transparency in the activities of forest department. Measures toinvolve local residents more in the afforestation programs and increasing theaccountability of the forestry department should be taken by the policy makers.

Championing capacity building At the national level, policies can contribute to apositive relationship between poverty and environment -- a virtuous rather thanvicious circle. Many such policy options do not require additional resources, butrather depend upon reallocating investments toward the poor. Most policies,however, require significant investment in institutional strengthening and capacitybuilding for integrated programming and pro-poor/pro-environment policy making.


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Building national capacity has emerged as a particularly elusive goal indevelopment cooperation, and initiatives in all sectors have constantly faced both alack of necessary skill and weak institutions. And building capacity for integratedprogramming when ministries are organized along sectoral lines and povertyreduction and environmental protection/management plans are drawn up setelyis particularly challenging.

CONCLUSIONAn attempt has been made to review the interlinkages between the environmentand poverty and selected policies and programmes which can minimize the adverseenvironmental impacts of economic growth. Against the background of the

positive linkage between improvement in the environment and the reduction ofpoverty it can be argued that policies and programmes for improving theenvironment could form an important element of a pro-poor economic strategy tostrengthen the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. It is also foundthat certain policies (such as providing resource rights to the poor) centred directlyon the poor people can improve the environment, and environmental interventionssuch as the prevention of land degradation and controlling indoor smoke pollutionfrom cooking can improve the income and health of the poor. Despite the existenceand application of a large number of policies and programmes, the track record forimproving the state of the environment in the Asian and Pacific region does notdenote the success of such instruments. The limited success of environmentalpolicies is due to the economic aspects of the environment, which make theassociated policies difficult to implement.

Conceptually, there are three aspects associated with the environment which havean impact on the extent of environmental degradation, especially that created byhuman activities, and on the effectiveness of the policies for reversing suchdamage.

First, a significant part of the environmental costs of human activities is intangibleand thus difficult to quantify in monetary terms. Environmental impacts oftenoccur over the long term, even beyond the generation of those responsible. Thuspeople (polluters) do not fully realize the costs (environmental degradation) oftheir actions.


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Second, the environment has negative externalities, that is, the social costs ofenvironmental degradation are always much higher than the private costs. It isdifficult to design deterrent policies and instruments which reflect the true socialcosts.

Third, the environment is a typical public good. It is non-rival in type: the quantityavailable for other people does not fall when someone consumes it. It is also non-excludable; it is prohibitively costly to provide a goodenvironment only to thosewho pay for it and prevent or exclude others from obtaining it. This is responsiblefor the free-rider phenomenon in the area of the environment: other agents areallowed to benefit, at no cost, from the effort of one agent to improve theenvironment. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to provide a goodenvironment through the market, where private motives are the major drivingforce. 37 ESCAP and ADB, op. cit. 297 IV. Environment-poverty nexus revisited:

linkages and policy options

The Governments role in designing and ensuring the success of policies andprogrammes for improving the environment cannot be exaggerated. In this regard,on the basis of the issues discussed in the previous graphs, certain broadobservations can be made on the modalities for improving the effectiveness ofenvironmental policies and programmes.First, the role of awareness-building of various agents, that is, consumers,producers, government bureaucrats and politicians, concerning different aspects ofthe environment is essential in securing stakeholder ownership in designing andimplementing environmental policies. The use of all available media and means ofcommunication, such as newspapers, television and the Internet, to focus groupdiscussions/seminars for disseminating information on the various social costs ofenvironmental degradation and the benefits achievable from improvement, ishighly recommended.

Second, the decentralization of the responsibilities for designing and implementingenvironmental programmes and policies is required for success. In formulatingpolicies and programmes concerning the environment, the local-level state of the

environment within a national environmental plan should be considered. Thenational plan is required to mainstream environmental issues and concerns, manyof which have long-term implications, in the national development strategy, whichoften incorporates specific targets for economic growth.

Third, the crucial importance of coordination needs to be highlighted in both thedesign and implementation of environmental policies. Environmental issues are


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cross-cutting and involve a large number of sectors and a variety of agents,sometimes with conflicting interests. Broad consensus-building through propercoordination is required to ensure the equal commitment of various stakeholdergroups to environmental causes.

Fourth, maintaining good governance in executing policies and programmes in thearea of the environment is of prime importance. Policies need to be designed in aparticipatory and transparent manner. Keeping in mind the public-good nature ofenvironment, including natural resources and the high negative externalities (thesocial cost being much higher than the private cost) associated with environmentaldegradation, environmental policies require a corruption-free administration inorder to ensure their success.

Improvement of the environment is beneficial to everybody, to those currently

living and those who are yet to be born. However, compared with the rich, the poorare more exposed to various types of environmental damage and thus stand to gainmore from the improvement of the environment, which makes the associatedpolicies truly pro-poor. Designing and implementing environmental policies arecomplex tasks; the multiplicity of agents with conflicting interests and the highnegative externalities make the tasks these more difficult. The commitment ofnational Governments in this difficult area is of crucial importance. With respect tothe Asian and Pacific countries, there is need for a periodic review of theenvironment policies and programmes and environmental situation of variouscountries, along with the strategies to reduce poverty. Through this exercise,Governments will be able to take stock of the situation and, if needed, readjusttheir priorities so as to achieve real sustainable development and poverty reduction.

POLICY OPTIONS

Against the background of the linkages detailed in the previous section and thethrust of the chapter, environmental policies can be classified into two broadgroups: those which aim at reducing the adverse environmental impacts ofeconomic growth, leading to an improvement in the environment in general and a

consequent beneficial impact on the poor, and those which are targeted specificallyat the poor and have a positive impact on the environment. These are discussedbelow.

Enhancing environment-friendly economic growth and developmentAt the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held at Riode Janeiro in 1992, Governments committed themselves to adopting strategies for


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sustainable development (needs).18 The challenge has been to achieveconvergence between the growth and environment objectives of developmentthrough the integration of economic, social and environmental dimensions by theuse of appropriate policies. These policies can be broadly classified as economicpolicies and institutional policies.

Economic policies

National long-term planning mechanisms, strategic plans and sustainable

development plans: the need for coordination

Achieving economic, social and environmental objectives for a country requirescoordination between many agents, namely, government, producers, consumersand domestic and foreign investors; policies, namely, sectoral, fiscal and monetary,and trade policies; and institutions, including regulatory agencies and the judiciary.

There are various subdivisions within each group, for example, the Governmentconsists of many ministries which deal with many areas, from finance toconstruction and the environment; and producers may be big corporate entities,SMEs or self-employed. It is only natural that there should be conflict between theobjectives of so many entities. Bringing harmony into the functioning of thesegroups to enhance a countrys welfare (of which poverty reduction and improvingthe environment are major components) calls for the recognition and identificationof various trade-offs and the realignment of individual goals and policyinstruments under a win-lose as little aspossible framework.

National planning mechanisms which constitute the articulation of such aframework spell out the objectives, concerns, goals, policy options and strategiesof various agents, groups and organizations. Whereas elaborate plans for socio-economic development have a long history, those which deal explicitly withenvironmental concerns and sustainable development issues are relatively recentand came into being to a considerable extent after the adoption of Agenda 21 at theRio Conference. A number of countries have formulated elaborate sustainabledevelopment plans.

For example, in 1995, the Republic of Korea prepared Green Vision 21, whichintegrated long-term environmental policies with development needs. Under thisbroad vision, the relevant ministries, especially the Ministry of Environment, theMinistry of Commerce, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Construction andTransportation, developed their own annual plans and strategies for action. Viet

Nams Environmental Vision 2020, National Strategy for EnvironmentalProtection, 2001-2010 and National Environmental Action Plan, 2001-2005


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address long- medium- and short-term issues of environment and economicgrowth. Official environment protection visions, integrating economicdevelopment and the environment, exist in at least 37 countries of the Asian andPacific region.19 Some examples of these are Chinas 19 ESCAP and ADB, Stateof the Environment in Asia and the Pacific 2000 (ST/ESCAP/ 2087). 279IV. Environment-poverty nexus revisited: linkages and policy options Agenda 21,Vision 2020 (Malaysia), the Singapore Green Plan, 2012 National ConservationStrategies (India), the National Policy on the Environment (Uzbekistan), theNational Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (Australia) and theNational Environment and Development Strategies, 1993 (Samoa). As examples,the major features of three selected sustainable development plans, the SingaporeGreen Plan, Australias National Strategy for Ecologically SustainableDevelopment and Chinas Agenda 21, are given in table IV.1.

The objectives of the plans are to ensure that economic growth and developmenttake place with minimum damage to the environment. They emphasize theconservation of natural resources and the reduction of environmental pollution.The adoption of clean technologies has often been explicitly considered as a majormodality for balancing growth and environment objectives. Strategies forachieving these objectives include raising environmental awareness and educationand promotion of the 3P (people, public sector and private sector) partnership.Implementation methods incorporate a broad range of initiatives from the inclusionof environmental issues in school curricula to the formulation of legislation andlaws to induce environmental protection. Financial resources for implementingenvironmental plans come primarily from Governments, and are augmented bybilateral and multilateral donors.

Sectoral policies

Visions and strategies of sustainable development must be supported by sectoralaction plans that fulfil national obligations under global environmental conventionssuch as the need to contain greenhouse gas emissions, the conservation ofbiodiversity and the phasing-out of ozone-depleting substances, while ensuring

adequate growth of the sector.

Sectoral plans and policies have also been developed to address concerns aboutagricultural land and water. Against the background of the importance of thesesectors in the environment-rural poverty linkage, the associated policies requirespecial mention. For example, forest land is often used to augment agriculturalland and trees are cut indiscriminately to satisfy the growing demand for wood. In


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order to counter deforestation, which has a negative impact on the livelihood andvulnerability of the poor, especially in rural areas, a shift towards plantationforestry is a policy option which can be pursued. This type of shift will relieve thepressure on national forests and at the same time enable the development ofreliable sources of industrial raw material and contribute to strengthening theincome-earning potential of the persons associated with this sector.

Several countries of the region are pursuing the development of plantation forestsand simultaneously withdrawing national forests from the production of wood,which is used as industrial raw material. For example, China has one of the mostextensive plantation forestry programmes in the region. It is planned to plant some26 million hectares of forest in the Yangtze and Yellow river basins by 2030. InIndia, farmers in three states established a total of 26,000 ha of poplar plantationsin 1990 which are now used to provide raw material for industries such as match

boxes and plywood.

There have been changes in the policies and strategies for protecting andimproving the quality of available freshwater resources. Instead of expanding thesupply of freshwater, emphasis has been put on demand management and water-use efficiency, conservation and protection. An integrated approach to waterresources management in line with Agenda 21 has been accepted as an effectivepolicy option. Multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches are needed torehabilitate degraded water quality and ensure the provision of a safe drinkingwater supply. In many countries of the region, this need has been translated intoaction plans for cleaning up rivers, canals, lakes and other water bodies: theMurray Darling Basin Agreement (Australia), the pollution control plans for threerivers (China), the Ganga Action Plan (India) and the Love Our Rivers Campaign(Malaysia) are some examples. The reduction of pollution loads through properwaste-water treatment, reuse and recycling of domestic sewage and industrialwaste water, the introduction of appropriate low-waste technologies and strictcontrol on industrial and municipal effluents are essential elements of these actionplans.

Instruments for implementing policies: command and control and market-basedinstruments

Command and control-based mechanisms utilize the power of the State in forcingthe agents, that is, producers and consumers, to adhere to environmental standards.For example, the management of forest resources in many countries uses a systemof awarding licences for logging with the threat of cancellation as a penalty


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mechanism. In another sector, fishing, in which many of the poor earn theirlivelihood, a quota system is applied to keep the catch within sustainable limits. Anumber of countries have used command and control mechanisms to regulateeffluents, emissions and disposable wastes. Economic and Social Survey of Asiaand the Pacific 2003

Command and control measures have often focused on particular sectors which areof primary importance to the poor. For example, Indonesias PROKASIHProgramme, started in 1989, aimed at ensuring that industries install waste-watertreatment systems. Initially, attention was focused on the worst industrial pollutionoccurring near 24 highly polluted rivers with the goal of reducing their pollutionload by 50 per cent.20 The objective was subsequently expanded; more rivers werebrought within the purview of the control measures and the pollution standardswere also increased. Command and control measures have also

environment and poverty

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