UNDP Human Development Course

Environment, Poverty and Human

Development: Exploring the Linkages

Bhaskar Vira, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge

 A Vicious Circle?

ENVIRONMENTAL
POVERTY
DEGRADATION

Brundtland Report 1990 - poverty as a major cause and

effect of global environmental problems
 Responding to environmental threats
 Demand for environmental quality ...
 … is a luxury - the poor are too busy thinking about
basic survival to concern themselves with
environmental issues
 Ability to respond to such demands ...
 … is dependent on aggregate wealth - economic
prosperity and technological sophistication allow
nations to react to environmental challenges
 Ergo ...
 Environmentalism is the exclusive concern of the rich,
in the advanced industrial nations
 Understanding responses
 Out of concern for nature
 … as a source of cultural, spiritual, social Are these
and economic value ... concerns
 To mitigate anthropogenic influences exclusivel
on the natural environment y found in
rich
 … pollution, resource depletion, extinction nations?
of species ...
 To reduce the impacts of environmental
changes on human society
 … health impacts, livelihoods, needs, well-
being ...
 Views on poverty-environment linkages

 Conventional wisdom
– Deterministic relationship: if one is poor, then one degrades the
environment
– Poverty is negatively related to sustainable development - short
time horizons of the poor
– Policy: need for economic growth to break the downward
spiral: World Bank WDR 1992

Poverty Environmental
degradation
 Alternative perspectives
 Political economy
– Why are people poor? Poor as proximate causes, but (global)
inequalities as the ultimate causes
– Evidence that the poor can and do care for the environment:
effective environmental stewardship
– The poor as environmental activists: new social and ecological
movements; grassroots political action
– Policy - remove inequalities

Inequality Environmental
(power, wealth) degradation
 Alternative perspectives
 Market/institutional failure
– Price signals - perverse subsidies/taxes
– Tenure policies/property rights
– Legal framework
– Implementation capacity
– Competing policy demands
– Policy – correct market/institutional failure

Policy Environmental
imperfections degradation
 Alternative perspectives
 Reversing the causality
– Dependence of the poor on natural resources for their
livelihoods: CPR studies
– Impact of internal and external pressures is to undermine the
sustainability of the local resource base
– Policy - improved environmental sustainability as a
poverty alleviation strategy

Environmental
Poverty
degradation
 Understanding human well-being

 Multiple dimensions of well-being

– Physical/financial resources - wealth
– Human resources - education, health
– Natural resources - ecosystem services
– Political resources - democracy, accountability
– Social/cultural resources - networks, norms, relationships

⇒ SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS (SL)

The SL
Framework Livelihood
Outcomes
+ Sustainable use
Livelihood
of NR base
Capital Assets
+ Income
Policies & + Well-being
Institutions Reduced
Human (Transforming vulnerability
Structures & + Food security
Processes)
Social Natural
• Structures
- Government
- Private
Sector
• Processes Livelihood
- Laws Strategies
Physical Financia
- Policies
l
- Culture
Vulnerability
- Institutions
Context
• Shocks
• Trends
• Seasons
It’s all about pushing out the ‘area’ of these
assets

Human Are these

Capital assets
fungible?

Social Natural
Capital Capital

Physical Financial
Capital Capital
 Rural poverty - environment linkages

Household objectives: food/livelihood security

Available household assets: on-and off-farm physical/financial

capital; natural resources; human capital; social capital

External Household income/investment activities

factors

Environmental/economic/social consequences

New stock of household assets

 Ecosystem services
 Definition
– Ecosystem services are the conditions and
processes through which natural ecosystems, and
the species that make them up, sustain and fulfil
human life.
Daily et al 1997
* Provisioning functions

* Regulating functions

* Enriching/cultural functions
 Ecosystem services: provisioning
 Magnitude/rate of goods harvested (‘flows’),
e.g.:
 Food
 Micro-organisms, plant and animal products
 Genetic material, biochemicals & pharmaceuticals
 Fuels/energy
 Fodder
 Fibre
 Non-living material
 Fresh water
 Ecosystem services: regulating
 Life support functions, determined by ‘stock’
of the ecosystem, e.g.:
 Purification of air and water
 Mitigation of floods and droughts
 Detoxification and decomposition of wastes
 Preservation of soil and soil fertility
 Pollination of crops and vegetation
 Control of pests
 Dispersal of seeds
 Maintenance of biodiversity
 Stabilisation of climate
 Ecosystem services: enriching/cultural
 Beliefs and values surrounding natural forces,
providing spiritual/religious/cultural support
(determined by ‘stock’), e.g.:
 Spiritual components
 Aesthetic values
 Social relations and values
 Educational/scientific values
 Ecosystem services: well-being issues
 Provisioning: access of the poor for basic
needs; distributional issues
 Regulating: equitable sharing of benefits and
costs associated with protection
 Enriching/cultural: conflicting cognitive
paradigms and value/moral systems

Potential conflict between these services, but

also scope for synergy/win-win scenarios