The Role of Poverty in Environmental Degradation

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work beginning in the late 1980's that poverty is a chief cause of environmental degradation. For example, the Bruntland Commission Report (1987), which has been accepted as the blue print for environmental conservation, clearly stated that, poverty is a major cause of environmental degradation and that the issue of poverty must be handled as a part of any effective program addressing the environment. Additionally, Jalal (1993), the Asian Development Bank's chief of the environment department said that, "It is generally accepted that environmental degradation, rapid population growth and stagnant production are closely linked with the fast spread of acute poverty in many countries of Asia". The World Bank joined the consensus when the World Development Report (1992) stated that "poor families who have to meet short term needs mine the natural capital by excessive cutting of trees for firewood and failure to replace soil nutrients" (World Bank, 1992).
The problem of poverty and ...

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and shortage. And finally, air pollution including both outdoor and indoor pollution. These factors show the most correlations between poverty and the environment, though not always one way and directly.
Land use and poverty seem to be intrinsically linked. When one thinks of the effects of poverty on land use it is usually in the form of land degradation. For the purpose of this paper the term land degradation must be defined. Duraiappah gives a thorough definition which follows.
Land degradation as a process by which the natural productivity and/or the economic productivity has been impaired due to anthropogenic activities (Duraiappah, 1996). This paper will also use Duraiappah's ...

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