Environmental Changes

0016-7398/05/0002-0001/$00.20/0 © 2005 The Royal Geographical Society

The Geographical Journal

, Vol.

171

, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 9–23

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

A geographical perspective on poverty–environment interactions

LESLIE C GRAY* AND WILLIAM G MOSELEY†

*

Environmental Studies Institute, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA E-mail: [email protected]

†

Department of Geography, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St Paul, MN 55105-1899, USA E-mail: [email protected]

This paper was accepted for publication in October 2004

This paper examines prevailing wisdoms on the topic of poverty–environmentalinteractions, problematizes some standard assumptions and interrogates the geographicalliterature on the subject. Dominant development discourse has tended to blame the poorfor environmental degradation, ignoring the role of other processes and actors at variousscales in causing environmental degradation. We examine how definitions of poverty,institutional arrangements, conventional economic models and assumed feedback loopsmay influence our understanding of poverty–environment interactions. The article givesparticular attention to the political ecology approach as a lens through which thisdynamic may be understood. Recent work in political ecology has broadened views ofpoverty–environment interactions by focusing on issues of power, scale and discourse ininfluencing outcomes and policies.

KEY WORDS:

environmental degradation, political ecology, poverty, environmental discourse

The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seemalways to live from hand to mouth. Their presentwants employ their whole attention, and they seldomthink of the future.

Thomas Malthus 1798

Degradation of these [environmental] resourcesreduces the productivity of the poor – who most relyon them – and makes the poor even more susceptibleto extreme events . . . Poverty is also a factor inaccelerating environmental degradation, since thepoor, with shorter time horizons . . . are unable andoften unwilling to invest in natural resourcemanagement . . .

World Bank 1996

Introducing poverty and environment: prevailing wisdoms and new interpretations

T

he notion that there is a relationship betweenpoverty and environmental degradation islong-standing, yet constantly being re-discovered

and re-invented. Thomas Malthus indirectly suggested

that the poor are more likely to engage in environ-mentally deleterious behaviour because they areincapable of thinking beyond the next meal. Thisidea was further embraced by the colonial powersin Africa and Asia who frequently identified poorlocal peasants as key causes of soil degradation,wasteful burning practices and deforestation (see,for example, Baker 1983; Fairhead and Leach1996). Poverty, in the early twentieth century, wasoften bundled in with ignorance, race and tradition– all factors that contributed to poor resourcemanagement in the eyes of colonial administrators.

The poverty–environmental degradation idea hastaken on renewed vigour since the rise of thesustainable development concept in the late 1980s(Lele 1991; Bryant 1997). Within the context of thisdiscourse, poverty and environmental degradationhas been described as a two-way interactiveprocess. According to the Brundtland Report, adocument that popularized the sustainable devel-opment concept, ‘[m]any parts of the world arecaught in a vicious downward spiral: poor peopleare forced to overuse environmental resources to

10

Poverty–environment interactions

survive from day to day, and their impoverishmentof their environment further impoverishes them,making their survival ever more uncertain and diffi-cult’ (WCED 1987, 27). A series of UN sponsoredconferences since the early 1990s (Rio, Cairo,Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Johannesburg)have elaborated the notion of sustainable develop-ment, each often reiterating the conventional wisdomregarding poverty–environment interactions.

Those who praise the Brundtland Report say thatit deftly integrated concerns for conservation anddevelopment, permanently changing the course of1960s and 1970s environmental thinking that viewedindustrialization and development as antithetical toconservation (Mellor 1988; Beckerman 1992). Thisintegration helped to appease southern nations thatwere primarily concerned about development, aswell as northern environmentalists who increasinglysought to address environmental issues in theglobal South. Critics suggest that Brundtland, andsubsequent UN meetings, have only allowed theneoliberal economic agenda to increasingly co-optenvironment and development thinking, not to men-tion the discourse regarding poverty–environmentinteractions (Bryant 1997; Sneddon 2000; Logan2004; Logan and Moseley 2004). Indeed, theperspective of poverty–environmental interactionsas a downward spiral or vicious circle has beenreiterated by a multitude of disciplines with differ-ent perspectives (Dasgupta 1995; Mabogunje 1995;Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). As Bryant notes ‘[t]hevision of “poverty-stricken masses” caught up in avicious cycle of poverty and environmental degrad-ation has come to dominate the mainstreamliterature, and rapidly become an article of faithamong key development agencies such as theWorld Bank and the International Monetary Fund’(1997, 6).

This is not an esoteric debate, but one of funda-mental importance that affects real world policy andprogrammes. In West Africa, for example, develop-ment practitioners have employed the notion ofpoverty-induced environmental degradation to arguethat the continued expansion of export-orientedcotton production is the best way to reduce povertyand encourage conservation in the region (becauseof the wealth it would generate for potential envir-onmental efforts) (Moseley 2004). In the UnitedStates, President George Bush framed his ClearSkies Initiative by saying that ‘economic growth iskey to environmental progress, because it is growththat provides the resources for investment in cleantechnologies’ (Revkin 2002, A1). While linkingenvironmentalism and poverty alleviation (oreconomic growth) appears to be a laudable effortto unite concerns for conservation and social justiceor economic development, a failure to examine

rigorously and empirically the poverty–environmentconnection may mean that development theoristsand planners are, at a minimum, inappropriatelyscapegoating the poor for problems they have notcreated, or worse, continuing to promote policiesthat undermine long-term poverty alleviation, foodsecurity and environmental integrity. In other words,this is one of those ‘big questions’ with which thescholarly community needs to engage (Kates 1987;Cutter

et al

. 2002; Harman 2003).Several disciplines have contributed to the poverty

and environment debate, with economics probablybeing the most prominent (e.g. World Bank 1992;Dasgupta 1995; Reardon and Vosti 1995). Thepoverty–environment dynamic has also been studiedin nearly every major region of the world, fromAfrica (Logan and Moseley 2002; Moseley 2001a,2004), to Latin America (Bebbington 1999;Ravneborg 2003; Swinton

et al

. 2003; Swinton andQuiroz 2003), to Asia (Broad 1994; Parikh 2003).In this paper, and the special issue it introduces, weexplore and elaborate a geographical perspectiveon poverty–environment interactions. Geography,with its long-standing human–environment tradition,has produced a prodigious amount of scholarshipregarding the factors that influence resource man-agement and human–environmental interactions(e.g. Lambin

et al

. 2001). In particular, we elaborateon an increasingly accepted and interdisciplinaryapproach known as political ecology. Politicalecology, or the political economy of human–environment interactions (Blaikie and Brookfield1987), seems a particularly well suited approachfor examining the poverty–environment interfacegiven its attention to power, scale and discourse.With its emphasis on political economy, much newwork on poverty–environment interactions movesaway from a stylized view of the relationship, butbrings to bear new views of agency, contingencyas well as globalized processes.

Complicating the obvious

At one level, the notion of poverty as the causeand effect of environmental degradation seemsintuitively sensible. A poor person gets hungry, heor she over-exploits the environment to feed thefamily, and this degraded environment furtherimpoverishes the family. But could this be an overlysimplistic scenario? This section explores howdefinitions of poverty, institutional arrangements,conventional economic models and assumedfeedback loops may influence our understanding ofpoverty–environment interactions. Other issues(such as political economy, space, scale anddiscourse) will be reviewed in the following sectionon political ecology.


11

Poverty: conceptual diversions and alternative definitions

The way in which we define and conceptualizepoverty influences poverty–environment analyses.Northern conceptions of poverty, defined in termsof monetary wealth and income (GDP/GNP percapita being the most frequently reported statistics),are fairly limited in many developing country con-texts where a high proportion of production andtransfers often take place outside the formaleconomy and where there are significant regionaland inter-societal differences (e.g. Hagberg 2001).In many rural contexts, for example, rather than cashsavings and earnings, wealth is often reflected incattle holdings, the quality of agricultural implements,housing materials, labour resources, access to land,and the ability of the household to produce food.This is not to say that cash is insignificant as amechanism for food transfers in some rural areas.In fact, food purchase is a growing component ofhousehold food budgets, particularly among poorerhouseholds that have had to diversify their sourcesof food and income in response to falling food cropproduction. Nonetheless, ‘[a]n assets-orientation isparticularly important while examining poverty–environment interactions [in rural areas of thedeveloping world]’ (UNDP 1999, 26).

We would argue that poverty defined by formalsector measures is a potential conceptual diversionbecause the analyst may be identifying a group ofhouseholds (at least in rural areas) that is notnecessarily poorer, but often less involved in theformal economy and modern agriculture, and moreengaged in subsistence production. In other words,a definition of poverty based on traditional incomemeasures may be more a measure of a household’sengagement with the formal (and often global)economy than its ability to consistently meet itsneeds over time. As such, ‘the poor’ are those lessinfluenced by an external economy and often moreapt to manage resources based on local, rather thanexternal, demands. Paradoxically, this is often arecipe for a more sustainable system. In the Sudano-Sahelian regions of Africa, for example, culturalecologists have argued that traditional subsistencefarmers have a significant in-situ capacity for soundenvironmental management and successful adapta-tion in the face of environmental change (e.g.Richards 1985; Mortimore 1989; Fairhead andLeach 1996).

A more nuanced conceptualization of rural povertyis outlined by Reardon and Vosti (1995), whocategorize poverty in terms of a lack of certain typesof assets: (1) natural resource assets, (2) humanresource assets, (3) on-farm physical and financialassets, (4) off-farm physical and financial assets. In

both Moseley’s and Gray’s studies, for example,villagers consistently defined wealth in terms ofnumbers of domestic animals (especially cattle),housing type (e.g. a tin roof ), household size (withparticular reference to labour resources), and othertypes of productive and non-productive physicalassets (e.g. ploughs, bicycles, and motorcycles). Inother settings, land-holding size might also be animportant component of wealth.

Another dimension of poverty is encapsulated inAmartya Sen’s entitlement concept, used to refer toa person’s legitimate claims to available food (Sen1981; Dreze and Sen 1989). Entitlements, accordingto Sen, are claims on resources that can be con-verted to food, ranging from crops in the ground,to cash on hand for food purchases, to socialrelations that may provide food in times of need.Lack of entitlements, that is the ability to accessresources, means that people can go hungry eventhough food resources may be abundant. Leach

et al

. have extended the concept of entitlement toenvironmental resources, ‘exploring how differentlypositioned social actors command environmentalgoods and services that are instrumental to theirwell-being’ (1999, 225). In particular, they use thisframework to investigate how intracommunitydynamics mediate access to heterogeneousenvironmental resources. This approach is impor-tant because it breaks down the idea of com-munity, recognizing that community members havevery different entitlements that may, in turn, lead todifferent environmental and equity outcomes.

Because poor people are not a homogeneousgroup, the location and level of poverty is animportant determinant of a household’s ability torespond to environmental stresses and shocks(UNDP 1999). Illiffe’s (1987) description of povertyin the African context distinguishes between twotypes of poverty, structural poverty and conjunc-tural poverty, which have different implications forhow a household deals with shocks. Structuralpoverty is long-term in nature, due to personal andsocial circumstances, while conjunctural povertyrepresents poverty into which ordinary people canbe temporarily thrown in times of crisis. Structuralpoverty can be apparent as a lack of land or labour,while conjunctural poverty is caused by specificshocks such as climate or political insecurity. Whiledifferentiating between these two types of povertyis analytically important, both types as experiencedby the poor frequently converge (Hagberg 2001). Inmany instances the poor are the most vulnerableand are more deeply affected by climatic shocks ornatural disasters (Wisner 2001). Studies of famine,for example, show how a household’s ability torecover from shocks depends on asset levels aswell as social networks (e.g. Davies 1996). However,

12


in some instances, the poor are not necessarily morevulnerable than the wealthy (e.g. Moseley 2001b).

The above discussion suggests that povertydefined as a lack of income or cash savings ishighly problematic in many contexts. Poverty ismore about an inability to meet basic needs overtime. As such, any definition of poverty must becontext specific because the mix of assets andentitlements needed to meet basic needs variesfrom place to place.

The institutional context

As alluded to in the previous section, poverty–environment interactions are not a simple two-waystreet, but are mediated by a whole host of socialinstitutions (Leach and Mearns 1996; Lambin

et al

.2001). Understanding relationships between povertyand environmental outcomes necessitates investi-gating issues such as resource access (e.g. assets,land, labour, credit, markets), institutions (e.g. landtenure systems, governance) and vulnerability (e.g.seasonal vs. long-term, networks, entitlements).

Reardon and Vosti (1995) differentiate betweenwelfare poverty and investment poverty, arguingthat small differences in asset levels can determinewhether people will invest in strategies that improveenvironmental quality. Stonich (1993) illustrates thecomplicated terrain of farmer decision-making basedon asset levels and household needs in highlandHonduras, where wealthier farmers engage in bothconservation-related activities such as terracing andfallow, and land-extensive practices such as cattleherding. Poorer small-holders and renters, oftenfarming the steepest poorest quality land, do notfallow land or use conservation techniques, choos-ing instead to find outside employment, a betterroute to servicing basic nutritional requirements.This example illustrates how the practices of poorerand wealthier farmers both result in environmentaldegradation at different scales, but have signifi-cantly different livelihood implications.

Several institutional interventions stand out in therealm of poverty–environment policy. Land tenurerelations are an area of frequent intervention in theattempt to both decrease poverty and improve theenvironment. The relationship between poverty,environment and land tenure is put forth as this:poor farmers will not invest in conservation withoutsecure tenure (Bassett 1993; Feder and Noronha1987). Newer evidence, however, is showing thisis generally not the case. Significantly, whengovernments intervene in the tenure terrain theresults are frequently disastrous for the poor andwomen, whose rights are often expropriated (Platteau1996). Little difference has been found in the levelsof productivity and investment in land held under

formal and informal tenure (Bassett and Crummey1993). Furthermore, there is growing evidence thatpoor people often use investment as a way ofcreating tenure (Gray and Kevane 2001).

Other institutional interventions concern govern-ance structures for natural resource management.Neoliberal policies have led to state retrenchmentin many parts of the world; institutions such as theWorld Bank have been at the forefront of promotingmore local-level participation in natural resourcemanagement (Reed 2002). Attempts to devolvecontrol over natural resources have been promotedunder the banner of privatization and decentraliza-tion. While these sorts of programmes may openup new spaces of resource control for the poor,they have also in some cases led to elite captureover resources and social mobilization. In Bolivia,for example, privatization of public sector utilitieshas resulted in price rises and decreased access toresources for the poor, which, in turn, has led tosocial protests (Kohl 2002).

Wealth and the environment: spatial mismatches, the nature of nature, and real and imagined environmental feedback loops

An important model in the economics literature,positing a potential relationship between wealth andenvironmental degradation, is the environmentalKuznets’ curve. Kuznets, a macro-economist, origi-nally theorized that there was a relationship betweendevelopment and income inequality (Kuznets 1955).He posited that less developed societies generallyhad a higher level of income equality, then wentthrough a phase of growing income inequality asthe economy industrialized, and then became moreequal again in a post-industrial phase. Economistssubsequently suggested that a similar theoreticalrelationship existed between wealth and environ-mental quality (Field 1997). As such, the environ-mental Kuznets’ curve posits that pollution is lowin the initial stages of development, rises with rapidindustrialization, and then falls again as economiesmature. In the case of air pollution, for example,several studies indicate that a rise and fall in emis-sions closely mirrors a steady growth in per capitaincome (e.g. Kauffmann

et al

. 1998; de Bruyn

et al

.1998; List and Gallet 1999; Dinda 2000).

The idea of wealth leading to greater environ-mental stewardship is bolstered by the economicsliterature on time preference theory (e.g. Murphree1993; Bardhan 1996; Lumley 1997), as well as thepsychology and sociology literatures regardinghierarchy of needs (e.g. Rowan 1998; Hagerty 1999).These theories suggest that once a person’s basicneeds are addressed, they may consider higherorder needs and wants, including environmental


13

amenities. Wealthier societies, therefore, will chooseto invest in pollution reduction and abatement.

There are several flaws in these versions of awealth–environment relationship. First, we wouldargue that the environmental Kuznets curve isspatially myopic in that it does not consider theexport of emissions that often accompanies themigration of dirty industries from more to lessdeveloped countries, a common phenomenon in anincreasingly global economy (e.g. Hackenberg andAlvarez 2001). In other words, increasing wealthdoes not necessarily reduce pollution, it may justmove it around. Similar relationships exist with manyother types of natural resources such as land andforests, where the demand for products in wealthiercountries is driving environmental degradation inpoor countries (Redclift and Sage 1998). Ecologicalfootprint analyses have been instrumental in illus-trating this discontinuity between the consumptionof natural resources by wealthier countries andtheir production in the poorer parts of the world.

A second potential area of concern is that themajority of studies regarding wealth–environmentinteractions have been undertaken at the nationalrather than household scale. Within geography, aconsiderable amount of work has been undertakenregarding the influence of analytical scale andspatial boundaries on correlation analysis. This workseems especially relevant to our understanding ofthe environmental Kuznets’ curve. Much of this workhas been done by Openshaw (1977 1984) underthe banner of the modifiable areal unit problem. Heshowed how the scale at which analysis is under-taken, as well as the particular shape of analyticalunits, can have a profound impact on potentialcorrelations between the variables under study. Forexample, in the first instance, data aggregated at thenational scale may yield one relationship, whereasanalysis undertaken with household level data maysuggest another. In the second instance, the actualposition of national, provincial or district boundaries(which often have nothing to do with the phenom-enon being studied) may influence results. Thisproblem seems especially relevant to the poverty–environment debate, and the environmental Kuznets’curve, because much analysis has been undertakenat the national scale to suggest that there is aninverse relationship between income and variousforms of pollution. This is not to imply that nationalscale analysis is necessarily problematic, as someforms of pollution may be appropriately analyzedat this scale. Rather, we would argue that analysisshould ideally be undertaken at multiple scales.When different outcomes exist at different scales ofanalysis, scholars should seek to explain thesedifferences rather than automatically privilege oneanalytical scale over another. Scholars should also

consider how relevant the shape of the analyticalunit is to the particular phenomenon under study.

Third, it is difficult to generalize about relation-ships, given that the nature of the environmentalresource is itself an important determinant of thetypes of relationships that unfold. The mainstreamview tends to describe poverty-induced environ-mental degradation as a generalized phenomenonthat occurs across all resource categories. Physicalenvironments and ecosystems vary in terms ofsensitivity and resilience, and these characteristicshave some bearing on the way in which a resource-poor or resource-rich household interacts with theenvironment. While the environmental Kuznets’curve seems to characterize some sorts of environ-mental changes – e.g. air pollution – it does not doall that well with other types, in particular wildlifeand biodiversity, which inevitably seem to declineas economies expand and per capita wealthincreases. These resources, once lost, are difficultto reconstruct, even for a wealthy society. Bassett’spaper illustrates the decline of wildlife in Coted’Ivoire due to hunting, much of it for urban andinternational markets.

Fourth, a problem with the time preference theoryand hierarchy of needs literatures is that they fail toexplain the future-oriented behaviour of some poorhouseholds in drought prone areas (Moseley 2001a).For example, it has been observed that rural Africanhouseholds are often extremely reluctant to sellproductive assets during a food crisis. Long beforethe family oxen or plough is sold, poor families veryoften cut back on food consumption for extendedperiods of time in order to avoid decapitalization(Maxwell and Frankenberger 1992). Householdsalso cut back on consumption, or switch to lessdesirable wild food sources, in order to preserve asignificant portion of grain reserves as seed stockfor the next year’s planting. This type of behavioursuggests that extremely poor and hungry house-holds do not value the present over the future (orput food needs before all other desires), but arewilling to make serious sacrifices in the present inorder to enhance the chances of future productivityand livelihood security. This type of future-orientedbehaviour in the face of food insecurity in thepresent has not been limited to a few isolated cases,but is a commonly observed phenomenon. Suchbehaviour has been noted and studied in a variety ofcontexts, including Sudan (de Waal 1989; Cutler1986), Nigeria (Watts 1983a), Ghana (Devereux1993a 1993b), Mali (Davies 1996) and Ethiopia(Rahmato 1987; Turton 1977). In sum, the poor arenot so obsessed with the present, or short-termnutritional needs, that they lose sight of longerterm livelihood security and resource productivityconcerns. In fact, wealth may arguably lead to

14


greater living in the present if there is (in contrastto the poor) less concern about hardships in thefuture.

A final shortcoming of the notion that increasingwealth leads to pollution abatement and enhancedenvironmental management is that there is often aspatial mismatch between pollution and degrad-ation on the one hand, and wealthy abodes on theother. This spatial mismatch is a central insight ofthe political ecology and environmental justiceliteratures. In the case of political ecology, authorslike Blaikie (1985) have described how the sociallymarginalized are often further ‘marginalized’ intoecologically marginal areas. In the case of environ-mental justice scholars, social scientists such asBullard (1990) have described how dirty industriesand toxic waste sites are often sited in poorcommunities of colour. As such, the mainstreampoverty–environment discourse may be imaginingan environmental feedback loop that does notnecessarily exist in many instances. In other words,the wealthy may not be particularly concernedabout pollution if dirty industries are sited in poorcommunities, or if the poor are the ones marginal-ized into degraded areas. In fact, the environmentaljustice literature argues that it is the poor who areoften more concerned about pollution and degrad-ation because they are the ones that must live withthis reality on a daily basis (e.g. Bullard 1993;Kurtz 2003). The rub is that these communitiesoften do not have enough political power to act onthis real (as opposed to imagined) environmentalfeedback.

Political ecology: implicating political economy, scale and discourse

In geography, political ecology is one of the keylenses through which poverty–environment interac-tions may be examined. Political ecology emergedin the 1970s and 1980s as a critique of culturalecology and ecological anthropology’s use of basicecology principles to examine the adaptive capacitiesof human societies, ignoring the role of politicaleconomy, power and history in shaping human–environmental interactions (Watts 1983b; Moore1996). Blaikie and Brookfield’s seminal work

Landdegradation and society

defined political ecologyas ‘concerns of ecology and a broadly definedpolitical economy’ (1987, 17). Their analysis linkedthe actions of local land users, through nested chainsof causality, to broader forces of the local, regionaland global political economy. One of the keyelements of Blaikie and Brookfield’s critique wasa move away from the neo-Malthusian ‘pressure-of-population-on-resources’ view of human–environmental interactions to an emphasis on how

inequitable social relations structured dynamics oflocal land degradation.

Political economy and ecology

Early work in political ecology viewed poverty–environment interactions in a Marxist framework ofpoverty-driven over-exploitation of resources andsimple reproduction squeezes (e.g. Watts 1987;Blaikie 1989). Because of increasing costs anddecreasing returns to labour, it was suggested thatfarmers are forced to mine their natural resourcebase, resulting in increased levels of land degrad-ation and indebtedness. Peet and Watts (1996)critique this early emphasis as unduly focused onthe role of poverty in environmental degradation.Poverty, they argue, is only a proximate cause ofenvironmental degradation. Driving forces such asstructural inequality at the local and global levelare the root cause of poverty–environment interac-tions. Furthermore, political ecology has tended tofocus on small-scale rural dwellers when many ofthe people causing environmental change or affectedby it are neither small-scale nor rural. For example,Hecht and Cockburn (1989) illustrate how deforest-ation in the Brazilian Amazon is largely due tocapital intensive production strategies. New workin urban political ecology argues that urban dwellersare more vulnerable to environmental risk thanrural dwellers, both because of the toxic nature ofurban environmental problems and the reducedability of urban populations to adapt to these risks(Pelling 2003).

Political ecology’s early focus on economic statuswas likewise critiqued as being short on localpolitics (Moore 1993; Neuman 1992; Peet andWatts 1996) because it privileged structuralist inter-pretations over micro-politics. If anything, now, thefield is rich with local-level investigations of manydifferent types of political struggles over resources,whether it concerns gender relationships (Carneyand Watts 1990), cultural change and ethnicity (Gray2002; Moore 1996), social movements, state actorsand non-governmental organizations (Bebbington1996; Peluso 1992), or new conservation territories(Neumann 1998; Sundberg 2003; Young 2003).These works recognize the importance of politics,history, scale, and discourse in conditioning human–environment interactions and resource access andcontrol.

The heavy emphasis on political economic rela-tionships, and now poststructural approaches, hasled to another realization that political ecologyhas failed to ‘attribute explanatory significance toecological factors’ (Bryant 1992, 13). Batterbury

et al

. (1997) assert that many political ecology andpoststructural approaches to human–environment


15

relationships either uncritically accept environmentalchange as a given, or overlook biophysical aspectsof environmental change altogether. Indeed, politicalecology provides little methodology or theoreticaldirection in understanding the specific dynamicsand processes of physical and biological changethat may occur at different spatial scales and levelsof abstraction. While much political ecologicalresearch has focused on overturning dominantnarratives and environmental orthodoxies (Leachand Mearns 1996), a concern is not to go too far inthe other direction of believing science has nointrinsic value. Gandy (1996) contends that whenscientific knowledge and theory are reduced torelative ‘truths’, constructed from the social normsand power struggles of respective disciplines, thisundermines their ability to say anything aboutprocesses that, while contestable, do have a basisin reality. This has led to calls for hybrid researchthat includes both social and physical methodologies(Batterbury

et al

. 1997) and to a regional politicalecology that integrates science with environmentalhistory, multiple scales and patterns of resourceaccess (Batterbury and Bebbington 1999).

Scale and space

Blaikie and Brookfield (1987) made scale a centralfeature of political ecology, drawing particularattention to the potential connections betweenprocesses operating at different scales and how thiscould influence human–environment interactionsand access to resources. Blaikie (1994) argued thatlocal-level resource users/managers should be thefirst link in the models of political ecology; ana-lyses should then scale-up to examine policy andprocesses. Most work in political ecology does startwith local processes and then examines broaderlinkages. Bassett (1988) illustrates this trend withVayda’s (1983) idea of progressive contextualization,using a local-level contextual analysis and then linkingit progressively to processes at different scales.

Examining environmental issues at different scalesis important for several reasons, not least becausemany environmental problems manifest themselvesat different scales. For example, deforestation canhave local, regional and global dimensions, asdifferent actors and environmental processes workat different scales. Bryant and Bailey (1997, 33)point out that ‘while one actor’s involvement mayreside predominantly in contributing to an environ-mental problem, another actor might largely beinvolved in its attempted resolution, and a differentactor may be primarily involved only because itis particularly affected by the problem’. Linking ina causal manner, however, can be difficult as‘processes and parameters important at one scale

may not be important or predictive at anotherscale’ (Turner 1989, 17), and changes in the scaleof analysis change the relevant variables (Meente-meyer 1989). Lambin and Guyer (1994) illustrate theproblematic nature of coordinating remote sensingdata with ethnography, as the scale at which landcover change is determined is different from thescale that social processes are best elucidated.

The trend in political ecology is to broaden theconsideration of scale from a hierarchical chain ofcausality. Zimmerer and Bassett consider horizontal,as well as the relational and simultaneous produc-tion of scales, as ‘diverse environmental processesinteract[ing] with social processes, creating differentscales of mutual relationships that produce distinc-tive political ecologies’ (2003, 3). How does this issueof scale play into poverty–environment relationships?The spatial distribution of environmental degrad-ation and resource access is unequal both withinlocalities and globally. Processes at the global scalesuch as global markets and trade policy affect theglobal poor. Oxfam’s (2001) example of US subsi-dies to cotton farmers illustrates how poorer farmershave very little power in determining world pricesfor a commodity that is extremely important to thepoor of the world. The walkout of poorer countriesfrom trade talks in Cancun, Mexico over these issuesdemonstrates the poverty of power relations amongthe poorer vis-à-vis the wealthier countries of theworld. One of the ironies of this is that in WestAfrica, cotton farmers are essentially too poor topollute (Kutting 2003), gaining neither the eco-nomic benefits nor the environmental degradationassociated with global cotton production.

Mobility across space is also an important scalardynamic in poverty–environment interactions.Marginal environments tend to be the home ofsocially marginalized peoples. In some instances,socially marginal people are forcibly displaced intothese areas (Blaikie 1985). Environments that aremarginal and susceptible to degradation can aggra-vate poverty, leading to further environmentaldegradation and out-migration.

Conservation territories and conceptions of community

New spaces of conservation, or conservation terri-tories, have become a recent research agenda inpolitical ecology (Zimmerer 2000; Schroeder 1999).These new territories encompass a wide range ofspaces intended to conserve and protect nature,ranging from national parks to biosphere reservesand wildlife corridors (Zimmerer and Bassett 2003).These new types of protected areas often result inthe exclusion and enclosure of common propertyresources, which in turn, has implications for the

16


users of these resources, often the rural poor.Schroeder (1999) illustrates that the extent ofenclosures of different types of environmentalresources has been quite large and has had largelynegative effects on humans living around theseterritories, who have had basic livelihood systemsoutlawed and criminalized. Populations have re-sponded by resisting the expansion of protected areasand subverting conservation aims (Peluso 1992).

Attempts to reconcile exclusion and resourcemanagement have been found under the banner ofCommunity Based Natural Resource Management(CBNRM) programmes, Integrated Conservationand Development programmes (ICDPs) and com-munity forestry (the latter is discussed in this issueby Glasmeier and Farrigan). Programmes generallyendeavour to include local people in the manage-ment of natural resources, with the intent of givinglocal people incentives to conserve natural resources,the idea being that if conservation pays, peoplewill preserve natural resources. Critiques haveemerged that these types of programmes neitherincrease local livelihoods nor do they increaseenvironmental conservation (Adams 2001). Oates(1999) argues that attempts to integrate conservationwith development in the context of West Africanrainforest areas have been both a failure for localpeople and local wildlife, and instead argues thatconservation efforts should be separated fromdevelopment efforts. Bassett, in this issue, critiquesthis perspective, illustrating how the causes ofwildlife depletion are more complex and multi-scaler,involving local (e.g. increasing livestock numbers,expansion of fields) and extra-local forces (e.g.urban demand for game meat, worsening terms oftrade).

Other critiques are concerned with the way thatcommunity conservation programmes conceptualizecommunity, particularly in notions that communitiesare based on consensus and cooperation (Agrawaland Gibson 1999; Logan and Moseley 2002). Muchwork is now focused on how local communitystructures are frequently unaccountable, inequitableand non-participatory (Engberg-Pedersen 1995;Neumann 1997; Ribot 1996). Programmes overlookthe fact that village social relations are based onconflict and competition, which, in turn, can leadto negative environmental and equity outcomes(Leach

et al.

1999). Furthermore, community-basedresource management is often about environmentalenclosure, defining rights at the local level. Thishas resulted in resource boundaries, which havebeen historically flexible and negotiated, beingdefined in favour of primary users. People withsecondary rights, the rural poor and marginalized,women and migrants, for example, are frequentlyin danger of losing their rights (Gray 2002).

Discourse and power

Research analyzing discourses of environment anddevelopment has implications for poverty–environmentrelations. Explanations of why generalized discoursespersist are myriad. They range from the importanceof crisis narratives in mobilizing international re-sources, the fact that simplifying assumptions enablethe creation of standardized solutions, and that thesestories serve the interests of particular powerfulgroups (Leach and Mearns 1996; Roe 1991). Ferguson(1990) presents development discourse as an in-strument of the dominant. Crush argues that devel-opment discourses are ‘fundamentally about mappingand making, about the spatial reach of power andthe control and management of other peoples,territories, environments, and places’ (1995, 7). Thelanguage of crisis creates a need for intervention.These discourses define the space of development,putting it into a neutral language of modernizationand intervention, which, in turn, masks differentpower relations and contestations over resources(Escobar 1995). Research in political ecology hasactively debunked common beliefs about human–environmental relations (Fairhead and Leach 1996;Bassett and Zueli 2000). Below several dominantpoverty–environment discourses or narratives arerevealed.

Who is responsible for environmental degradation: blaming the victim?

The attempt to blame the global poor for the bulkof the world’s environmental degradation can beviewed from many vantage points and at manyscales. Organizations such as the World ResourcesInstitute have been part of the attempt to shift theblame for global climate change to developingcountries by arguing that high rates of populationgrowth and deforestation are responsible for amuch larger proportion of greenhouse gas emis-sions than previously thought. This helped to justifythe US pullout from the Kyoto accords on the basisthat developing countries were being let off the hook(Agarwal and Narain 1991). Likewise, attempts toblame Sahelian desertification largely fell on theshoulders of poor peasant farmers and herders(Thomas and Middleton 1994).

Discourses such as these help to veil the fact thaton a global scale, the wealthy of the world use adisproportionate amount of world resources,whether they be water, fish, forests or energy. Thisis despite the fact that the bulk of the world popula-tion actually lives in the poorer regions of theworld. At local levels, wealthier farmers using capital-intensive technologies generally have an overalllarger environmental impact (Moseley in this issue).


17

Furthermore, while the wealthy may reap the benefitsof such technology, the costs of environmentalchange largely fall on the poor (Bryant and Bailey1997). Duraiappah’s (1998) analysis of a wholehost of institutional factors affecting different typesof environmental degradation (forests, land, waterand air) illustrates that the poor are not responsiblefor much environmental degradation. Instead, it isthe activities of the rich and powerful, combinedwith market and institutional failures, that are the‘the primary factors forcing groups living at themargin into poverty’ (1998, 2177).

It is often difficult to compare the environmentalimpact of wealthier households which may farm alarger but moderately impacted terrain, and poorerhouseholds which may farm a smaller, but less sus-tainably managed area (Scherr 2000). All of thesefactors suggest that the specific resource studiedand the types of management strategies examinedmay affect conclusions on poverty–environmentinteractions.

The population–environment–poverty nexus: neo-Malthusians, Boserupians and environmental securitists

Complicating views of poverty–environment rela-tionships are issues of population growth, whichare frequently portrayed hand-in-hand with povertyissues. One way that poverty and population growthrates are linked is via the observation that peoplein the poorer parts of the world have more children.While most analysts agree that there is a spatialcorrelation between poverty and fecundity, thenature of and the degree to which there is a causalrelationship between these two factors is hotlydisputed. Two main camps have distinctly differentviews of the interaction between high rates ofpopulation growth, environmental change and poverty.On the one hand, neo-Malthusians, such as Cleaverand Schreiber, attribute population growth in sub-Saharan Africa to a nexus of ‘mutually reinforcingcausality chains’ (1994, 1). High population growthrates are thought to exacerbate environmental andagricultural problems, leading to greater povertyand to more environmental degradation. Boserupians,on the other hand, suggest a very different view ofpopulation–resource interactions, one of intensifi-cation and wealth creation. Research from sub-Saharan Africa (Tiffen

et al

. 1994; Turner

et al

. 1993)illustrates how farmers have responded to popula-tion growth through agricultural intensificationresulting in better environments and less poverty.

Political ecologists challenge both these optimisticand pessimistic views of population–resource inter-actions, focusing instead on unequal access toresources as the relevant issue in population–

environment interactions. Blaikie and Brookfield’s(1987) conception of population–resource interac-tions critique both Malthusian and Boserupianpositions for trying to isolate population as a singlecausal variable. Environmental degradation need notoccur because of population at all; many examplesof degradation occur under declining or unchangingpopulation. Population, therefore, is a mediatingfactor, one of many that influence environmentaloutcomes.

Fieldwork in political ecology has generally agreedwith the intensification hypothesis, but questionsthe over-optimistic view (e.g. Rocheleau 1995), showinghow intensification has been accompanied by bothsocio-economic differentiation and environmentaldegradation due to capital intensive farming(Benjaminsen 2001; Murton 1999). Gray (in this issue)echoes these concerns by arguing that intensificationhas led to differential environmental outcomes,with wealthier farmers having an overall greaterenvironmental impact.

Literature focusing on the interaction of popula-tion change and environmental violence hasemerged, arguing that population-induced resourcescarcity may be a future primary source of conflictsover natural resources (Kaplan 1994; Homer-Dixon1999). This work highlights the role of ethnicclashes, particularly through migration, in conflictsover natural resources. Peluso and Watts (2001)and Hartmann (2001) dispute this neo-Malthusiananalytical framework. They contend that structuralelements are important in determining how resourcesare allocated and emphasize that abundance ofresources is equally likely to be associated withviolence. Instead, they propose a political ecologicalmodel of violence that recognizes the importanceof place-specific, spatially oriented interactions amongrelations of production, environmental process anddiscourse in determining how environments turnviolent.

Is there a poor people’s environmental knowledge?

Political ecology emerged as a critique of the culturalecology of indigenous technical knowledge or poorpeople’s knowledge, that appreciated the specialrole of local farmers in preserving and categorizinglocal knowledge systems. Advocates of this approachportray small farmers as activists, developing andadapting agricultural practices to local environmentsas well as having a unique appreciation of theirlocal agricultural systems (Brokensha

et al

. 1980;Richards 1985; Wilken 1987). These approaches havebeen very important in combating the dominantview of many technical experts and bureaucratsthat assume that lack of knowledge is the key

18


problem in poor people’s management of naturalresources (UNDP 1999).

However, new work on the roles of communitieshas critiqued an over-idealization of local know-ledge systems which tend to lump local knowledgestogether, ignoring that knowledge, as well as theresulting environmental practice, is frequentlydifferentiated by social groups. Fairhead argues thatliterature on indigenous knowledge has tended tofocus on classification, treating knowledge as if itwere a ‘lost and untranslated technical manualauthored by a particular culture’ (1991, 4). Thomp-son and Scoones (1994) criticize these approachesas ‘naïve populism’ because they ignore the mul-tiple epistemologies that emerge out of particularsocial settings. Political ecology helps to under-stand ‘why particular knowledges are privileged,how knowledge is institutionalized, and how thefacts are contested’ (Peet and Watts 1996, 11).

Moving forward

The primary policy response to poverty andenvironmental issues in the international arena hasbeen the idea of sustainable development. The rootquestion, however, is whether the agenda of sus-tainable development as put into practice actuallyserves the interests of the poor or results in envir-onmental improvement. While states and interna-tional institutions have been adept at appropriatingthe language of sustainable development, their actionsgenerally have aligned them with the interests ofcapital and international corporations (Fernando 2003).Speth (2004) and Logan (2004) argue that policy-makers have supplanted the sustainable develop-ment paradigm with the globalization paradigm. Issustainable development, particularly in an interna-tional environment that privileges ‘trade over aid’(Speth 2004), compatible with the needs of the pooror with the environment? This seems unlikely giventhat the effects of neoliberal reforms in many countrieshave put poorer people at risk (e.g. Wisner 2001)or with globalized production patterns that encour-age more and more consumption of resources.

While many actors at the global level use therhetoric of sustainable development without makingmeaningful changes, there are some indicationsthat different forms of sustainable development frombelow are making meaningful progress (Adams 2001).Examples of this include the work of internationalNGOs to influence global policy and coordinatepractice (such as Human Rights Watch and Green-peace described in Steyn 2004), as well as move-ments to influence the types of products consumersbuy (Bell and Valentine 1997; Bordwell 2002),such as certification (Gale 2002) and fair trade. Theauthors in this special issue also make some

suggestions for moving beyond programmes andpolicies based on, often overly simplistic, assump-tions regarding poverty–environment interactions.

In their meta-analysis of community forestry casestudies, Glasmeier and Farrigan conclude that ‘povertyalleviation may be too much to ask of communityforestry’. In the case of developing countries, theyfound that the community forestry movement hasfocused on gaining access and voice for a verylarge fraction of the population that is often poorand reliant on the forest for subsistence. In the US,the situation appears much more complex.Community forestry, with its emphasis on increasedparticipation in the decision-making process, oftenmeans that the poor are just one of many voicesmaking up a broader community forum. While thedistributional weaknesses of some community forestryinitiatives need to be carefully considered, Farriganand Glasmeier caution policy and programmemanagers not to have exaggerated expectations.

Bassett outlines wildlife loss in northern Coted’Ivoire which he argues is not the result of ‘chaosand unregulated hunting’ but the outcome of agri-cultural policies promoting cash crop cultivationand livestock development efforts that drive habitatloss. Furthermore, there is increasing hunting pressurefuelled by the proliferation of firearms, a growingnumber of hunters associated with anti-crime hunterassociations, the need for income diversification bystruggling households, and a strong demand forbushmeat from urban consumers. Bassett suggeststhat reducing rural poverty is critical. One way todo this is by ‘re-channelling the flow of value in thecotton commodity chain from cotton companiesand exporters to small-scale growers’. Furthermore,Bassett argues that a stronger state is needed tocontrol crime and the bushmeat trade.

Moseley suggests that, rather than poverty drivingenvironmental degradation in southern Mali, soildegradation seems to be more clearly linked todirect and indirect effects of export-oriented cottonproduction that are largely associated with relativelywealthy smallholder farmers. Given that the Govern-ment of Mali derives nearly half of its revenuesfrom cotton production, it is, understandably, reluc-tant to acknowledge the existence of environmentalproblems associated with it major export commodity.The World Bank, moreover, has been supportive ofincreasing cotton exports given its structural adjust-ment reform package in Mali. Somewhat ironically,the poverty–environmental degradation discourse hasbeen employed to support cotton-driven economicgrowth in this particular context. This is a decidedlyunsustainable development given that the malad-apted ‘modern’ agricultural practices employed tofarm cotton are the means by which the MalianState effectively robs Peter (soil resources) to pay


19

Paul (debt service, civil service payrolls and potentialenvironmental remediation). Moving beyond therhetoric to acknowledge environmental issues relatedto cotton production is an important first step thatcould be taken by the Government of Mali, bilateraland multilateral donors. This may imply more thana technological fix in cotton production, but a broaderpolicy to encourage diversification of the cashcropping sector.

Gray illustrates how intensification in southwesternBurkina Faso has been an uneven process, one withsignificant social and environmental costs. Wealthyand poor farm households have very different agri-cultural practices, with poorer farmers being far lessinvolved in commercial production. The practicesof wealthier farmers have larger landscape and soilimpacts, but result in much higher levels of house-hold wealth. So a paradox emerges that while thepractices of poor farmers minimize environmentaldamage, their non-involvement in newer productionpractices has negative livelihood consequences.This trend is exacerbated by several institutionalchanges that are accompanying changing produc-tion practices. In particular, the wealthy have greateraccess to land borrowing networks and villageinstitutions, such as grower cooperatives, than dopoorer farmers. Certain groups, particularly newermigrants, have largely been left out of these net-works. Policymakers, therefore, need to be awareof the processes of intensification and socioeconomicdifferentiation that exist in rural communities inBurkina Faso before attempting to intervene inways that attempt to alter existing natural resourcemanagement systems.

The papers in this special issue demonstrate aview of poverty–environment relations thatdiverges from the stylized ‘vicious circle’ portrayal.Indeed, both Gray and Moseley’s papers depict adifferent vision of poverty–environment relations inWest Africa, where wealthier farmers have largerenvironmental impacts than do poorer farmers.Bassett illustrates the complicated terrain of wildlifedepletion in Cote d’Ivoire, where wildlife is beingdepleted for a variety of reasons, including worsen-ing terms of trade, firearms proliferation, and urbanbushmeat demand. Glasmeier and Farrigan con-clude that poor communities in developed countriesare sometimes only tangentially located to forestresources. While poverty may be an important drivingforce of environmental degradation, these studiesillustrate how wealth and economic developmentare more likely culprits in environmental degrad-ation. This special issue builds on recent work inpolitical ecology that focuses on issues of agency,power, and discourse in understanding poverty–environment interactions. The studies also put scalein the centre of the debate, showing how globalized

production processes and governance structuresaffect local poverty–environment interactions.

Acknowledgements

We note that all of the articles in this special issue wereoriginally presented as papers in three organizedsessions, entitled ‘Revisiting the poverty environmentdebate from a political ecology perspective’, at theMarch 2002 Annual Meeting of the Association ofAmerican Geographers in Los Angeles, USA.

References

Adams W M

2001

Green development: environment andsustainability in the third world

2nd edn Routledge Press,London

Agrawal A and Gibson C

1999 Enchantment and disenchant-ment: the role of community in natural resource conservation

World Development

27 629–39

Agarwal A and Narain S

1991

Global warming in an unequalworld: a case of environmental colonialism

Centre for Scienceand Environment, New Delhi

Baker R

1983 Protecting the environment against the poor: thehistorical roots of soil erosion orthodoxy in the Third World

The Ecologist

14 53–60

Bardhan P

1996 Research on poverty and development twentyyears after redistribution with growth Proceedings of theAnnual World Bank Conference on Development Economics1995 Supplement to the

World Bank Economic Review

andthe

World Bank Research Observer

59–72

Bassett T J

1988 The political ecology of peasant-herder con-flicts in the northern Ivory Coast

Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers

78 453–72

Bassett T J

1993 Introduction: the land question and agricul-tural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa in

Bassett T andCrummey D

eds

Land in African agrarian systems

The Uni-versity of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin 3–31

Bassett T J and Crummey D

1993

Land in African agrarian sys-tem

The University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin

Bassett T J and Zueli K B

2000 Environmental discourses andthe Ivorian Savanna

Annals of the Association of AmericanGeographers

90 67–95

Batterbury S P J and Bebbington A J

1999 Environmentalhistories, access to resources and landscape change: anintroduction

Land Degradation and Development

10 279–89

Batterbury S, Forsyth T and Thomson K

1997 Environmentaltransformation in developing countries: hybrid research anddemocratic policy

The Geographical Journal

163 126–32

Bebbington A

1996 Movements, modernizations, and markets:indigenous organizations and agrarian strategies in Ecuadorin

Peet R and Watts M

eds

Liberation ecologies: environment,development and social movements

Routledge Press, London

Bebbington A

1999 Capitals and capabilities: a framework foranalyzing peasant viability, rural livelihoods and poverty

World Development

27 2021–44

20


Beckerman W

1992 Economic growth and the environment:whose growth? Whose environment?

World Development

20481–96

Bell D and Valentine G

1997

Consuming geographies: we arewhat we eat

Routledge, New York

Benjaminsen T

2001 The Malian cotton zone: economic suc-cess, but environmental failure? in

Benjaminsen T and LundC

eds

Politics, property and production in the West AfricanSahel: understanding natural resources management

NordiskaAfrikainstitutet, Uppsala

Blaikie P

1985

The political economy of soil erosion in devel-oping countries

Heinemann, London

Blaikie P

1989 Environment and access to resources in Africa

Africa

59 18–40

Blaikie P

1994 Political ecology in the 1990s: an evolving viewof nature and society CASID Distinguished Speaker Series no13 Center for Advanced Study of International Development,Michigan State University

Blaikie P M and Brookfield H C

1987

Land degradation andsociety

Methuen, London

Bordwell M

2002 Jamming culture: adbusters’ hip media cam-paign against consumerism in

Princen T, Maniates M andConca K

eds

Confronting consumption

The MIT Press, Cam-bridge 237–53

Broad R

1994 The poor and the environment: friend or foes?

World Development

22 811–12

Brokensha D, Warren D and Werner O

1980

Indigenousknowledge systems and development

University of AmericasPress, Lanham

Bryant R

1992 Political ecology: an emerging research agendain Third-World studies

Political Geography

11 12–36

Bryant R L 1997 Beyond the impasse: the power of politicalecology in Third World environmental research Area 29 5–19

Bryant R and Bailey S 1997 Third World political ecologyRoutledge, London

Bullard R D 1990 Dumping in Dixie: race, class, and environ-mental quality Westview Press, Boulder CO

Bullard R D ed 1993 Confronting environmental racism: voicesfrom the grassroots South End Press, Boston

Carney J and Watts M 1990 Manufacturing dissent Africa 60207–41

Cleaver K and Schreiber G 1994 Reversing the spiral: thepopulation, agriculture, and environment nexus in sub-Saharan Africa World Bank, Washington DC

Crush J 1995 Power of development Routledge, LondonCutler P 1986 The response to drought of Beja famine refugees

in Sudan Disasters 10 181–8Cutter S L, Golledge R and Graf W L 2002 The big questions

in geography The Professional Geographer 54 305–17Dasgupta P 1995 Population, poverty and the local environ-

ment Scientific American February 26–31Davies S 1996 Adaptable livelihoods: coping with food insecu-

rity in the Malian Sahel St Martin’s Press, New York 1–59De Bruyn S M, van den Bergh J C and Opschoor J B 1998

Economic growth and emissions: reconsidering the empiricalbasis of environmental Kuznet’s curves Ecological Economics25 161–75

Devereux S 1993a Household responses to food insecurity inNortheastern Ghana Unpublished PhD thesis University ofOxford, Oxford

Devereux S 1993b Goats before ploughs: dilemmas of house-hold response sequencing during food shortages IDS Bulletin24 52–9 Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

De Waal A 1989 Famine that kills Clarendon Press, OxfordDinda S 2000 Air quality and economic growth: an empirical

study Ecological Economics 34 409–23Dreze J and Sen A 1989 Hunger and public action Clarendon

Press, OxfordDuraiappah A K 1998 Poverty and environmental degradation:

a review and analysis of the nexus World Development 262169–79

Engberg-Pedersen L 1995 Creating local democratic politicsfrom above: the ‘Gestion des Terroirs’ approach in Burkina FasoInternational Institute for Environment and Development,London

Escobar A 1995 Encountering development: the making andunmaking of the Third World Princeton University Press,Princeton NJ

Fairhead J 1991 Indigenous technical knowledge and naturalresources management in the Sub-Saharan Africa: a criticaloverview Natural Resources Institute, Chatham, UK

Fairhead J and M Leach 1996 Misreading the African landscape:society and ecology in a forest–savanna mosaic CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge

Feder G and Noronha R 1987 Land rights and agriculturaldevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa World Bank ResearchObserver 2 143–69

Ferguson J 1990 The anti-politics machine: development, depol-iticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge

Fernando J L 2003 The power of unsustainable development:what is to be done? Annals AAPSS 590 6–33

Field B C 1997 Environmental economics: an introduction 2ndedn Irwin/McGraw-Hill, New York

Gale F 2002 Caveat Certificatum: the case of forest certificationin Princen T, Maniates M and Conca K eds Confronting con-sumption The MIT Press, Cambridge MA 275–99

Gandy M 1996 Crumbling land: the postmodernity debate andthe analysis of environmental problems Progress in HumanGeography 20 23–40

Gray L C 2002 Environmental policy, land rights and conflict:rethinking community natural resource management pro-grammes in Burkina Faso Environment and Planning D:Society and Space 20 167–82

Gray L C and Kevane M 2001 Evolving tenure rights and agri-cultural intensification in southwestern Burkina Faso WorldDevelopment 29 573–87

Hackenberg R A and Alverez R R 2001 Close-ups of postna-tionalism reports from the US–Mexico borderlands HumanOrganization 60 97–104

Hagberg S 2001 Poverty in Burkina Faso: representations andrealities Research in Cultural Anthropology Uppsala Univer-sity, Sweden and Catholic University, Leuven

Hagerty M R 1999 Testing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Poverty–environment interactions 21

national quality-of-life across time Social Indicators Research46 249–71

Harman J R 2003 Whither geography? The Professional Geog-rapher 55 415–21

Hartmann B 2001 Will the circle be unbroken? A critique ofthe project on environment, population, and security inPeluso N L and Watts M eds Violent environments CornellUniversity Press, Ithica 39–62

Hecht S and Cockburn A 1989 The fate of the forest Verso,London

Homer-Dixon T F 1999 Environment, scarcity, and violencePrinceton University Press, Princeton NJ

Iliffe J 1987 The African poor: a history Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge

Kaplan R 1994 The coming anarchy: how scarcity, crime, over-population, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying thesocial fabric of our planet The Atlantic Monthly 273 44–65

Kates R W 1987 The human environment: the road not taken,the road still beckoning Annals of the Association of Ameri-can Geographers 77 525–34

Kaufmann R K, Davidsdottir B, Garnham S and Pauly P 1998The determinants of atmospheric SO2 concentrations: recon-sidering the environmental Kuznet’s curve Ecological Eco-nomics 25 209–20

Kohl B 2002 Stabilizing neoliberalism in Bolivia: populationparticipation and privatization Political Geography 21 449–72

Kurtz H E 2003 Scale frames and counter-scale frames: con-structing the problem of environmental justice PoliticalGeography 22 887–916

Kutting G 2003 Globalization, poverty and the environment inWest Africa: too poor to pollute? Global Environmental Poli-tics 3 42–60

Kuznets S 1955 Economic growth and income inequality Amer-ican Economic Review 45 1–28

Lambin E and Guyer J 1994 The complementarity of remotesensing and anthropology in the study of complex humanecology Working Papers in African Studies no. 175 BostonUniversity

Lambin E F, Turner B L, Geist H J et al. 2001 The causes ofland-use and land-cover change: moving beyond the mythsGlobal Environmental Change 11 261–9

Leach M and Mearns R 1996 The lie of the land The Interna-tional Africa Institute, London

Leach M, Mearns R and Scoones I 1999 Environmental entitle-ments: dynamics and institutions in community-based naturalresource management World Development 27 225–47

Lele S M 1991 Sustainable development: a critical reviewWorld Development 19 607–21

List J A and Gallet C A 1999 The environmental Kuznet’scurve: does one size fit all? Ecological Economics 31 409–23

Logan B I 2004 Ideology and power in resource management:from sustainable development to environmental security inAfrica in Moseley W G and Logan B I eds African environ-ment and development: rhetoric, programmes, realities Ash-gate Publishing Limited, Aldershot 17–40

Logan B I and Moseley W G 2002 The political ecology ofpoverty alleviation in Zimbabwe’s Communal Areas Manage-ment Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) Geo-forum 33 1–14

Logan B I and Moseley W G 2004 African environment anddevelopment: an introduction in Moseley W G and Logan BI eds African environment and development: rhetoric, pro-grammes, realities Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot 1–14

Lumley S 1997 The environment and the ethics of discounting:an empirical analysis Ecological Economics 20 71–82

Mabogunje A L 1995 The environmental challenges of sub-Saharan Africa Environment May 4–9 31–35

Malthus T 1798 An essay on the principle of population: as iteffects the future improvement of society: with remarks onthe speculation of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and otherwriters J Johnson, London

Maxwell S and Frankenberger T 1992 Household food security:concepts, indicators, measurements: a technical reviewUNICEF and IFAD, New York and Rome

Meentemeyer V 1989 Geographical perspectives of space, timeand scale Landscape Ecology 3 163–73

Mellor J W 1988 The intertwining of environmental problemsand poverty Environment 30 8–13

Moore D S 1993 Contesting terrain in Zimbabwe’s easternhighlands: political ecology, ethnography and peasantresource struggles Economic Geography 69 380–401

Moore D 1996 Marxism, culture and political ecology: envir-onmental struggles in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands in PeetR and Watts M eds Liberation ecologies: environment, devel-opment and social movements Routledge Press, London

Mortimore M 1989 Adapting to drought: farmers, famines anddesertification in West Africa Cambridge University Press,New York

Moseley W G 2001a African evidence on the relation of pov-erty, time preference and the environment Ecological Eco-nomics 38 317–26

Moseley W G 2001b Sahelian ‘White Gold’ and rural poverty–environment interactions: the political ecology of cotton pro-duction, environmental change, and household food econ-omy in Mali Unpublished PhD thesis Department ofGeography, University of Georgia

Moseley W G 2004 Environmental degradation and ‘poor’smallholders in the West African Sudano-Sahel: global dis-courses and local realities in Moseley W G and Logan B Ieds African environment and development: rhetoric, pro-grammes, realities Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot 41–62

Murphree M 1993 Communal land wildlife resources and ruraldistrict council revenues CASS University of Zimbabwe,Harare

Murton J 1999 Population growth and poverty in MachakosDistrict, Kenya Geographical Journal 165 37–46

Neumann R 1992 The political ecology of wildlife conservationin the Mount Meru area, Northeast Tanzania Land Degrad-ation and Rehabilitation 3 85–98

Neumann R 1997 Primitive ideas: protected area buffer zonesand the politics of land in Africa Development and Change28 559–82

22 Poverty–environment interactions

Neumann R 1998 Imposing wilderness: struggles over liveli-hood and nature preservation in Africa University of Califor-nia Press, Berkeley

Oates J 1999 Myth and reality in the rain forest: how conserva-tion strategies are failing in West Africa University of Califor-nia Press, Berkeley

Openshaw S 1977 A geographical study of scale and aggrega-tion problems in region-building partitioning and spatialmodeling Transactions of the Institute of British GeographersNS 2 459–72

Openshaw S 1984 The modifiable areal unit problem GeoBooks, Norwich

Oxfam 2001 Cultivating poverty: the impact of US cotton sub-sidies on Africa Oxfam Briefing Paper 30

Parikh J 2003 Poverty–environment–development nexus Inter-national Journal of Global Environmental Issues 2 344–65

Peet R and Watts M eds 1996 Liberation ecologies: environ-ment, development and social movements Routledge Press,London

Pelling M 2003 Toward a political ecology of urban risk: thecase of Guyana in Zimmerer K S and Bassett T J eds Politicalecology: an integrative approach to geography and environment-development studies Guilford Press, New York 73–93

Peluso N 1992 Rich forests, poor people: forest access andcontrol in Java University of California Press, Berkeley

Peluso N L and Watts M 2001 Violent environments CornellUniversity Press, Ithaca

Platteau J P 1996 The evolutionary theory of land rights asapplied to sub-Saharan Africa: a critical assessment Develop-ment and Change 27 29–86

Rahmato D 1987 Famine and survival strategies: a case studyfrom northeast Ethiopia Food and Famine Monograph Seriesno 1 Institute of Development Research, Addis Ababa Uni-versity

Ravenborg H M 2003 Poverty and environmental degradationin the Nicaraguan hillsides World Development 31 1933–46

Reardon T and Vosti S A 1995 Links between rural poverty andthe environment in developing countries – asset categoriesand investment poverty World Development 23 1495–506

Redclift M and Sage C 1998 Global environmental change andglobal inequality International Sociology 13 499–516

Reed D 2002 Poverty and the environment: can sustainabledevelopment survive globalization? Natural Resources Forum26 176–84

Revkin A C 2002 Bush plan expected to slow, not halt, gasemission rise The New York Times A1

Ribot J 1996 Participation without representation: chiefs, coun-cils and forestry law in the west African Sahel Cultural Sur-vival Quarterly Fall 40–4

Richards P 1985 Indigenous agricultural revolution WestviewPress, Boulder CO

Rocheleau D 1995 More on Machakos Environment 37 3–5Roe E 1991 Development narratives, or making the best of

blueprint development World Development 19 287–300Rowan J 1998 Maslow amended Journal of Humanistic Psy-

chology 38 81–92

Scherr S 2000 A downward spiral? Research evidence on therelationship between poverty and natural resource degrad-ation Food Policy 25 479–98

Schroeder R A 1999 Geographies of environmental interven-tion in Africa Progress in Human Geography 23 359–78

Sen A 1981 Poverty and famines Clarendon, OxfordSneddon C 2000 ‘Sustainability’ in ecological economics, eco-

logy and livelihoods: a review Progress in Human Geography24 521–49

Speth J G 2004 Red sky at morning: American and the crisis ofthe global environment Yale University Press, New HavenCT

Steyn P 2004 ‘(S)hell in Nigeria’: the environmental impact ofoil politics in Oganiland on Shell International in Moseley WG and Logan B I eds African environment and development:rhetoric, programmes, realities Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot213–28

Stonich S 1993 ‘I am destroying the land’: the political ecologyof poverty and environmental destruction in Honduras West-view Press, Boulder CO

Sundberg J 2003 Strategies for authenticity and space in theMaya Biosphere Reserve, Peten, Guatemala in Zimmerer K Sand Bassett T J eds Political ecology: an integrative approachto geography and environment-development studies GuilfordPress, New York

Swinton S M, Escobar G and Reardon T 2003 Poverty andenvironment in Latin America: concepts, evidence and policyimplications World Development 31 1865–72

Swinton S M and Quiroz R 2003 Is poverty to blame for soil,pasture and forest degradation in Peru’s Altiplano? WorldDevelopment 31 1903–19

Thomas D S G and Middleton N J 1994 Desertification:exploding the myth John Wiley and Sons, Chichester

Thompson H and Scoones I 1994 Challenging the populist per-spective: rural people’s knowledge, agricultural research, andextension practice Agriculture and Human Values Spring/Summer 58–76

Tiffen M, Mortimore M and Gichuki F 1994 More people, lesserosion: environmental recovery in Kenya John Wiley andSons, Chichester

Turner B L, Hyden G and Kates R 1993 Population growth andagricultural change in Africa University Press of Florida,Gainesville

Turner M G 1989 Landscape ecology: the effect of pattern onprocess Annual Review of Ecological Systems 20 171–97

Turton D 1977 Response to drought: the Mursi in Ethiopia inGarlick J G and Keays R W J eds Human ecology in theTropics Taylor and Francis, London

UNDP 1999 Attacking poverty while improving the environ-ment: towards win–win policy options UN Agency-CAP21

Vayda A 1983 Progressive contextualization: methods forresearch in human ecology Human Ecology 11 265–81

Watts M 1983a Silent violence: food, famine and peasantry innorthern Nigeria University of California Press, Berkeley

Watts M 1983b On the poverty of theory: natural hazardsresearch in context in Hewitt K ed Interpretations of calamityAllen and Unwin, Boston MA 231–62

Poverty–environment interactions 23

Watts M 1987 Drought, environment and food security: somereflections on peasants, pastoralists and commoditization inDryland West Africa in Glantz M ed Drought and hunger inAfrica Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

WCED 1987 Our common future Oxford University Press,Oxford

Wilken G 1987 Good farmers: traditional agricultural resourcemanagement in Mexico and Central America University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley

Wisner B 2001 Risk and the neoliberal state: why post-Mitchlessons didn’t reduce El Salvador’s earthquake losses Disas-ters 25 251–69

World Bank 1992 World Development Report 1992 in Devel-opment and the Environment Oxford University Press, NewYork

World Bank 1996 Toward environmentally sustainable devel-opment in sub-Saharan Africa: a World Bank agenda Devel-opment in Practice Series The World Bank, Washington DC

Young E H 2003 Balancing conservation with development inmarine-dependent communities: is ecotourism an emptypromise? in Zimmerer K S and Bassett T J eds Political eco-logy: an integrative approach to geography and environment-development studies Guilford Press, New York

Zimmerer K S 2000 The reworking of conservation geogra-phies: nonequilibrium landscapes and nature–society hybridsAnnals of the Association of American Geographers 90 356–69

Zimmerer K S and Bassett T J 2003 Political ecology: an inte-grative approach to geography and environment GuilfordPress, New York

Environmental Changes

Documents

Transcript of Environmental Changes