Natural Assets:Natural Assets:Can We Advance Can We Advance

Environmental Protection Environmental Protection and Poverty Reduction?and Poverty Reduction?

James K. BoyceDepartment of Economics & Political Economy Research Institute

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

New Economics Summer Institute, Boston College, June 2012

THE QUESTIONTHE QUESTION

• Is there an inexorable tradeoff between environmental protection and poverty reduction?

• Or can they be complementary goals?

The Conventional Wisdom: Tradeoff

Economic well being

Environmental protection

Poverty reduction

Beyond the tradeoff: Natural asset building

Poverty reduction

Environmental protection

Natural Asset Building: Complementarity

Poverty reduction

Environmental protection

Economic Status:Income or Assets?

Median income Median net worth

Source: Melvin Oliver & Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth (1995).

B/W ratio = 0.6 B/W ratio = 0.08

Assets & Poverty

• Assets income flows

• Assets collateral for credit markets

• Assets social status

Assets: Broadly defined

• Net worth: financial assets & real-estate property

• Human capital: education & health

• Social capital: bonding & bridging

• Natural capital: sources & sinks

The Right to a Clean and Safe Environment – at home

‘All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. They include the right to a clean and healthful environment.’

- Constitution of the State of Montana

  

‘The people shall have the right to clean air and water, freedom from excessive and unnecessary noise, and the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of their environment; and the protection of the people in their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural, mineral, forest, water, air and other natural resources is hereby declared to be a public purpose.’

- Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

‘The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.’

- Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania

The Right to a Clean and Safe Environment - abroad

• All residents enjoy the right to a healthy, balanced environment.

- Constitution of Argentina, article 41

• The Constitution guarantees to all persons: . . . The right to live in an environment free from contamination.

- Constitution of Chile, Ch. III, article 19(8)

• Every individual has the right to enjoy a healthy environment.

- Constitution of Colombia, article 79

Building Natural Assets

• Appropriation: Defending the commons

• Redistribution: Democratizing access

• Internalization: Capturing benefits

• Investment: Adding value

Investment: Adding value

The creation of new natural capital or the increase of existing natural capital.

Examples:

• mangrove restoration - Mexico

• “soil banking” - Amazonia

• people’s artificial reefs - India

Investment: Mangrove restoration

Laguna Manialtepec, Oaxaca. Photo: James Boyce

Investment: Soil banking

Investment: People’s artificial reefs

Photo credit: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers

Redistribution: Democratizing access

The transfer of natural capital to low-income individuals and communities.

Examples:

• land reform – east Asian countries

• extractive reserves – Brazil

• mineral resources - Peru

Redistribution: Land reform

Redistribution: Land reform

Redistribution: Land reform

Redistribution: Extractive reserves

This portrait of the late Chico Mendes hangs in the Chico Mendes Environmental Park in Xapurí, Brazil. Photo credit: Anthony Hall.

Redistribution: Mineral resources

The Tintaya copper mine in Espinaor, Peru. Photo credit: CooperAcción.

Internalization: Capturing benefits

Rewards for previously uncompensated positive externalities.

Examples:• payments for environmental services – El Salvador

• certified organic & “Bird Friendly®” coffee – Costa Rica

• Forest Stewardship Council-certified timber – Mexico

• in situ conservation of crop genetic diversity – ??

Internalization: Payments for environmental services

Terraces can improve both the quantity and quality of water supplies. Photo credit: Barry Shelley.

Internalization: Certified organic & “Bird-friendly®” coffee

Internalization: Forest Stewardship Council certification

Internalization: In situ conservation of crop genetic diversity

Photo: Peter Menzel, “Farming Diversity: Glimpses of Oaxaca” http://www.peri.umass.edu/276/

Appropriation: Defending the commons

Establishment of rights to what have previously been treated as open-access resources.

Examples:• Environmental justice – anti-toxics • International carbon rights – greenhouse justice• National carbon rights – “cap-and-dividend”

Appropriation: Environmental justice

Appropriation: National carbon rights

Who owns a nation’s share of the atmospheric commons?

Appropriation: International carbon rights

Appropriation: International carbon rights

Countries should act to protect the climate system “in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”

-- UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992)

For more

James K. Boyce and Barry G. Shelley, eds., Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003.

James K. Boyce, Sunita Narain, and Elizabeth A. Stanton, eds., Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration. London and NY: Anthem Press, 2007.

James K. Boyce and Elizabeth Stanton, Environment for the People. Amherst, MA: PERI, 2005. Available at http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/envtforpeople-web.pdf.