The intertwining of Environmental Problems and Poverty. (cover story)

POVERTY; ENVIRONMENTALISM; AGRICULTURE; POPULATION; DEVELOPING countries; LAND use

This article discusses how extreme poverty determines the societal objectives within which environmental concerns must fit, why certain problems receive unequal consideration in rich and poor countries, and why rich nations must share the burden of environmental research and protection. In developing countries, environmental problems and poverty are inseparable. The rural poor largely depend directly or indirectly on agriculture and therefore on the environment for their income. As a result, environmental problems are inextricably linked with the problems of growing populations. Increasing numbers of people survive by subsistence farming, growing just the crops they need to eat to survive. The growing population also forces land to appropriate only to perennial crops, such as tree crops or grasses, to be farmed for annual crops, particularly food crops, which the soil cannot sustain indefinitely. Thus, environmental preservation depends on a complex interaction of income and population pressures that contribute to both environmental and agricultural instability. To relieve population pressure on the environment in developing countries, population control must be combined with increased intensity of land use in high-potential agricultural areas. INSET: Land capacity and environmental fragility. By Peter A. Oram..