One may not like the former Indian Prime Minister, Ms. Indra Gandhi for political reasons, but what she had once said about poverty in the environmental perspective is worth quotable. “Of all pollutions we face, the worst is poverty” As defined by experts “poverty” is a concept that indicates absolute or relative welfare deprivation. Over decades, the correlation between poverty and environment has reportedly been leading towards mobilizing the political will to address the problems associated to both, particularly the rural poverty that is seen as a major cause and result of degraded soils, vegetation, water and natural habitants.

Estimates available in different databases, including that of Global Forum On Environment and Poverty, say nearly one million rural men and women -one out of every five people in the world – live below the poverty line, facing chronic hunger and malnutrition. Lacking basic resources and services, they see their harvests diminish, their environment deteriorate and their living conditions decline. Population explosion is also linked to rural poverty and this demographic growth would continue to increase in future unless drastic measures are taken.

The population growth and poverty do have implications over natural resources such as forests, water, lands and habitats thus affecting the environment through a vicious circle. Population growth is commonly cited as a major contributor to environmental degradation on the grounds that it leads to increased consumption and a higher demand for natural resources. The poor are generally blamed for over exploitation of natural resources that cause degradation of the environment. This could be seen otherwise as some people are pushed into a degraded environment which denies them their source of livelihood, thus plunging them into poverty. With this very complex situation, the policy makers seemed to be in a fix whether to lead to policies that reduce poverty at the expense of environment, or reduce degradation at the expense of poor communities. There is a need to understand that the root cause of environmental degradation is the natural resource management system and socio-economic structure of any particular country and not the poor communities who depend on these resources for their subsistence and livelihood.

We need to understand that if we would not provide alternate means of livelihood to the poor communities and limit their access to their traditional resources, they would further plunge into abject poverty trap and lose their capacity to sustain livelihoods. A number of studies have established this fact that displacement of the poor communities, due to population explosion, construction of dams, establishment of plantation forests and creation of wildlife preserves that deprive them of using their lands, largely affect their livelihood and sustainability. This situation also forces the poor to migrate to marginal lands, such as higher and higher up hillsides and cultivate steep slopes or into dry-lands, and to cut down forests for agricultural land and fuel-wood. These actions could lead to soil degradation, loss of soil nutrients, flooding, sinking of groundwater levels, siltation of rivers and lakes, and other ecological problems, and may be the initiation of a vicious spiral of environmental degradation and poverty.

Agriculture that accounts for most of the land use in developing countries also has a direct bearing on poverty and environment. It largely impacts and influences the environmental quality. Characteristics of agricultural production systems, such as location in the landscape, type and timing of cultivation, agrochemical input use, field burning and livestock practices, affect many environmental variables, particularly water quality and flow, soil quality and movement, natural vegetative cover and biodiversity, at regional, national and international scales. Majority of the poor depend on subsistence farming and agriculture for their livelihoods.

The environment issues were picked up a few decades ago and the world became aware of environmental destruction and attempts to achieve workable solutions. Good policies were put in place in international conferences, but less was done in practice especially in the field of environmental questions associated with poverty, and this continues to create a problem between the rich and the poor countries, and the rift on this issue between North and South is widening. Whenever the leaders of the world need to discuss environmental crisis, there is always a conflict between the rich and the poor countries. While the northern concern is on ozone depletion, endangered species, the southern concern is the survival of its people. The poor world, the Third World, to get rid of poverty adopted industry even with its inherent pollution problems. For them, the problem was and still is poverty. To tackle poverty, they are prepared to adopt Western ways and accept the environmental problems as part of the package.

The developing countries must take necessary steps to address the daunting problems they face. But it is the industrial countries, which have primary responsibility for addressing global environmental issues, caused in large part by them. In addition, the richer countries must solve their own environmental problems. We have to remember that we are the dwellers of the same planet. For developing a balanced world order, equitable development of all corners of the globe is a prerequisite. If one segment is deprived then the world as a whole is bound to suffer from imbalance. We need to have concerted efforts to keep our planet habitable.

The World Bank’s World Development Report 1992, the declares protection of environment essential to development. Without adequate environmental protection, development is undermined. Without development, resources will be inadequate for needed investments, and environmental protection will fail. In short, promoting development and protecting the environment are complementary aspects of the same agenda. Both are necessary to reduce poverty. We need to bring about policy reforms that could promote better natural resource management, provision of clean air, water, sanitation and health services to improve standard of life, agriculture research to boost productivity in an environment friendly way, active involvement of the poor in conservation of natural resources and slow down population explosion. There is a time ripe not to blame each others for environmental degradation or rise in poverty rather we should move together to ensure better livelihood opportunities for the poor and a better natural resource management to save environment from degradation.