Chronic Poverty Research Centre

The interface between environment and poverty is a complex phenomenon. Poverty reduction needs will be enabled if the poor are allowed access to natural capital, such as land, water, forest and minerals in order to produce economic goods and marine resources. Without this, the poor may continue to co-exist with resource-rich environment especially in the rural settings. In the absence of properly calibrated distribution and use of natural resources population growth may further aggravate the situation. Out-migration and dependence on the alternative activities outside the primary sector may also have a negative impact on the environment, both directly through the processes of production and indirectly through neglect of land as well as other natural resources in the rural areas (Bilsborrow 1991). It is therefore, imperative to work out strategies through which people can find employment and income from a combination of activities without creating negative externalities on the environment.