Understanding Poverty and the

Environment

Does poverty lead to environmental degradation? Do degraded environments and

natural resources lead to poverty? Are there other forces at play? Is the relationship between poverty and the environment really as straightforward as the vicious
circle portrayal of poverty leading to environmental destruction leading to more
poverty would suggest? Does it matter if the relationship is portrayed in this way?
This book suggests that it does matter. Arguing that such a portrayal is unhelpful
and misleading, the book brings together a diverse range of analytical frameworks
and approaches that enable a much deeper investigation of the context and nature
of povertyenvironment relationships. Analytical frameworks and approaches
examined in the book are drawn from political ecology, gender, environment and
development, institutional analyses, livelihoods and wellbeing, social network
analysis and analyses of the governance of natural resources. Key themes running
through the analytical frameworks and approaches are highlighted in a concluding
chapter, including power, access, institutions and scale.
Nunan draws on material published over the last thirty years as well as key
contemporary publications, steering readers towards essential texts within each
subject area through annotated further reading recommendations. Understanding
Poverty and the Environment is unique in critically reviewing a number of frameworks that are often applied within environment and development research.
Engaging and accessible, the text will enable students to grasp the key concepts
and rationales of the various frameworks and make sense of often complex
original sources. The book is a must for students of development studies, environmental studies and related disciplines.
Fiona Nunan is currently Head of the International Development Department
at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on natural resource
governance and livelihoods, particularly in coastal areas and inland fisheries, and
relationships between poverty and the environment. She has published papers in a
range of journals including World Development, Fish and Fisheries, Environmental
Management, Geoforum and the Journal of International Development.

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Understanding Poverty
and the Environment
Analytical frameworks and approaches
Fiona Nunan

First published 2015

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2015 Fiona Nunan
The right of Fiona Nunan to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nunan, Fiona.
Understanding poverty and the environment: analytical frameworks and
approaches / Fiona Nunan.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. PovertyEnvironmental aspects. 2. Sustainable development.
3. Environmental sociology. 4. Political ecology. I. Title.
HC79.P6N86 2015
339.46dc23
2014043228
ISBN: 978-0-415-70756-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-70759-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88670-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Book Now Ltd, London

For Ann

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of illustrations
Preface
1

Why poverty and the environment?

xi
xiii
1

Introduction 1
Environment and development: the debate 3
Poverty and the environment: the vicious circle and downward spiral 6
Definitions and interpretations of poverty 9
The environment and natural resources 11
Cross-cutting themes 13
Institutions 13
Social capital 14
Gender 15
Power 16
Property rights and property regimes 17
Community 19
Access to and control over natural resources 20
Vulnerability 20
A note on frameworks 21
Structure of the book 22
Summary of key points 24
2

Political ecology
Introduction 30
What is political ecology? 31
Environmental science and ecology 34
Challenging dominant narratives: three key themes 36
Perceived causes of environmental change: common themes 36
Responses to environmental change 39
Challenges to dominant narratives from political ecology 40
Chains of explanation within political ecology 43

30

viii Contents
Feminist political ecology 44
Desertification: a classic case study of a dominant
narrative and political ecology critique 45
Other examples of the application of political ecology 48
Debates and issues within political ecology 48
Summary of key points 51
3

Analysing institutions

57

Introduction 57
Why do institutions matter in povertyenvironment relations? 59
Critical Institutionalism 60
The Environmental Entitlements approach 63
Environmental entitlements and fisheries resources
in Uganda 66
Institutional Analysis and Development framework 69
The Social-Ecological System framework 77
Application of IAD to an analysis of state afforestation
policies in Vietnam 78
Comparing the approaches 79
Summary of key points 81
4

A gender lens on poverty and the environment

85

Introduction 85
WID, WAD and GAD: women, gender and development 87
Repoliticizing gender 89
And what about poverty?: the feminization of poverty 89
Women, environment and development 90
Feminist political ecology 92
Natural resource sector examples 93
Gender and land 94
Gender and forestry 96
Gender and fisheries 97
A word on gender and climate change 99
Summary of key points 100
5

Livelihoods and wellbeing

Introduction 105
Livelihoods 106
Sustainable Livelihoods framework 108
Applications of the SLF in research 116
Wellbeing analysis 120
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework 123
The Wellbeing in Developing Countries approach 126

105

Contents ix
Livelihoods and wellbeing approaches compared 130
Summary of key points 131
6

Social network analysis

135

Introduction 135
What are social networks and social network analysis? 135
Planning a social network analysis study 138
Types of ties or relations 140
Specifying boundaries 141
Ego networks 142
Complete social networks 144
Examples of the use of social network analysis in
natural resource management 146
Summary of key points 153
7

Analysing governance

157

Introduction 157
What is governance? 158
Principles of governance 161
Why governance? 162
Decentralization of natural resource governance 163
Governance frameworks 166
Analysing water governance and poverty 166
Interactive governance and governability 168
Analysis of governance in decentralized natural
resource management 170
Key components of governance analysis 173
Governance challenges 174
Power 174
Scale and levels 175
Coping with change and uncertainty: adaptive governance 176
Summary of key points 177
8

Conclusion: reflections on investigating

povertyenvironment relationships
Introduction 181
Key themes arising from a comparison of frameworks
and approaches 182
Power 182
Institutions 188
Access 189
Poverty, livelihoods and wellbeing 189
Gender 190

181

Contents
Narratives/myths 191
Scale 191
What do these common themes add up to? 192
Methods for data collection and analysis 192
An ethnographic perspective 193
Mixed methods 194
Participatory approaches 195
A note on frameworks and approaches 196

Index

200

Illustrations

Figures
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
6.1
6.2
6.3
7.1
7.2

The environmental Kuznets curve

Poverty and the environment: a vicious circle
Political ecology chain of explanation
The chain of explanation of land degradation
The Environmental Entitlements framework
Environmental Entitlements diagram for fisheries
co-management, Uganda
The Institutional Analysis and Development framework
The action situation
The Social-Ecological System framework
Clements summary IAD for the 5MHRP in Vietnam
DFIDs Sustainable Livelihoods framework
Livelihood asset pentagon showing assets in 2006 and 2010
of forest-using households in the Baishuijiang National
Nature Reserve
Sustainable Livelihoods framework: analysis of boat crew
livelihood strategies
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: linkages between
ecosystem services and human wellbeing
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: conceptual framework
Binary matrix showing friendship network in student class
A digraph of who is friends with whom in a class setting
An example of a fishers network
A framework for analysing water governance and poverty
Integrated framework for governability of a societal system

4
6
43
44
64
68
70
72
77
79
109
118
121
124
125
140
140
152
167
169

Tables
1.1 Types of ecosystem services
2.1 Examples of dominant environment development narratives
2.2 Examples of the application of political ecology

12
37
49

xii Illustrations
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
5.1
6.1
6.2
6.3
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5

Key features of institutional thinking

Changes in fisheries institutions in Uganda in the 2000s
Variables in IAD
Investigating an action situation
Asset definition and role in movement of fisherfolk, Lake Victoria
Types of ties in social networks
Social network analysis natural resource management case studies
Overview of questions in Kenyan fisheries study
Governance principles for natural resource management
Agrawal and Ribots framework for the analysis of decentralization
Water governance in the Kimani catchment
Governability assessment matrix
Governability assessment of fisheries of the Southeast Arm of Lake
Malawi
7.6 Comparison of approaches to the analysis of governance
8.1 Summary of approaches and frameworks

60
69
71
73
122
141
147
151
161
165
168
171
172
173
183

Boxes
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
2.3
3.1
3.2
3.3
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
6.1
6.2
7.1
7.2

Brundtland definition of sustainable development

Hardins tragedy of the commons
Questions that might be addressed by a political ecology approach
What is political economy?
Key words associated with political ecology
Questions addressed by institutional analysis
Why and when would you focus on institutions for
investigating povertyenvironment relations?
Rules and design principles for lasting common property institutions
What are gender relations?
Why a gender lens?
Intra-household relations
Common themes in gender and natural resources analysis
Examples of livelihood and wellbeing analysis research questions
Definition of a livelihood
The five capitals
Dimensions of wellbeing
Definitions of social networks and properties of SNA
Examples of questions that may be addressed using SNA
Examples of questions asked in the analysis of natural
resource governance
Definitions of governance

5
17
31
32
34
58
59
74
86
86
88
99
106
107
112
127
136
137
158
159

Preface

The genesis of this book is rooted in my experience in studying, researching,

teaching and advising on the environment and natural resources in relation to
how people in the Global South manage and benefit from them. The idea for
a book that brings together ways of investigating povertyenvironment relationships primarily stems from dissatisfaction with the simplistic portrayal of
povertyenvironment relations as being linked in a vicious circle or downward
spiral. There are many constraints on how people use natural resources which
are not reflected and acknowledged in the vicious circle and similar portrayals
of poverty and the environment. These constraints can be identified and analysed
from many perspectives, including analysis of the political economy, governance, gender and institutions. The desire to advocate for the exploration of the
context and nuances of povertyenvironment relationships prompted the collation of a range of frameworks and approaches that can be used to do just that.
A further rationale for writing this book was to provide a text that can act as a
way in to more specialized, complex literature, including literature that was written in the 1980s and 90s that I feel should not be forgotten or ignored. Students
may find it challenging to delve straight into journal articles on political ecology
or gendered analyses of natural resource situations. This introduction into how
frameworks and approaches emerged, their key components and examples of their
application, can bridge lectures and specialized books and journal articles.
Beyond the primary concern of this book with challenging simplistic portrayals of povertyenvironment relationships, the book is innovative in bringing
together a diversity of analytical frameworks and approaches. This should assist
students and researchers in appreciating the breadth of concepts, frameworks and
approaches that can be employed in investigating peopleenvironment relationships within a development context.
Each chapter concludes with two or three recommended further reading and a
list of references. These have not been chosen or drawn on lightly. They constitute
a significant resource. Use these as a starting point; there will, of course, be much
more literature that can be drawn on. Additional literature should be particularly
sought that has been written by the authors of the texts falling within the further
reading and references. Work by key authors in each area has been drawn on
throughout, providing a rich resource for students and lecturers alike.

xiv Preface
My keen interest in how povertyenvironment relationships are portrayed and
how this dominant portrayal has been challenged was ignited whilst studying for
an MA with the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex.
The Political Economy of the Environment module taught by the Institute of
Development Studies was particularly instrumental in nurturing this interest.
I have been fortunate to be able to pursue this concern with how poverty
environment relations can be investigated through teaching and research in the
International Development Department, University of Birmingham, and working
in East Africa for five years on two fisheries management projects, employing
livelihoods, institutional and governance analyses.
I would like to thank my colleagues in the School of Government and Society,
of which IDD is a part, in providing valuable feedback on draft chapters of this
book. Special thanks are due to Tom Hewitt, Emma Foster and Mattias Hjort. I
thank Frances Cleaver of Kings College London and anonymous reviewers for
their valuable comments. Finally, I thank my family, especially Trevor, Aime,
loise and my parents, for their continuous support and encouragement.
Fiona Nunan
Birmingham, September 2014

Why poverty and the

environment?

Many parts of the world are caught in a vicious downwards spiral: Poor people are
forced to overuse environmental resources to survive from day to day, and their
impoverishment of their environment further impoverishes them, making their
survival ever more difficult and uncertain.
(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 27)

Introduction
The quote above from perhaps the most significant international environment
and development report of the twentieth century sums up a common understanding and portrayal of povertyenvironment relations. This portrayal suggests
that poverty and the environment are linked in a vicious circle, where poverty forces many poor people to overuse and degrade the environment on which
they depend, leading to environmental destruction which in turn further exacerbates the extent and depth of poverty. Some have described this relationship as
a downward spiral emphasizing that over time, poverty will deepen and the
environment will be further degraded.
But, does poverty necessarily lead to environmental destruction? Do degraded
and impoverished environmental and natural resources directly lead to poverty?
Or, are there other forces at play? Is the relationship between poverty and the
environment really as straightforward as the vicious circle portrayal suggests?
Does it matter if the relationship is portrayed in this way?
This book suggests that it does matter. The portrayal of the relationship between
poverty and the environment as a vicious circle or downward spiral directs efforts
to reduce poverty or improve environmental management that may focus only on
poverty reduction and/or environmental management in a narrow sense, without
taking sufficient account of a multitude of mediating factors, including governance, institutional arrangements and power relationships. These mediating
factors influence how people, including poor people, have access to, and control
over, the environment and natural resources. Approaches that endeavour to reduce
poverty and improve environmental or natural resource management may well
achieve more through improving governance, asking who has power and what

Why poverty and the environment?

institutional arrangements constrain or enable access to resources than initiatives

that focus directly on poverty or the environment. Whilst it has been argued that
thinking about poverty and the environment has largely moved away from the
vicious circle portrayal (Reed, 2002), there remains a need for wider adoption of
frameworks and approaches that take a more nuanced approach to investigating
the linkages.
Tools, approaches and frameworks exist that can be used to investigate how
these mediating factors influence and interact with povertyenvironment relations. Having appropriate tools and approaches to investigate and generate
understanding of povertyenvironment relationships is essential because of the
significant dependence of many poor people in the developing world on environmental goods and services. Acknowledging and understanding this dependence is
even more important in light of the worlds growing population and the increasing
wealth of powerful individuals and countries who are able to gain access to huge
swathes of land and other resources, at times to the detriment of those living in the
affected areas. In addition, increasing awareness and experience of the impacts of
climate change make understanding of the interactions between poverty and the
environment even more critical.
This text provides an introduction to a range of frameworks and approaches
from the social sciences that can facilitate a deeper understanding of linkages
between poverty and environment. These frameworks and approaches are presented
within the following areas of investigation:

political ecology;
institutional analysis;
gender, development and the environment;
livelihoods and wellbeing;
social network analysis;
governance.

Each chapter introduces a number of frameworks and approaches, explaining key concepts and ideas and referencing key material in the development
and application of the frameworks and approaches. These frameworks and
approaches have not necessarily been developed with the purpose of investigating povertyenvironment relationships but have the capacity to be used for
this purpose. Examples and case studies of applications of the frameworks and
approaches are provided to illustrate how they have been used and what kinds
of research questions they may be appropriate for answering. In addition, each
chapter identifies key texts to steer readers towards deeper exploration of the
theory and assumptions underlying the frameworks and approaches, as well as
to further examples of their application. The key readings and the list of references have been carefully and purposefully selected to provide readers with a
wide range of important sources and authors in each area reviewed. Readers are
encouraged to see the lists of references as both an essential resource and as a
starting point for finding further relevant literature.

Why poverty and the environment? 3

The discussion of the approaches and frameworks, and the majority of the
examples and case studies of their application, relate to and draw on experience in
developing countries, and so the book is situated within the multidisciplinary area
of Development Studies. Development Studies as an area of academic study is
concerned with the normative ambition of improving peoples lives and thus has a
shared commitment to the practical or policy relevance of teaching and research
related to experience in less developed countries or developing countries or
the South or post-colonial societies formerly known as the Third World
(Sumner, 2006: 645). Development Studies is a dynamic area of academic
study, reflecting the heterogeneity and changes over time in the experience of
development. This is reflected in the debate and contention concerned with
the classification of countries in relation to development. It is widely acknowledged that the dichotomy of developed and developing in classifying countries
is outdated and, at times, unhelpful (Harris et al., 2009). There is no one criterion
universally used to categorize countries in relation to their level of development
and it is not always clear where countries should be placed (Nielsen, 2013). There
is, then, broad consensus that more categories should be used, reflecting different measures of development, changes over time and different purposes of the
categorization (Nielsen, 2013; Tezanos and Sumner, 2013). Whilst acknowledging the diversity of development outcomes and experience across countries and
the need for more than two categories of countries, the term developing country
is used throughout this book. This is because the category of developing country is widely understood as broadly referring to countries with a lower level of
economic development and often having a higher level of direct dependence on
natural resources than developed countries. This category includes many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
This introductory chapter sets the scene for the book, starting with the broader
debate concerning environment and development and the concept of sustainable
development, i.e. can the environment be protected whilst also encouraging economic growth and reducing poverty? The chapter goes on to critically review the
portrayal of povertyenvironment linkages as a vicious circle and downward spiral,
before examining different definitions of, and approaches to, poverty and environment. Explanations of key concepts and cross-cutting themes found within the
frameworks and approaches in the following chapters are then set out. These are:
institutions, social capital, gender, power, property rights and regimes, community,
access to and control over natural resources and vulnerability. The structure of the
book is then explained, setting out the main themes of each chapter.

Environment and development: the debate

Can you protect the environment and, at the same time, also maintain and even
increase development, interpreted for many years as largely equating to economic
growth? This question has been the subject of much debate over decades, with
evidence providing alleged support for both sides. For many in the developed and
developing worlds, a view has prevailed that the environment must wait; economic

Why poverty and the environment?

Environmental degradation

growth and poverty reduction are the priorities and if the environment is degraded
and polluted as a result, then cleaning it up will be less costly in the future than in
the present (Clmenon, 2012). This position reflects the environmental Kuznets
curve, as shown in Figure 1.1, which suggests that as income increases there comes
a point at which environmental degradation will reduce and reverse, as investment
in the environment and cleaner technology increases. Before that happens, environmental degradation will increase as per-capita income increases.
Of course, not everyone agrees that the Kuznets curve is correct in its depiction of the relationship between per capita income and environmental degradation
(see, for example, Dasgupta et al., 2002 and Stern, 2004). Technology transfer,
for example, can enable tunnelling through the curve so that less environmental
degradation is experienced than would be predicted. The nature of the relationship
may also depend on which pollutants are included in the analysis, what assumptions are made about how the pollutants behave and over what period of time data
is available (Stern, 2004). It is not, then, a given that the environment must wait;
technology and regulations can be adopted and implemented earlier than may be
implied by the Kuznets curve.
Concern about the exploitation of natural resources as a result of development can be traced back to the nineteenth century, when Thomas Malthus
voiced concern that as population grew exponentially, food production could
not increase at such a rate. Debate about whether the world will run out of
natural resources in the face of the increasing global population was highlighted
again in the twentieth century with the publication of the report The Limits to
Growth (Meadows et al., 1972). Reporting on results from computer modelling
on a range of scenarios with different levels of population growth, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion, the report presented two
scenarios where the global system would collapse and one where stabilization
could be reached. Whilst the report received much criticism, questioning the
methodology and data used as well as the interpretation of the models, debate

Per-capita income

Figure 1.1 The environmental Kuznets curve.

Why poverty and the environment? 5

continues into the twenty-first century about whether there will be sufficient
natural resources for all, with global population projected to reach 9 billion
around 2050. Increasing global population is only part of the picture though,
with the rate and nature of consumption in much of the developed world being
far from sustainable, as well as inequitable.
The debate about the relationship between environment and development
appeared to be settled and even reconciled with the coining of the concept of sustainable development, associated with the 1987 World Commission on Environment
and Development report, Our Common Future. The WCED was commissioned by
the United Nations in 1983 to write a report in response to concern about accelerating environment degradation and the consequences of this degradation for
economic and social development. The Commission was chaired by the Norwegian
Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and so the Commission and report is often
referred to as the Brundtland Commission and Brundtland Report. The definition of sustainable development given in the 1987 report is the most often cited
definition in literature, policy and practice and is set out in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1 Brundtland definition of sustainable development

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the worlds

poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environments ability to meet present and future needs.
(World Commission on the Environment
and Development, 1987: 43)

The concept of sustainable development appears to offer hope that, at last, we

can have environmental protection and economic development together. Poverty
reduction, or perhaps even elimination, within and between generations is seen
as fundamental to the pursuit of sustainable development, as well as sustainable
environmental management. However, the concept and very idea of sustainable
development has been widely critiqued, with criticisms including:
1

It is far too vague and woolly anyone can agree with the concept and the
definition given in the Brundtland Report whilst having very different understanding of what it means in practice. This has implications for policy and
practice, with much being lauded in the name of sustainable development
that others may well question as being at all sustainable.

6
2

Why poverty and the environment?

Deep ecologists reject the concept on the grounds that it is human-centred,
with little, or perhaps no, recognition of the intrinsic right of nature to exist
for its own sake, rather than for the sake of humankind. The very term natural resources suggests that nature is there for the survival of humankind,
with resources to be used and exploited as necessary.
At the other end of the ideological spectrum, it is argued that economic
growth must continue unabated and that there are no ecological limits to
growth. Not only will more natural resources be discovered, but technology
and science will develop new solutions, replacing natural capital with other
forms of capital. There is, then, no need for concern, or for limits to be placed
on economic growth and development.

It seems then that there are differing views as to whether it is possible to protect
and enhance the condition of the environment whilst also encouraging development through economic growth. In reflecting on this, what are the implications for
understanding linkages between poverty and the environment?

Poverty and the environment: the vicious circle and

downward spiral
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the relationship between poverty and
the environment has traditionally been portrayed as a vicious circle, where poverty leads people to overexploit the environment, leading to degradation and
consequently more poverty. The vicious circle of poverty and environmental
degradation is shown in Figure 1.2.
The relationship has also been portrayed as a downward spiral, with increasing
poverty leading to increasing environmental degradation and hence the situation of both the poor and the environment getting worse and worse. The vicious
circle and downward spiral sums up the portrayal of the relationship between
poverty and the environment given in the Brundtland Report of 1987:

Poverty

Environment

Figure 1.2 Poverty and the environment: a vicious circle.

Why poverty and the environment? 7

Environmental stress has often been seen as the result of the growing demand
on scarce resources and the pollution generated by the rising living standards
of the relatively affluent. But poverty itself pollutes the environment, creating environmental stress in a different way. Those who are poor and hungry
will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive: They will
cut down forests; their livestock will overgraze grasslands; they will overuse
marginal land; and in growing numbers they will crowd into congested cities.
(World Commission on the Environment and Development, 1987: 28)
This vicious circle portrayal of poverty and environment has been critiqued using
some of the frameworks and approaches set out in this book. A political ecology
perspective (see Chapter 2) in particular would argue against some of the statements in the quote above, asking:

Who is most responsible for a countrys deforestation? Is it those engaged in

forms of shifting cultivation or the government issuing permits for conversion
of forest land to plantations or agriculture to produce crops for animal feed?
Which areas of land do the poor have access to for grazing their livestock?
How has access to land, how much land, where and for how long, changed
over time? Who decides who gets access to specific areas of land?
What is the definition of marginal land? Why do the poor use marginal land;
are there alternatives open to them? Who controls access to land?
Are there alternatives to moving to growing cities and why are these cities
congested?

These are the sorts of perspectives and challenges raised by the approaches set out
in this book. Asking these kinds of questions brings alternative insights into the
relationships between poverty and the environment.
From these reflections on the relationships between poverty and the environment, two questions are identified in relation to the vicious circle portrayal: how
accurate is this depiction and how helpful is it? The accuracy of the vicious circle
has been questioned in a number of ways:
1
2
3

The circle is too simplistic and does not reflect the diversity of poverty
environment linkages and the dynamic, context-specific nature of these
linkages.
The circle suggests that if the environment is improved, poverty will be
reduced, but this may not be the case. There could be many other factors that
influence the relationship.
The portrayal does not acknowledge any other influencing factors, particularly the wider political and economic situation, which will influence how
the poor interact with environmental resources.

In terms of whether the vicious circle portrayal is helpful, concern has already
been expressed that it may lead to inappropriate policy responses that do not take

Why poverty and the environment?

into consideration a wide range of mediating factors. One area where this direct
circular relationship is taken up is within literature and practice that investigates
or pursues the povertyenvironment nexus, referring to a close connection, link
or tie between poverty and the environment, much more tightly defined than a
relationship or linkage. The povertyenvironment nexus has been defined as
a set of mutually reinforcing links between poverty and environmental damage
(Dasgupta et al., 2005: 617). The nexus approach is concerned with examining
the dependence of the poor on natural resources (World Bank, 2008) and looking
for winwin strategies and situations, where poverty will be reduced and the
environment improved. Literature on the povertyenvironment nexus identifies a
set of themes that characterize such relationships. These are:

the importance of livelihoods (DFID et al., 2002) and assets/income from

natural resources for poor people (Bass et al., 2005; World Bank, 2008);
health, with health outcomes being heavily affected by pollution from, for
example, water sources and smoke from cooking stoves, particularly affecting the poor (DFID et al., 2002; World Bank, 2008);
vulnerability, with poor people being more exposed to environmental hazards
and environment-related conflict and having less capacity to cope than nonpoor (Bass et al., 2005; DFID et al., 2002).

Such themes suggest areas of correlation between poverty and the environment
and, following on from this, potential policy responses and interventions. Even
within literature and practice on the povertyenvironment nexus, however, it is
recognized that the wider context matters. Bass et al. (2005: 1) state that if poverty and environmental problems persist, it is, in large part because poor people
and environmental concerns remain marginalized by and from sources of
power. Reed (2006) draws on an approach undertaken by the WWF that stresses
the context of povertyenvironment relationships. The 3M Approach investigates the context of such relationships at micro (local), meso (analysing actors
and institutions in between the macro and micro levels) and macro (including
macroeconomic policies, sectoral policy reforms and institutional arrangements)
levels. Reed (2006: 20) suggests that the 3M Approach distinguishes itself from
others by meeting three standards:
1
2
3

including analysis of the complex dynamics between the rural poor and the
environment that are specific to localities;
interpreting relations between local povertyenvironment dynamics and
politics and institutions at the meso and macro levels;
analysing relations between economic policy and institutional arrangements
at the three levels as they affect povertyenvironment dynamics.

This approach, and others similar to it (see, for example DFID et al., 2002), have
been developed to inform and direct development policy and practice and share
concerns and concepts with many of the frameworks and approaches introduced