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ENVIRONMENT-POVERTY NEXUS: A GLOBAL OVERVIEW

Atiur Rahman*

General problems of environmental overcrowding, from which both women and men may suffer, link closely with women’s specific freedom from the constant bearing and rearing of children that plagues the lives of young women in many societies in the developing world.

― Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000, p. 195

I. INTRODUCTION Poverty is indeed multidimensional,1 and the inter-linkage between environment and poverty can hardly be overemphasised. The more visible environmental problems are mostly associated with regenerative resources, which are in constant danger of exhaustion from excessive use particularly in the developing countries. Depletion of many environmental resources can indeed make some categories of people destitute even when an economy is growing. So there is an intimate relationship between environmental degradation and accentuation of destitution. Poor women and children are particularly victims of environmental degradation although they are not necessarily the polluters. They are mostly forced to face an adverse environment with significant implications for their deprivation. They also suffer from malnutrition and ill health with further impact on income erosion. Degraded environment implies that there are less resources available both for present and future generations with greater risk and unsustainability (Rahman, 2001). Therefore, common and mutually interlinked issues of poverty eradication and environmental protection are the major concerns of many developing and developed countries. However, the institutional incapacity to eradicate poverty in environmentally degraded regions particularly in Southeast and Central Asian countries is yet to be fully understood. Community initiatives are thought to be the best options for regenerating community resources to both eradicate poverty and help sustain environment. However, such initiatives may not be forthcoming in a country where vested interest groups too often vitiate governance.

Given this broad context the present overview paper plans to assess the interface between poverty and environmental degradation across the world. In the second section different dimensions and examples of global environment-poverty nexus has been discussed, and linkages of environment-poverty nexus to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been explored. Third section deals with role of international institutions and non-state actors in dealing with the nexus. How public-private partnership can be used as an effective tool for environmental sustainability and poverty reduction has been discussed in the fourth section. Section five deals with importance of and difficulties with institutions and participation. Finally, conclusion and recommendations have been made.

* Dr Atiur Rahman is the Chairman, Unnayan Shamannay, Dhaka. E-mail: atiur@sdnbd.org. He is grateful to Mahfuz Kabir for support provided in preparing the paper. 1 One of the key dimensions of poverty is that the poor face risks and uncertainties from environmental degradation and therefore they are notably vulnerable stemming exclusively from environmental factors.

Revised Draft

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II. ENVIRONMENT-POVERTY NEXUS ACROSS THE WORLD The poor’s exposure to environmental degradation is distinctive mainly for two reasons. First, the surroundings of the locations inhibited by the poor are often environmentally vulnerable or degraded. The areas where the poor can gain access are often fragile and hence the riskiest for health and income generation. Second, lack of strong resource base makes it difficult for the poor to opt out of the degraded environment and try to eke out living with alternative sources of livelihoods which are less degrading. In that sense they are more victims rather than degraders of the environment. Thus there exists a two-way relationship between poverty and environment in the developing countries. Poverty causes environmental degradation, and in turn, the degradations in environment exacerbate poverty. Again, poverty is itself a product of unequal resource distribution between groups and classes.

Environmental degradation depresses ability of the poor to generate income through two channels. First, it requires the poor to divert an increasing share of their labour to routine household activities such as fuel wood collection, and second, it decreases productivity of those natural resources from which the poor wrest their livelihood (Mink, 1993).

Diverting labour. Environmental degradation can lower the labour productivity, even when they are healthy. For example, as fuel wood becomes scarce, poor households must spend an increasing amount of time collecting it. Time taken away from other productive activities like agriculture has an opportunity cost for the poor and can result in their lower incomes. Further, families are not able to compensate for this diversion of labour resulting in a reduction in household income from agriculture and deterioration in food consumption levels and nutritional status. All these have implication for the poor’s livelihood.

Reduced productivity of the poor’s natural resources. Where the poor depend on biomass fuel and confront increasing fuel-wood scarcity, they often shift to using animal dung, fodder, and crop residues for fuel. Since reduced quantity of these materials are returned to the soil, its fertility may decline. Growth in rural population can put extra pressure on land resources resulting in shortening of fallow land in the community in the process. This too can have negative impact on the health of the soil and hence its productivity. Poverty may also constrain farmers’ ability to maintain soil productivity through more intensive application of variable inputs.

Impact of poverty on resource management. The extreme poor struggling at the edge of subsistence levels of consumption are pre-occupied with survival strategies on a day-to-day basis. Their ability to plan ahead is often restricted to a critically short time horizon, measured in days or weeks. However, the horizon of the poor is short partly as a result of their high rate of pure time preference, which declines with income rise. They have less ability to save rather than present consumption. As a result they cannot opt for investment in natural resources, which is likely to give return in the medium- and long-run. A high subjective discount rate implies rapid resource extraction to meet present income or consumption needs, and low investment in natural resources to improve future returns. This has dynamic implication for growth and subsequently on poverty reduction.

Higher risks faced by the poor. Generally higher risks are faced by the poor than their rich counterparts from different sources. The poor farmers may perceive their access to land as tenuous because of conflicts inherent in it. With other claimants or overlap of different land

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rights, the poor are mostly marginalised. Better-off rural families are more likely to be able to establish farm claims to land where a transition is occurring from common property to private property system, or where there are lengthy and costly administrative procedures for establishing legal title to land. Under such circumstances, the poor peasants’ interest in longer-term investments in the productive capacity of land is likely to be severely diminished. Common property resource (CPRs) often serves as a form of insurance that the poor rural residents can turn to if they face setbacks in their primary income generating activities. A degrading environment significantly affects the access to this natural insurance of the poor.

The poor’s constraints to manage risks. Poor households mostly at risk of falling below the subsistence levels of consumption treat available natural resources as an asset to be drawn down in times of emergency. The options for managing the resources are often limited or not always available to the poor. Their assets and agricultural stores are minimal and quickly depleted. Credit and insurance markets for the hardcore poor are frequently fragmented or non-existent. Again, women, who play a significant role in managing natural resources are frequently under-served by agricultural and forestry extension services. All these imply higher level of uncertainties and insecurities with implications on the management of environmental resources.

However, environment affects poverty situations in three distinct dimensions (Jehan and Umana, 2002):

a. by providing sources of livelihoods to poor people, b. by affecting their health, and c. by influencing their vulnerability

Diagram 1: Dimensions of poverty and its linkages to environment

Source: Grimble et al (2002). On the other hand, poverty also affects environment in various other ways: by forcing poor people to degrade environment, by encouraging the countries to promote economic growth at the

Opportunity

Capability

Security

Empowerment

Income and Consumption

Health

Education

Vulnerability

Participation in decision-making

Natural Resource Base

Access to Water and Toilets

Air quality

Access to markets

Ecological fragility

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expense of environment, and by inducing societies to downgrade environmental concerns, including failing to channel resources to address such concerns.

Table 1: Geographic distribution of the poor (in million) Region Total

popula tion

Total rural population

Rural populationon favourable

lands

Rural population on

marginal lands

Rural poor on marginal

lands Sub-Saharan Africa 530 375 101

(3.7) 274 176

(6.5) Asia 2840 2044 755

(28.0) 1289 375

(13.9) Central and South America

430 117 40 (1.5)

77 48 (1.8)

West Asia and North Africa

345 156 37 (1.4)

119 35 (1.3)

Source: Grimble et al (2002).

Note: Figures in the parentheses are percentages of the total rural population.

Table 2: Environmental fragility in developing countries

Characteristics Population (million)

Share of population on fragile lands (%)

Share of earth’s land surface affected (%)

Aridity Only Arid, slope Arid, poor soil Arid, slope, poor soil, forest

518 350 36

107 25

40 35

Slope Only Slope, poor soil Slope, forest

216 149 26 41

17 7

Poor soil Only Poor soil, forest

430 386 44

33 22

Forests (only) 130 10 7 Total 1294 100 73

Source: World Bank (2003).

Bangladesh very often experiences natural disasters like flood, cyclone, drought and river bank erosion. While compared with not so high disaster-prone area within Bangladesh the level of migration of people faced with frequency of disaster is found to be significantly higher (see diagram 2).

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Chart 1: Environment-poverty-development linkages

Source: Government of Bangladesh (2004).

AGRI-CULTURE

FORESTRY

INDUSTRYTRADE

COMMERCE

FISHERIESPOULTRY

LIVESTOCK

MINERALSENERGY

RESOURCES

LAND

AIR

WATER

BIODIVERSITY

ENVIRONMENTALBALANCE

ENVIRONMENTALPOLLUTION

DEPLETION AND FEEDBACK

DEGRADATION AND FEEDBACK

HEALTH ENERGY EDUCATION LIVELIHOOD AMENITIESHERITAGES

POPULATION

FLOOD CYCLONE DRAUGHT EARTHQUAKE

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Diagram 2: Rural-urban migration due to vulnerability to disaster in Bangladesh

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Highly Disaster Prone Area Less Disaster Prone Area

Origin of Migration

% o

f Mig

rant

Peo

ple

Source: Rahman (2001).

A recent research conducted by World Bank suggests that there are strong correlations between different elements of environmental degradation and poverty in Lao PDR (Dasgupta et al, 2002). The existence of a true poverty-environment nexus in this context depends on more intensive use of charcoal and fuel-wood by poor households, which was strongly suggested by the high correlation (ρ = 0.74) between the province-level poverty population and the population using fuel wood or charcoal (Figure 3). Use of wood fuel and charcoal is far more prevalent among poor households than in the general population. This, together with the mountainous terrain of Northern Lao, a colder climate, and more indoor cooking, suggests that indoor air pollution may also be part of the poverty/environment nexus in Lao PDR. A poverty/environment linkage may exist if the affected households are disproportionately poor.

The results indicate a close spatial correlation between poverty and lack of access to clean water (ρ = 0.85 in Diagram 3). A similarly-positive, but somewhat weaker, relationship exists for lack of access to sanitation (ρ = 0.43). Further, a strong relationship exists between poverty and diarrhea (ρ = 0.75) (Dasgupta et al, 2002).

Diagram 3: Indicator correlation with poverty

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

Deforestationrate

Fragile land Indoor airpollution

No access toclean water

No sanitation No of diarrhoeacases

Rank

cor

rela

tion

with

pov

erty

Source: Dasgupta et al (2002).

Impact of climate change on poverty in the Asian countries

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It is apprehended, perhaps rightly, that the health of Asian people, agriculture, forestry, water availability, coastal infrastructure, and land cover will be affected by changing climate patterns and more extreme weather events in the future. Moreover, food security is likely to be affected by changing variability of rainfall and ever-changing seasonal patterns. This has implications both for the economic growth of agriculture-based economies and also on the food security of the poor. Rain-fed agricultural systems will be affected by increased variability in the timing and intensity of the rains. In particular, high yielding varieties – the basis for the ‘green revolution’ in Asia – may prove more susceptible to early flooding, salinisation and drought than hardier traditional varieties. Food production will be affected by changing seasonal patterns and temperatures. In India, a temperature rise of 2ºC could lower yields of staple crops, wheat and rice by 10 per cent and reduce farm revenues by up to 25 per cent. Increasing frequency of El Niño events will cause declines in marine fish productivity along the coasts of south and southeast Asia, affecting food security and fish exports in developing countries like Vietnam and Cambodia.

Health will be affected both directly through increased mortality from extreme temperature and weather events, and also indirectly through increased incidence of vector-borne diseases and poorer nutrition. Malaria is currently mostly endemic in the South Asian and Southeast Asian region, but there are risks that it may spread as a result of changing climate, urbanisation, irrigation, agricultural practices and deforestation. There is a risk of increased levels of respiratory problems as a result of increased frequency and extent of forest fires. Already there is a concern across Southeast Asia, that the forest fires are associated with intense droughts and could increase with climate change. The loss of forestry resources also has serious consequences for forest-related economic activities, livelihoods and ecosystem services.

Water security is also likely to worsen across large parts of Asia, with implications for irrigated agriculture, human water consumption and hydroelectricity generation. It is estimated that even without climate change, India’s per capita renewable freshwater supply will fall by 40 per cent based on projections of population growth, water demand and run-off within the major river basins. Climate change could significantly worsen this picture, decreasing rainfall supplies to major river basins. Glaciers in the Himalayan mountain ranges will retreat further, as temperatures increase: they have already retreated by 67 per cent in the last decade. Glacial melt would lead to increased summer river flow and floods over the next few decades, followed by a serious reduction in flows thereafter.

Poor labourers and rickshaw drivers formed the highest proportion of the 1,000 people who died in India during an intense heat wave in May 2002, and the 1,400 deaths in the heat wave in 2003. Following disaster floods in Central Vietnam in November 1999, poor households were the slowest to recover, and unable to afford labour to clear their fields and return to agricultural production (DFID, 2004a). The very recent (2004) flood in Bangladesh affected more severely the ultra poor living in fragile areas like river banks, chars (land raised by siltation).

Environment and capabilities of the poor There is a little doubt that environmental factors are major components of the burden of disease in developing countries. Twenty per cent of the total burden of ill-health in one state in India is due to environmental factors. In this case environment includes household water supply, toilets, wastewater collection and treatment, indoor air pollution, agrochemical pollution, and urban air

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pollution. By far the greatest cause of disease in this area is the lack of access to adequate water and sanitation.

Furthermore, diseases related to environmental factors affect the poor disproportionately. Respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases are the two biggest causes of death among the poorest 20 per cent of the world’s population as ranked by national gross figures. These diseases are responsible for 13 and 11 per cent, respectively, of deaths of the poor. Malaria is the tenth biggest killer of the world’s poor, responsible for 4 per cent of deaths.

Within individual countries the differences are even more striking. Under-five mortality is, almost without exception, higher for children in the poorest quintile (by consumption) than for the less poor quintile. A poor child in Brazil is six times more likely to die than one born in a wealthy household in the same country.

Certain environmental problems contribute towards a substantial part of the burden of disease in poor countries, and that the effects are often disproportionately concentrated on the poor. These relate to communicable and vector-borne diseases, largely the result of dirty water and parasites breeding in stagnant water, and to respiratory infections, mainly from indoor air pollution and urban air pollution in some parts of the developing world. Other problems, such as those relating to toxic materials (pesticides, industrial pollution), tend to cause illnesses such as cancer, which are not major factors causing burden of disease of the poor, except in certain isolated cases or atypical countries.

Vulnerable ecology and chronic poverty Chronic poverty in South Asia is to a large extent the result of adverse ecological processes. Bangladesh provides a striking illustration. Here the most persistent poverty has historically been found in the river-erosion areas which in years of severe flooding have been susceptible to widespread starvation and even famine (Sen 1981).

The 1974 famine, for example, was particularly severe in the river erosion belts along both sides of the river Brahmaputra. These form the most economically depressed sub-districs and unions of what are now Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha and Jamalpur districts, These were also the areas hardest hit during the massive floods of 1988 and 1998. In the later years, however the damage was not so great.

Apart from the impact of an immediate crisis those living in ecologically vulnerable areas also find it more difficult to recover. This is because apart from having few savings or other assets they tend to have less access than richer areas to non-farm employment and to microcredit. They also find it difficult to borrow the money to migrate. And since everyone is affected simultaneously the markets for both assets and credit also collapse - a consequence of 'covariate risk'. While all householders in these areas are exposed to ecological risk, those most vulnerable are small landowners and agricultural labourers.

The poor and the poorest living in these areas deserve priority attention during times of distress. They should get higher allocations of food to meet their short-term consumption needs as well as other assistance for rebuilding homes, roads, culverts. schools and clinics damaged by floods. Given the widespread credit and insurance market failures during times of disaster the microcredit agencies should also consider financing seasonal migration of the poor.

Source: Rahman (2001).

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Table 3: River erosion and landlessness in Bangladesh

Affected items reported in the newspaper

Meghna and itsbranch rivers

Padma and itsbranch rivers

Tista, Jamuna and Brahmaputra

Other rivers

Total

Number of incidence 8 18 31 21 76 Number of villages 110

(12.7) 152

(17. 6) 568

(65-7) 35

(4.0) 865

(100) Number of families 3000

(3.6) 21590 (26.1)

48210 (58.4)

9785 (11.8)

82585 (100)

Number of houses 900 (4.4)

11044 (54.0)

7650 (37.4)

850 (4.2)

20444 (100)

Number of people 195000 (38.6)

235000 (46.5)

70000 (13.8)

5650 (1.1)

505650 (100)

Cultivable land (acre) - -

72420 (45-8)

69150 (43.8)

16400 (10.4)

187970 (100)

Source: Rahman (2001). Numbers of the parentheses are the percentages of the total.

Linkages of environment-poverty nexus to the MDGs and international environmental agendas Sustainability of environment is one of the key dimensions of sustainable development and poverty reduction is the core of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Environment matters a lot to poor people. Their well-being is strongly related to environment in terms of, among others, health, earning capacity, security, physical surroundings, energy services, and decent housing. In rural areas, poor people may be particularly concerned with their access to and control over natural resources, especially in relation to food security. For poor people in urban areas, access to a clean environment may be a priority. Prioritisation of environmental issues may vary across different social groups. For example, poor women, reflecting their primary role in managing the household may regard safe water, sanitation facilities, and abundant energy services as crucial aspects of well being of the poor.

Some of the environmental degradations truly reflect global concerns, such as global warming and the depletion of ozone layer. Some are international, like acid rain, the state of the oceans, or the condition of rivers that run through several countries. Some are, however, more localised, though there may often occur worldwide, e.g., urban air pollution, water pollution, or soil degradation. Even though the poor also feel the impacts of global environmental degradation, it is local environmental damage that affects the lives of the poor more severely.

As mentioned earlier, the impact of environmental degradation is unequal between the poor and the rich. Environmental damage almost always hits poor people the hardest. The overwhelming majority of those who die each year from air and water pollution are the poor. They are most affected by desertification and the floods, storms and harvest failures brought about by global warming. All over the world, it is the poor who generally live nearer to dirty factories, busy roads and dangerous waste dumps. The loss of biodiversity is also the most severe for poor rural communities depriving them to have easy access to natural sources to livelihoods. Environmental degradation, by depleting health and natural support system for the poor, may make them even more vulnerable.

Impacts of environmental degradation in the developing world • Water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera, kill an estimated 3 million people in

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developing countries, the majority of whom are under-five. • Vector-borne diseases such as malaria account for 2.5 million deaths a year, and are linked

to a wide range of environmental conditions or factors related to water contamination and inadequate sanitation.

• One billion people are adversely affected by indoor pollution. • Nearly 3 million people die every year from air pollution, more than 2 million of them

from indoor pollution. More than 80 per cent of these deaths are those of women and girls. • Nearly 15 million children in Latin America are affected by lead poisoning. • As many as 25 million agricultural workers, 11 million of them in Africa, may be

poisoned each year from fertilisers. • More than one billion people are affected by soil erosion and land degradation. Some 250

million people are at risk from slash crop yields. • Deforestation already costs the world $42 billion a year in lost income. • About 650 million poor people in the developing world live on marginal and ecologically

fragile lands. Source: Jehan and Umana (2003).

The unequal access of the poor to natural resources and the larger adverse impact of environmental damage on the poor’s lives have some direct consequences on the capability of affected communities to achieve some of the MDGs. Benefits associated with efficiency in resource use and the advantages of de-linking economic growth and resource use have significance for the achievement of the MDGs as well.

The direct consequences of unequal access of the poor as well as adverse impact of environmental damages on them will be felt across the spectrum with regards to achievement of the MDGs. Not only have the poor unequal access to natural resources, they suffer more because of environmental degradation. Soil degradation and erosion, desertification are affecting poor people more in terms of access to natural resources and livelihoods, leading to their further impoverishment and vulnerability. This will have an adverse impact particularly on the achievement of the goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 and generally on several other MDGs.

The loss of biodiversity and continuous bio-piracy are robbing indigenous people of their assured sources of resources, livelihoods and medicine that need to be available in the nature around their surrounding. It then becomes more difficult for them to get out of the poverty trap. In societies with a significant proportion of indigenous people, this will slow down the process of achieving the MDGs.

The poor bear the major impact of inaccessibility of safe water, water contamination, water-borne and water-related diseases. This has an adverse impact on achieving of a number of MDGs. For example, the greater inaccessibility of the poor to safe water will make the goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of poor people without access to safe water difficult. The greater inaccessibility of poor people to safe water, their larger exposure to water contamination, higher malnutrition, and morbidity will have an adverse impact on school enrolment. Inadequate sanitation at school is a powerful disincentive for attending school, especially for girls. Even if

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they attend the schools they are unlikely to go to poor quality toilets and hence may become victims of urinary complications.

In addition, since child mortality is higher among poorer households, a greater incidence of water-borne and water-related diseases will make the situation even worse. Increasing lead poisoning among poorer children, particularly in urban areas, may also have an adverse impact on child mortality in many parts of the world. All these will make it difficult to achieve the goal of “reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015”.

Indoor pollution is a major problem for poorer households, which are at the bottom of the energy ladder. Every year, four-fifths of the 1.8 million deaths from indoor pollution in rural areas are among women, many of whom pregnant or mothers of small children. As child mortality is significantly higher among poorer families, exposure to indoor pollution increases the likelihood of not achieving the goal of reducing by 2015 child mortality rate by two-thirds, as acute respiratory diseases will claim many lives of the children.

The interaction between poverty and environmental degradation can lead to a self-perpetuating process in which, as a result of ignorance or economic necessity, communities may inadvertently destroy or exhaust the resources on which they depend on for their survival. Rising pressures on environmental resources in developing countries can have severe consequences for self-reliance, income distribution, and future growth potential in the developing world.

Environmental degradation can also detract developing countries from the pace of economic development by imposing high costs on these countries through health-related expenses and the reduced productivity of resources. The poorest 20 per cent of the world’s population will experience the consequences of environmental ills most acutely. Severe environmental degradation, due to population pressures on marginal land, has led to falling farm productivity and per capita food production. Since the cultivation of marginal land is largely the domain of lower-income groups, the losses are suffered by those who can least afford them. Similarly, the inaccessibility of sanitation and clean water mainly affects the poor and is believed to be responsible for 80 per cent of disease worldwide. Because the solutions to these and many other environmental problems involve enhancing the productivity of resources and improving living conditions among the poor, achieving environmentally sustainable growth is synonymous with the definition of economic development.

The growing consumption needs of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) populations may have global implications as well. There is also an increasing concern in the Medium Developed Countries (MDCs) that the destruction of the world’s remaining forests, which are concentrated in a number of highly indebted developing countries including Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines, will greatly contribute to global warming and the greenhouse effect.

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Table 4: Impact of Climate Change on Poverty and the MDGs Changes in Climate Impact on Poverty Impacts on MDGs

Increased temperature and changes in precipitation reduces agricultural and natural resources Changes in precipitation, run-off and variability leads loads to greater water stress Increased incidence or intensity of climate related disasters leads to damage to infrastructure Temperature, water and vegetation changes contribute to increased prevalence to disease

Lowered industrial output and labour productivity, high inequality, impacts on trade, and fiscal and macroeconomic burdens lead to reduced economic growth, and its poverty-reducing effects Reduced productivity and security of the poor’s livelihood assets, and reduced access for the poor to their livelihood assets Less effective coping strategies among the poor, and increased vulnerability of them

MDGs are less likely to be achieved

Source: DFID (2004b).

Too often, high fertility is blamed for problems that are attributable to poverty itself. For example, China’s population density per acre of arable land is twice that of India, yet yields are also twice that of India. Though it is clear that environmental destruction and high fertility go hand in hand, they are both direct outcome of absolute poverty. For environmental policies to succeed in developing countries, they must first address the issues of landlessness, poverty, and lack of access to institutional resources. Insecure land tenure rights, lack of credit and inputs, and absence of information often prevent the poor from making resource-augmenting investments that would preserve the environmental assets from which they derive their livelihoods. Hence preventing environmental degradation is more often a matter of providing institutional support to the poor than fighting an inevitable process of decay. Due to this fact, many goals on the international environmental agenda are very much in harmony with the development objectives.

III. ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND NON-STATE ACTORS The United Nations have been playing interesting facilitating role in changing the mindset of policy makers and as well as non-state actors drawn from the civil society in bringing the issue of environment at the centre stage of development. The role of UN organisation like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) need to be commended for their strategic intervention in bringing all actors, both governmental and non-governmental, for the cause of sustainable human development which invariably promotes environmental protection. UNEP provides an integrative and interactive mechanism through which a large number of separate efforts by inter-governmental, non-governmental, regional, national and local bodies in the service of the environment are reinforced and interrelated.

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UNDP, on the other hand, helps countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable human development by assisting them to build up their capacity to design and carry out development programmes in the fields of poverty eradication, employment creation and sustainable livelihoods, the empowerment of women and the protection and regeneration of the environment. In all these efforts of UNDP, poverty eradication gets the top-most priority. Besides UN Secretariats and other subsidiaries, commissions organise conferences, workshops, help different parties to come together for global treaties and conventions in favour of environmental protection and human development. UNDP’s role in financing important initiatives for strengthening bio-diversity deserves to be especially appreciated. The MDGs which now guide most of the LDCs and developing countries to design and implement pro-poor development strategies (PRSPs) focusing heavily on poverty reduction and environmental protection were the results of significant persuasion and negotiation by UN bodies with both rich and poor countries. A number of NGOs too have been taken onboard by the UN to push the poverty reduction and environmental protection agendas across the globe. Even corporations have been drawn into Global Compact by the UN to sensitise those international companies to play pro-poor and pro-environment role while doing their businesses.

Other multilateral agencies like Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), World Bank, and bilateral and regional agencies like UK Department for International Development (DFID) and European Community (EC) are also playing pro-active role towards pro-poor, pro-environment development interventions through both government and non-government organisations (see Annexes for details). However, the challenge remains how far resources will continue to be placed in poorer countries both by international organisations and the governments themselves in making best use of the environmental coalitions which have been forging ahead towards mainstreaming environment in the development programmes pursued in these countries.

IV. PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP AS A TOOL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY REDUCTION

The public-private partnership Public-private partnership can include all joint activities of the public sector with the private ― for profit (e.g., business firms) and not for profit (e.g., NGOs). Each of the actors contributes some kind of resources and participates in the planning and decision-making process in this new kind of collaborative arrangement. It underlines the new quality of relations between government and non-government sectors which is more balanced by sharing both risks and rewards of a project than it has been the case with pure contractual relationships. This does not necessarily imply that all actors participate equally, rather each partner contributes corresponding to its strengths and respective roles within the partnership. Another important aspect of public-private partnership is its principally open-ended conception in recognising long-term nature of cooperation.

The notion of public-private partnership applies to two dimensions:

a. strategic or policy dimension, which relates to the coordination of political objectives, suitable measures and roles of both partners in development; and

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b. operative or project dimension that deals with the realisation and implementation of these projects.

Diagram 4: Public-Private Partnership

Public Sector

Private Sector

The conceptual framework of public-private partnership has been depicted in Figure 1, where

• Area A represents partnership between government and for-profit private organisations

• Area B refers to government-civil society partnership

• Area C represents tripartite public-private partnership among government, for-profit private organisations, and not-for-profit civil society organisations.

• Finally, area D refers to partnership between civil society and for-profit private organisations due to public-private partnership, which is actually social gain from the later partnership.

Partnership for environmental protection and poverty reduction

Forests managed by their users as common property

One type of relationship that can be identified where populations living in a forested habitat, are dependent on forest outputs, and have established indigenous systems of users managing the forests as common property. For forests, some key characteristics seem to include: that they are indivisible; the area is large and the number of users low; users form a cohesive group or a particular incentive (e.g., watershed protection) creates cohesion across diverse groups; benefits outweigh the transaction costs; and, they are relatively isolated from disruptive external pressures (such as upland regions).

Historically, governments have tended to increase their control in such areas, in pursuit of revenue and environmental objectives, and consequently have usually progressively limited local rights rather than supporting them. However, in the last two or three decades this has begun to change. The principal factor has been the recognition that centralised management of forests in situations where local people also draw upon the natural resources has failed to conserve

Inter-governmental

Agencies

For-profit Organisations

Civil Society D

ABC

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essential productive and protective aspects of the forest estate. A larger role for local management of forests has also been consistent with recent strategies to devolve and decentralise, and to bring about greater participation by rural populations in decisions and actions affecting them – empowering them to effect change. It appears likely that these shifts have been facilitated in some countries by declining economic importance of the forest sector at the national level, and a related increase in interest in its environmental and socioeconomic contributions. Active role of One region in which there has been good progress towards strengthening and empowering local users to manage forests has been in the hill areas in Nepal. However, elsewhere the conditions under which user groups can effectively control and manage forests unaided have proved to be limited. Even within Nepal it has not proved possible to develop comparable working systems in the lowland areas of the Terai, characterised by more demographically diverse populations and market oriented livelihood systems. The more usual situation reflects multiple stakeholders, with different interests in local forest resources, and the conflicts that this tends to engender.

Poverty Reduction Partnership Agreement: Sustainable Forestry Management in Cambodia

Poverty Reduction Partnership Agreement between Cambodia Government and ADB is a joint understanding that formalises a programme of action for effective poverty reduction in Cambodia. The country’s forest resources are vital to rural communities and to the global environment. Forest resources are being rapidly depleted and sustainable management is urgently needed. If current trends continue, Cambodia will quickly lose its remaining forest cover, which will cause irreparable harm to the country’s eco-system. Therefore under the Partnership Agreement the partners agree to work together in (i) the adoption of the new Forestry Law, (ii) the realisation of the concession system and the delineation of permanent forest estates, (iii) enhancing the productivity of forestry, and (iv) the development of community forestry and land use planning, with long-term tenure rights to local communities and indigenous peoples. Source: ADB (2001).

Joint Forest Management in India The principal features of India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, which seeks to enhance environmental stability and the benefits to local people, include: setting up village protection committees (VPC), management plans to be established and monitored by the forest department, and local use of grass and non-timber forest products and potentially a share of the income from the timber sold by the forest department.

Not surprisingly, in such a large and diverse country, the results of applying the JFM approach have varied considerably. In the original area, in southwest Bengal, where it was first applied in the 1970s, there have been tangible results. Protection and controlled use by villagers, in an area which previously suffered from overexploitation which was depleting subsistence and income flows and adversely affecting agricultural productivity, resulted in increased fuelwood availability, significant improvement in the local environment (reduced erosion, improved water supplies, etc.) and a reduction in seasonal out-migration, suggesting that incomes from employment and from sale of non-timber products have increased. Moreover, this appears to have been of greater proportional benefit to the poor because they are able to invest more labour in forest exploitation (though fuelwood headloaders, among the poorest in most communities, did not share in the increase in benefits). The approach has been most successful in villages bordering extensive tracts of degraded forest land, where the forest-to-household ratio is relatively high, there are ethnically homogeneous

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communities possessing local forestry knowledge, and benefits accrue from minor forest products at a relatively early stage.

In areas where there has been less progress with JFM some of the more frequently encountered problems relate to difficulties in pursuing the dual objectives of achieving both sustainable forest management and enhanced local benefits. Conservation usually means restricting or prohibiting existing gathering or harvesting activities of importance to sections of the poor, at least temporarily. The subsequent changes in the composition of protected forests can have differential impacts on different categories of user, and may not be able to produce benefits commensurate with the costs people incur in pursuing JFM. Problems can also arise between different stakeholder groups, and over relationships between VPCs and the forest department.

Source: Arnold and Bird (1999).

Hill Community Forestry in Nepal In 1978, the government passed legislation enabling substantial amounts of public forest land in the middle hills to be handed over to local communities to manage, in recognition of the practical difficulties of managing the country's dispersed forest resources through the forest department. Local management was to be achieved through the panchayats, which would enter into agreements with the government to manage local areas under agreed forest management plans.

However, panchayats usually proved to be unsuitable bodies to undertake local forest management as the areas they administered seldom coincided with user group boundaries. Though forest management committees were formed, they seldom functioned as representative discussion and decision-making bodies. Management plans designed by the forest department to increase productivity tended to be neither technically acceptable nor intelligible to villagers; and cumbersome bureaucratic procedures discouraged local involvement. The system was therefore progressively revised to incorporate features of the indigenous control and management systems that many communities within the middle hill areas were practising spontaneously. These systems were typically based on user groups, rather than whole communities, which established management rules that were enforced by use of forest watchers and other social sanctions.

Following passage of a Decentralisation Act in 1982, the focus on the user group was formalised, with more authority and responsibility progressively devolving to these groups, and was given legal authority in the 1993 Forest Act. Ownership of the land remains with the State, but trees legally belong to user groups, though the State reserves the right to take back possession of the community forest if the terms and conditions of handover are not met. Management control rests solely with the users of the resource, who now develop their own operational plans, set the prices at which the produce is sold and determine how surplus income is spent. By June 1997, there were 6,000 user groups, managing 450,000 ha, with a further 6,000 waiting for formal registration.

Concerns have been expressed about domination by local elites, politicisation of the user group system, and pressures from the forest department for user groups to focus on tree planting rather than harvesting. Nevertheless, the Nepal experience has been encouraging; advancing effective management of forests by local users further than is to be found in most situations and giving it a sound legal basis. And recent studies have shown that, where user group management is active, the condition of the managed forests has often improved. Source: Arnold and Bird (1999).

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Role of common property resources (CPRs) The dependence of poor households on CPRs is, in part, a result of the resource and labor endowments of poor households. For example, with some exceptions, the main input required for using common-property resources is human labour. Special skills are not typically required. Thus a combination of low opportunity cost of labor and low pay-off from CPR-use perpetuates the poor households’ dependence. Common-property resources also play an important role indirectly, by helping poor farmers adjust factor proportions in farming. For example, by providing alternative space for grazing, CPRs allow farmers to devote all their land to the production of cash or food crops.

CPRs and Rural Poor in North Karnataka (India) Environmental resources have been categorised into four types based on the relationship between the resources and resource user: (a) private property resources, (b) state property resources, (c) open access resources and (d) common property resources (CPRs). Broadly speaking, CPRs are those that are accessible to the entire community in a village and to which no individual has exclusive property rights. On the continuum of property rights, exclusive possession at one end and at the other, there is not right on the property in fact.

In the context of Indian villages, the resources falling under the CPR category include community pastures, community forests and wastelands, common dumping and threshing grounds, watershed drainages, village ponds, rivers/rivulets as well as their banks and beds.

In India, 78.2 per cent of the total landholdings are held by marginal and small farmers. These are not viable and are subject to various risks. Only 30 per cent of the total cropland has been irrigated and the rest is rain-fed, which restricts agricultural activity to the wet season only. Because of this a large number of farmers and agricultural laborers remain unemployed during the off-season. Owing to lack of proper and equitable development of agricultural infrastructures and the inaccessibility of inputs at affordable costs, the agricultural sector does not support the full sustenance of farmers and is not always rewarding in terms of production or labour absorption.

One of the alternatives is CPR-based activity which generates income and employment and is complementary to agricultural activity. This is also favoured by the rural community. In addition to this, CPRs provide critical biomass services such as fuel, fodder/grazing, food and also held in performing some subsidiary occupations like animal husbandry, dairying and minor forest product collection. CPRs thus play a significant role at the rural level.

The most widespread use of CPR land is for the collection of fuel-wood for cooking. Fuel-wood are also collected from the reserve forest free of cost. Dung-cake and crop residues are derived from both own sources as well as from other resources (others’ fields and forests). Biogas and kerosene is exclusively derived from own sources and the cost had been borne by the people themselves.

It is generally understood that CPRs like a forest are completely accessible to the people in and around it. But in reality people do not have total accessibility to all types of forests. Forest authorities (Forest Department) regulate accessibility to the forest area specially when these are under reserve forest or protected area category. In a study conducted by Gowda and Savadatti (2004) reveals that on average, 48 per cent of the poor, 53 per cent of non-poor and 50 per cent of all households in the study villages felt the forest was open for fuel-wood collection.

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However, the main findings of the study are: In the survey villages, a substantial proportion of the total geographical area was under the common property resource category. Fuel-wood collection from CPR meets more than two-thirds of the total energy requirements of the households. More than 50 per cent of the total fodder requirements of the households were met through the CPR. Half of the surveyed households reported that the forest CPR was open for fuelwood collection. CPR income accounted for more than one-fourth the total income the poor households and 22 per cent of the total income of non-poor households. But due to overexploitation of CPR (forest) the situation is rapidly moving towards the ‘tragedy of commons’.

However, under the existing socio economic system, a majority of the Indian population is unable to meet its total biomass and energy requirements comfortably (affordable in terms of cost, technology, suitability and other inconveniences) both through the market mechanism and administered price mechanism. The general economic activity does not generate sufficient employment and income for the rural people even in the normal times. The only viable option left for them is to depend more on the existing CPRs, which would result in their overexploitation and degradation.

Broadening the partnerships The recognition of multiple stakeholders and multiple objectives has led practitioners and policy makers alike to look for partnership approaches with wider participation than the state-community interaction typical of co-management. Indeed, within co-management approaches other stakeholders – particularly from the non-governmental sector – play an increasingly important role, for instance in mediation and capacity building.

Policy dialogue at both the national and international levels is now based on the assumption that partnership mechanisms are needed to integrate all relevant actors into decision-making processes and forest management implementation in order to harmonise mandates, roles, capacities and interests. The Intergovernmental Panel on Forests and its successor the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (of the Commission on Sustainable Development), support the development of national forest programmes (NFPs) as policy frameworks to foster the participation of all stakeholders within a holistic national planning approach. The call for partnership mechanisms and partnership agreements is echoed in other international agreements such as the Desertification Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

At a field level, a particular challenge lies in the development of partnerships with the private sector. The private sector can contribute to poverty alleviation and sustainable forest management in three main ways: the provision of infrastructure, taxation (e.g. social responsibility agreements by concessionaires), and the creation of local economies that open up new opportunities for the poor. However, there is a clear need to work with the private sector to ensure that the principles of equity, equality and sustainability are adhered to and there is a role for the public sector to influence and monitor the participation of the private sector.

The development of broad partnership approaches requires an explicit examination of roles and responsibilities. Experience in co-management for example demonstrates that there is a danger that forest departments are sometimes delegating tasks to NGOs in order to avoid making necessary internal changes.

Developing pluralistic approaches and managing trade-offs

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In parallel with support to broader partnership approaches, considerable attention is also given to developing more flexible pluralistic approaches to decision making. The concept of pluralism recognises the existence of differing and often conflicting positions. These approaches can accommodate different interests and the increased likelihood of conflict that this is likely to bring, and do not require consensus before being able to move matters forward. Pluralism has encouraged the development of innovative tools such as resource management contracts and codes of conduct. Such concepts raise issues such as how to achieve needed checks and balances, and accountability, in the absence of absolute standards or single clear-cut solutions. They require more research and testing to translate them into viable operational procedures.

A further element of the re-thinking that is going on in connection with multiple users of the forest, is to address the issue that forest management practices in pursuit of the objectives of one user group can have negative impacts on other groups. For example, achievement of conservation objectives in co-management approaches has often meant restriction or prohibition of existing gathering or harvesting activities of importance to sections of the poor, at least temporarily. It is clear that the poor may be harmed when management demands less use in the short-term in return for a better resource later, unless alternatives are provided.

Equally, decisions in one sector can have a negative influence on another sector. These ‘knock-on’ effects are frequently evident where both development and conservation objectives are being followed. The livelihoods approach helps make the trade-offs between economic growth, human development, social integration and environmental integrity explicit. Support to livelihood approaches and other adaptive management tools is required to develop management practices that meet the dual objectives of sustainable forest management and poverty alleviation, and that are acceptable to all, or most, of those with a stake.

Success in urban waste management in Bangladesh Dhaka with a population of 6 million within its metropolitan boundary of 344 sq. km generates around 3000 metric tons of municipal solid waste per day. Only 42 per cent is collected; rest lies on road-sides, open drains and low-lying areas. Waste Concern, a local NGO, has developed an innovative solution to this massive problem based on decentralised composting integrated with primary collection of solid waste. The innovation drew on two critical research conclusions: firstly, that like other mega-cities, more than 50 per cent of waste generated is disposed of in environmentally unsound and unfriendly ways, and secondly, that a large informal sector industry exists in Dhaka which recovers and recycles solid waste. Much of this recycling activity focuses on the inorganic part of the waste, reusable and recyclable materials, which can be sold entrepreneurs. However, the recycling ignored the organic part of the waste. The project has demonstrated that the this organic fraction of the waste can be converted into a valuable resource i.e. compost, through a number of small-scale decentralised private micro-enterprise (composting plant) using appropriate technology and involving the private sector as a link between the suppliers of raw waste and end-users of compost. Since the completion of the pilot phase, Dhaka City Corporation has undertaken to replicate the model in 4 of its wards. Further replication in other urban centres of the country are expected.

Source: Our Future Our Responsibility: Road Map: Towards a Poverty Free South Asia, SAARC Secretariat, Katmandu, 2003 .

Twin successes in India The Peddireddy Thimma Reddy Farm Foundation in Hyderabad, is dedicated to the protection and strengthening of farming and farm communities. Inspired by Gandhian concepts, the NGO promotes a vigorous agricultural industry that embraces rural development and international

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markets. In 1996, Peddireddy worked with Suvera Processed Foods Pvt Ltd, a local agro-processing company, to address pollution in the mango processing industry. Each of Suvera’s 27 mango pulp-processing factories in India’s Chittoor District dumps 2000 tons of waste every harvest season. To reduce Suvera’s processing wastes and convert remaining wastes into new products, it has focused on clean production research, training, consultation and technical analysis.

Peddireddy conducted site visits and measured utilisation of resources, including raw materials, facilities, tools, water, land, human capital, and land waste streams. It provided training on cleaner production processes to selected workers, and conducted small experiments. In the second phase, it identified opportunities to reduce pollution, converted mango wastes into fuel, cocoa-extender, cattle feed and fertiliser, thereby extending employment into the off-season. In addition, it involved machinery manufacturers in discussions to reduce large energy losses in the processing plant.

As a result, Suvera Foods achieved a 95 per cent reduction in waste and waste-hauling costs, and profited in the sale of new by-product. Reduced chlorine use improved local sanitation and the water supply. Investigation of a new pesticide treatment accounted for a 40 per cent increase in pest-free processed mangoes. New raw material processing led to a longer season of employment, increasing company profits and employee income. Working conditiond for skilled and unskilled labour, mostly women and children, improved. Most importantly, for the long-term sustainability of cross-sector partnerships, interest in clean production expanded among the NGOs and industries in other parts of India.

Peddireddy’s successful partnership with Suvera resulted in a new partnership project with VBC Ferro Alloys Limited and a second NGO, Centre for Resource Education. Begun in 1997, this project focused on introducing environmental management systems to decrease silicon fine waste, coal and coke dust, and chrome slag in the ferro-alloy sector. The project attracted the support of the Federation of Andhara Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Hyderabad and of local politiians who have become aware of the benefits of NGO-Business partnerships (Tahmina and Gain, 2002).

V. IMPORTANCE OF INSTITUTIONS AND PARTICIPATION Since access to common resources is often key to the livelihood of the rural poor and plays a crucial role in enhancing their opportunities, questions of property rights, local institutions for the management of common-property resources, and “environmental entitlements” become central to the issue of poverty alleviation. For instance, the weak definition of property rights in forest areas is seen by some as a driving force behind deforestation. In urban areas slum dwellers, squatters, and migrants often lack tenure security over the land they inhabit. The illegal nature of settlements, combined with poor public-infrastructure provision, is seen as reducing individual incentives for managing local surroundings, and thus contributing to a deteriorating urban environment. Some evidence exists to support the argument that the absence of property rights over land and cattle can reduce women’s ability to manage common resources, especially in the context of male out-migration. For example, 40 to 50 percent of all rural households in Zimbabwe are female-headed. During the 1992 drought, women who managed the cattle and could see the oncoming crisis could not make the decision to sell the cattle before conditions deteriorated. Their husbands, who were living in the city at the time, were consulted through

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letters but were unwilling to sell the cattle. In the later stages of the drought, as the grass died out, grazing pressure increased on communal lands and rural farmers had to face large cattle losses. If the women had the decision-making power to sell the animals which they raised they would have certainly sold them earlier and coped better the drought related crises which affected them quite severely. So the challenge is how to rewrite the script of gender norms and truly empower women to take relevant decisions on their livelihoods.

Poor communities have often developed local rules and sophisticated mechanisms for managing natural resources. There are alternatives, other than regulations by a centralised authority or privatisation of natural resources, for managing resources sustainably. Moreover, there is ample evidence that the shift from communal property rights to state and individual control has exacerbated environmental degradation in many places. The point is that although institutions are important, the particular form that they take for sustainable management of environmental resources varies in different circumstances.

Institutional policies, institutions, and networks Policies and programmes, whether economic, social or environmental, cannot be implemented effectively without the support of an interconnected network of institutions at different levels: national, sub-national and local. In addition to the apex institutions for example, parliament and the judiciary, institutions include administrative bodies, such as ministries, departments, councils and committees, which, in general, deal with policies and programmes belonging to specific areas. Institutional policies refer to the legal, normative and regulatory framework which enables the policies to generate the intended impact. For example, the environment ministry, the institution which is primarily responsible for implementing environmental policies, cannot carry out pollution control programmes (either through command and control or by using a market mechanism) without clearly defined pollution norms and legal penalties for not adhering to the norms.

Diagram 5: Institutional coordination for integrating development and environment

• Apex national level bodies - Parliament and other bodies

representing the people - Judiciary

• Administrative bodies - Ministries - Departments - Councils - Committees

Vertical coordination on environmental matters

• Existence of and interaction between apex and administrative bodies at different levels: national, regional, district, village and community

Horizontal coordination between administrative

bodies on environmental matters

People’s participation and ownership

Avoidance of conflicts and harmonising

synergy

Integrating development and

environment

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Source: ESCAP (2003).

The success of vertical coordination between institutions dealing with environmental matters depends on the emphasis given to decentralized decision-making and the creation of decentralised institutions as well as the linkages between them. Effective vertical coordination ensures that environmental issues and concerns at the local level, especially in small towns and rural areas, are given due consideration in designing policies and programmes. The involvement of local institutions in formulating and implementing policies is essential as they are directly in touch with problems in their areas of operation and may have useful insights as to appropriate solutions. Local institutional structures can comprise many forms, from municipal councils or commissions in urban areas to village councils in rural areas.

The role of sub-national institutions and local governments in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes on matters related to the environment has expanded in the post-Rio era. In many countries, provincial-level environmental agencies have been set up and local governments have been given the responsibility for formulating and implementing local environmental protection plans (local Agenda 21). For example, in Japan, local authorities are involved in the implementation of environmental laws, regulations and guidelines and the measurement and control of pollution. Out of a total of 248 local governments in the Republic of Korea, 159 are formulating local environmental plans. Provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China have also formulated their own local Agenda 21 plans regarding management of the environment. Similar efforts have been made in many other countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. The local municipal governments are in principle closest to urban environmental problems, such as air and water pollution and the lack of industrial waste disposal facilities. They are capable of participating effectively in the administration of control measures.

In China, there are municipal environmental protection commissions consisting of local leaders, other commissions and bureaucrats. These commissions are responsible for implementing policies and coordinating activities at the local level; these, in turn, are assisted by the environmental protection departments of municipal governments. In Fiji, the Suva City Council is the largest local government entity and deals with environmental issues; in terms of implementation, relying on different departments to carry out its plans. The Health Services Department in Fiji plays an important role as it is in charge of garbage collection, waste disposal and drainage control. The problem of squatters, with its serious environmental implications, is also addressed by the Health Services Department. Village councils and committees are common in the rural areas. They can play a significant role in monitoring rural environmental problems, such as soil degradation, deforestation and depletion of fish stocks. In Samoa, the traditional Polynesian decision-making system is reflected in the structure of most political and social organisations. Village councils decide on all matters pertaining to the village and its land and sea resources. One of the important features of this decision-making system is the emphasis placed on consensus. People avoid conflict by consensus agreement among peers. Meetings involve as many stakeholders as possible. In the villages, the village council discusses all matters concerning village life, especially when there are conflicts over resource use.

Again in Nepal, there are various district and village development committees. As a result of the decentralisation policy, these committees are empowered to undertake village and district development activities. These activities have had a tremendous positive impact with regard to new road construction, irrigation, drinking water, forest management, etc. For instance, areas of

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degraded and semi-degraded forest land are allocated to these local bodies for management, controlled exploitation and reforestation. This has improved the quality of land and prevented the massive destruction of forests. The Annapurna Conservation Area Project in Nepal is an illustration of the successful decentralisation of planning and decision-making. Although there have been several attempts to enhance the importance of local institutions, their role has been mostly confined to participating in environment-related activities in some specific sectors.

There are very few mechanisms enabling local institutions to participate and provide inputs, directly or indirectly (through regional institutions), into the formulation of overall development policies and to voice their concerns on environmental matters. In order to overcome the limitations mentioned earlier, the creation of an apex local (urban or rural) council with representation from various local government departments would be beneficial and it could present local views in a regional council. In this way, local issues and concerns, including those related to the environment, would be directly presented at the regional level and indirectly in national policy-making bodies (through the regional entity).

Environment and participation Broadly speaking, participation is a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over priority setting, policy-making, resource allocations (see Chart 2).

Ordinary people interact with environment in many capacities: as users of natural resources, as victims of development initiatives, as nurturer of the nature, and as they cope with ecological disasters and stresses. However, participatory environmental governance is especially needed because (Rahman et al, 2002):

• Too often environmental decisions are made without the benefit of citizens’ involvement, to the detriment of communities.

• When citizens are at the decision-making table, the decisions for caring environment are better.

• Citizens know more about their communities than the agencies that are supposedly taking care of them.

• In many communities citizens turn to themselves and their neighbors for help while taking efforts at local environment.

• Citizens need to embrace the idea of living in a way that can be sustained year after year and generation after generation.

Chart 2: Illustration of Participation

ON

NATIONAL STRATEGIES

HORIZONTAL PARTICIPATION (Breadth of participation across interest groups)

Government Academia Sectors Communities in specific regions

National

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Meso level links needed between national and local

Source: Bass et al (1995: 56).

But there are certain drawbacks of participatory governance. Typology of participation and their limitations are described in the Table 5.

Table 5: Typology of participation

Typology Components of each type and limitations Passive participation People participate by being told what is going to happen or has

already happened. It is a unilateral announcement by an administration or project management without listening to people’s responses. The information shared belongs only to external professionals.

Participation in information giving

People participate by giving answers to questions posed by extractive researchers and project manager using questionnaire surveys or similar approaches. People do not have the opportunity to influence proceedings, as the findings of the research or project design are neither shared nor checked for accuracy.

Participation by consulting People participate by being consulted, and external agents listen to views. These external agents define problems and solutions, and may modify these in the light of people’s responses. Such a consultative process does not concede any share in decision-making and professional are under no obligation to take on board people’s views.

Participation for material People participate by proving resources, for example, labor, in

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incentives return for food, cash, or other material incentives. Much in situ research falls into this category: rural people provide land but are not involved in the experimentation or the process of learning. This is commonly called participation, yet people have no stake in prolonging activities when incentives end.

Functional participation People participate by forming groups to meet pre-determined objectives related to the project, which can involve the development or promotion of externally-initiated social organization. Such involvement does not tend to occur at the early stages of project cycles or planning, rather, only after major discussions have been made. These institutions tend to be dependent on external structures, but may become independent in time.

Interactive participation People participate in joint analysis, which leads to action plans and the formation of new local groups or the strengthening of existing ones. It tends to involve interdisciplinary methods that seek multiple perspectives and make use of systematic and structured learning processes. These groups take control over local decisions, so that people have a stake in maintaining structures or practices.

Self mobilisation/ active participation

People participate by taking initiatives independent of external institutions to change systems. Such self initiated mobilisation and collective action may or may not challenge existing distributions or wealth and power.

Source: Twyman (1998). Environment and empowerment Environmental education must be part of any long-term, poverty-focused environmental strategy. Awareness about the negative environmental externalities or adverse impact of certain development projects on the livelihoods of poor people often does not go beyond the communities that are most severely affected by it. For instance, urban consumers of fuel-wood may be scarcely aware of the consequences of increased logging on the livelihood of the rural poor. In such a case environmental education can play a particularly important role by informing different segments of the local population about issues relevant to the community and negotiating local conflict. This becomes even more salient in the context of weak local environment institutions.

A key aspect of many environmental projects is institutional capacity building, which focuses largely on training personnel within environmental ministries or programmes. Such an approach to capacity building often has limited success, either due to corruption at the ministerial level or because it is de-linked from the concerns of the community. Bureaucratic regidity is yet another constraint. Here too, environmental education can play an extremely powerful role in the long run by creating demand for effective local institutions and laying the cultural groundwork for effective political action.

Awareness about environmental issues can be raised by public and private agencies, grassroots institutions, through changes in school curricula, and by creative use of the local media. The Sustainable Environment Management Programme (SEMP) in Bangladesh supported by UNDP

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and implemented by the Government with active support of both government and non-government institutions has demonstrated clearly how environmental consciousness among citizens can be raised in innovative ways. Besides, increased media coverage, a separate environment-related periodicals supported by the Programme reaches nooks and corner of the country and helps raise environmental awareness amongst all the stakeholders including judges, parliamentarians, administrators, local government officials, NGO leaders, school teachers andas well as students. However, even in the absence of direct links with political parties, various environmental conflicts in India have gained national attention as a result of work by the media and professional groups. Many development projects attempt to involve local communities in various stages of planning as a way of making projects more participatory. This suggests that environmental education is a dynamic, two-way process that can enable both local communities and development institutions to be more responsive and accountable.

People in general and the poor in particular have to keep an eye on what is dished out to them as development projects. Indeed many large-scale development interventions have proved to be environmental disasters. The dam raised around Kaptai Lake for producing electricity in Bangladesh in the sixties of the last century displaced thousands of households of indigenous people and sowed the seeds of ethnic discontent which is still creating social and political tensions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). The environmental consciousness was not high enough at that time to avoid such a development disaster. The global civil society was not also well-developed to take up the issue of environmental degradation out of Kaptai Hydroelectric Project. But same was not the case with Silent Valley Dam in India. The anti-dam movement in the early eighties could actually force the policy-makers to shelve the project.

People’s movement can protect displacement of the poor The first significant victory for the Indian anti-dam movement was the campaign against a 120 metre hydro-dam in Silent Valley in the Southwest Indian state of Kerala. Unlike most Indian dams, few people would have been displaced by the project. Opposition instead came mainly from environmentalists enraged at the prospective destruction of one of the country’s few relatively undisturbed areas of rainforest. Local people initially favoured the Silent Valley Dam, believing it would bring employment, but many were later convinced by activists that the dam and the deforestation which would follow in its wake would harm their livelihoods. The environment of the national affiliates of the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ensured international attention and pressure on the Indian government. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the project to be shelved in 1983. Source: Patrick McCully (2001): Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, Zed Books, London.

Bangladesh also experienced another development disaster in its southern area when an embankment built without environmental consideration caused persistent water-logging and affected livelihoods of thousands people (see Rahman, 1995). People, however, protested vehemently this time. A protester was even killed by the police while agitating against the ill-designed project. The government had to take ameliorating measures to help people cope with this environmental disaster. Social mobilisation truly worked here.

Property rights of the poor

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The property rights to resources, that is, land, water and trees, play an important role in the environment-poverty linkage, especially in the rural areas. As the rural poor often rely on customary and informal arrangements, they are deprived of formal private property rights and, at times, exploited. Uncertain ownership conditions have a negative impact on agricultural productivity by inhibiting investment and reducing incentives for resource conservation. The situation can be reversed by ensuring property rights through policy interventions. For example, the formal issuance of legal titles in Thailand in 1984 was beneficial for agricultural productivity and thus provided the necessary incentive and financial resources for investing in soil and water conservation. A large number (15.5 million) of land titles were distributed to 2.2 million households, of which 35 per cent were below the poverty line. A study has shown that this action has resulted in an 8-27 per cent increase in agricultural output. In India, tenancy reforms, the enactment of land ceiling legislation and the distribution of surplus (over ceiling) land to the poor was very successful in the State of West Bengal. The tenancy reform programme which began in the late 1960s through Operation Barga, a movement to register sharecroppers and provide them with tenurial security through legal enactment and social mobilisation, was very beneficial to the landless poor. A large number of sharecroppers (1.5 million) were formally provided with security of tenure. Of these, 38 per cent belonged to the downtrodden class (“dalits” and “scheduled castes”, who are the poorest of the poor). Although, by and large, providing ownership of land to the poor should enhance their income-earning capabilities and their interest in resource conservation, Governments have to make sure that the land does not end up with rich persons or speculators, which would defeat the objective of this policy.

Social forestry Social forestry is the sustainable management of trees and forests by farmers, landowners, industries or community-based organizations in order to provide forest products and services to meet local needs. It is distinguished from commercial forestry by the extent of stakeholders’ involvement, their decision-making powers and the benefits that accrue to them. The principal stakeholders in social forestry are the people who live in the local communities located close to the forest. Such communities often encompass a large number of poor people who cannot afford to live in better places. Fundamental to social forestry is the employment of these people to manage the trees so as to improve their economic and social condition. Here, the social dimension is more important than that of forestry. Here, the social dimension is more important than that of forestry.

Social forestry includes a wide range of activities, such as tree-planting, agro-forestry, management of natural forests, watershed management and the collection of non-wood forest products. At times, social forestry touches upon other sectors, such as the energy sector, when families plant and harvest fuel-wood for domestic cooking and heating, or the agricultural sector, when farmers use trees to enrich soil, produce fodder to feed livestock and plant windbreaks to protect crops. The importance of the sustainable development of forestry has been highlighted in the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

A large number of countries in the Asian and Pacific region have adopted social forestry as an important modality for improving the environment and providing a livelihood income to the rural poor.

Success of social forestry in a Chinese village

Nongla village of China, located in a bare limestone area, had been traditionally

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underdeveloped. Harsh living conditions and the shortage of water have hindered economic growth and perpetuated poverty. As a result of the efforts of villagers in afforestation over the past 10 years, about 72 per cent of village-owned land has now been planted with Chinese medicinal herbs and fruit trees. As a consequence, the land under forest cover in and around the village reached 90 per cent and villagers’ per capita annual cash income rose to 3,180 yuan ($383) in 2001, a big increase from 100 yuan ($12) 20 years ago.

Before social forestry was introduced, the villagers thought that their land could only be used to plant corn, the growth of which was frequently damaged by flooding. With the help of extension services provided by township, country and autonomous regional level governments, the villagers have acquired the skill to grow medicinal plants. The village is an example of success in both poverty reduction and sustainable development through the sensible development of localresources as well as protection of the environment. Source: ESCAP (2003).

Community Involvement in Forest Management: A success story of IUCN

IUCN’s successful Facilitation of the working group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (1997-2001) came to an end in 2004. The main output of the Group has been a series of regional profiles and contributions to global and regional forest policy forums. The profiles document the diversity of lessons leaned on a variety of issues, such as policies and institutions, tenure, economic incentives, livelihoods, indigenous peoples, stakeholders and power, and biodiversity. Through its mixed government – NGO and North-South membership, the working group acquired a non-partisan reputation and as a consequence many government delegates used the Working Group recommendations to propose text for the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests. Members of the Working Group are also active at regional and sub-regional policy levels helping to ensure that lessons from community involvement inform policies and institutional arrangements. The overall programme has contributed significantly to understanding how community involvement in forest management can enhance poor peoples’ livelihood in developing countries, and (re-)connect people with forests in rural and urban areas in developing countries, thus contributing to sustainable futures in the a world facing increasing environmental and social pressures. The Group’s publications include profiles on: United States and Canada; South Asia; South-East Asia; Mesoamerica; Western Europe; and thematic studies from Eastern Africa. The community Involvement in Forest Management work was supported by Ford Foundation and DFID.

Source: www.iucn.org.

In recognition of its great benefits, the Government of Indonesia has given social forestry considerable importance in its official five-year development plans and has actively supported projects in this area (ESCAP 2003). The Kaltim social forestry project in Indonesia aims at generating local capacity in social forestry through professional development research, curriculum development and training-extension activities. Greater capacity in social forestry facilitates greater community participation in the management of East Kalimantan’s forests. The project led by the following major objectives:

One, protecting and managing the environment by limiting resource degradation and expanding the environmental benefits of trees through the introduction of agroforestry systems to enhance farm and pasture productivity, protecting household and community food and fuelwood supplies,

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conserving natural forests, expanding the area of protected areas under joint community- Government management and using trees in the conservation of soil and water resources

Two, supporting private sector development by increasing the sustainable output of economic products from tree and forest resources, expanding the development of forest industries on an appropriate scale to expand cash incomes on a locally sustainable basis, creating professional opportunities for local social forestry and natural resource management and expanding the knowledge base regarding sustainable economic uses for natural forest products in the tropics

Three, developing sustainable infrastructure services by initiating self-sustaining education programmes in social forestry at the community, technical and professional levels by increasing the capacity of the educational infrastructure in the following areas: practical soil conservation; forest management; family fuel-wood supply and use; agricultural and pastoral fire management; watershed management; extension and communication skills in participatory needs assessment; planning, monitoring and evaluation; resource monitoring; integrated resource management and protection; and soil and water conservation

VI. CONCLUSION The nexus among poverty and environment as well as with development and population policies should be understood in a holistic manner. Isolated poverty alleviation strategies will not be effective if they are not environmentally sound, participatory in nature and focused on building local and national capacities for self-reliance.

Incorporating people’s knowledge, perception and attitudes in planning is vital for environmental friendly, development. It is equally important that people are constantly reminded about the intricate linkage between environment and their sustenance. A broad based eco-perception should be incorporated while designing most of mega development projects so as to avert the environment-poverty nexus. The establishment, often driven by donor interests and consultants vested interests and prejudice ignores indigenous knowledge base and imposes on the local people development projects which are not always sensitive to local environment. The environmental consequences of such projects can be indeed devastating.

In order to handle effectively the overwhelming global environment-poverty nexus and its threats towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the poor need to be seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Efforts should be made to improve environmental management in ways that contribute to sustainable growth and poverty reduction, and more particularly reflecting the priorities of the poor. Supportive policies and institutions are needed, including access to information and decision making, that expand the poor’s opportunities to invest in environmental improvements that can enhance their livelihoods. Environmental quality of growth definitely matters to the poor. There are many examples of how bad environmental management is also bad for growth, and of how the poor suffer the most from environmental degradation. Ignoring the environmental soundness of growth ― even if this leads to short-run economic gains ― can undermine growth itself in the long run and its effectiveness in reducing poverty.

Environmental management needs to be integrated into poverty reduction and sustainable development efforts in order to achieve significant and sustainable results. Improving environmental management in ways that benefit the poor requires policy and institutional

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changes that cut across sectors and that lie mostly outside the control of environmental institutions ― changes in governance, domestic economic and social policies, and international and industrial-country policies. Moreover, poverty-environment issues should be integrated into national development frameworks by addressing the environmental concerns of the poor in nationally owned poverty reduction strategies (PRSPs) and related macroeconomic and sectoral policy reforms, so that they can become integral parts of national sustainable development strategies. Poverty-environment issues should be integrated into economic policy reforms by expanding the use of strategic environmental assessment and poverty social impact analysis approaches and by strengthening environmental management standards and monitoring capabilities. Decentralisation of environmental management should be strengthened by integrating poverty-environment issues into sub-national policy and planning processes and sectoral investment programmess. Civil society, and the poor and marginalised groups should be empowered to influence environmental management policy and planning processes at all levels by expanding public access to environmental information, decision making, and justice. Poverty-environment monitoring and assessment should be improved by strengthening government and civil society capacity to monitor environmental change and how it affects the poor, by integrating poverty-environment indicators into national poverty monitoring systems, and by building capacity to apply monitoring and assessment results to poverty-environment policy formulation and implementation. Gender dimensions of poverty-environment nexus should be addressed by ensuring that they are fully integrated into the formulation, implementation and monitoring of poverty reduction strategies and related policy reforms.

Anti-corruption efforts should be strengthened to protect environment and the poor by improving legislative and regulatory frameworks and oversight mechanisms, by ensuring effective mechanisms for feedback from communities to enforcement agencies. Rights of the poor on the natural resources, particularly CPRs, should be strengthened by reforming policies and formal and informal institutions that influence land and natural resource access, ownership, control and benefit sharing, with particular attention on resource rights for women.

The poor’s capacity to manage the environment, including conservation and sustainable use of land, water, and biological resources, and access to clean water, sanitation services and energy, should be enhanced by strengthening local management arrangement and capacity and by supporting women’s key roles in managing natural resources. Environmental vulnerability of the poor should be reduced by strengthening participatory disaster preparedness and risk reduction and mitigation capacity, by supporting the formal and informal coping strategies of vulnerable groups, and by expanding access to insurance and other risk management mechanisms.

Access to environmentally sound and locally appropriate technology, such as crop production technologies that conserve soil, water, and agro-biodiversity and that minimise the use of pesticides, or appropriate renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies that also minimise air pollution, should be expanded by improving protection of and access to indigenous knowledge and technologies, by improving incentives for pro-poor technology development, and by involving the poor in technology research, demonstration, and dissemination.

Appropriate private-sector involvement should be encouraged by strengthening government and community capacities to partner with the private sector to expand environmental services for the poor, by providing incentives for local enterprise development based on the sustainable use of biodiversity (such as community-based ecotourism or sustainable harvest of natural products),

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and by putting in place appropriate regulations and voluntary codes to safeguard the interests of the poor and the environment.

Pro-poor environmental fiscal reform should be implemented through pricing natural resources appropriately, particularly energy and water; through expanding the use of fiscal incentives to promote environmentally sound practices; through improving the use of rent/taxes to better capture and more effectively allocate natural resource revenues; and through improving the use of pollution charges to better reflect environmental costs in market prices. Use of alternative fuels like bio-gas and other bio-fuels like solar energy should be popularised and made available to rural households at an affordable cost. Adequate fiscal incentives may be provided to this end.

International and industrial-country trade policies should be improved by addressing trade-environment-poverty links in the negotiation and implementation of multilateral trade agreements, by reforming trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and trade barriers to give developing countries equitable access to international markets and to encourage environment-friendly products and trade practices, and by eliminating subsidies that lead to unsustainable exploitation – such as subsidies for large-scale commercial fishing fleets that encourage overharvesting in developing-country fisheries. Sustainable consumption and production should be encouraged. Industrialised country’s consumers and producers affect the environmental conditions of developing countries through their trade, investment, pollution, and other activities. Making rich-country’s consumption and production more sustainable will require a complex mix of institutional changes – addressing market and government failures as well as broad public attitudes. Interventions may have to be made at the global governance level to bring this change.

Effectiveness of development cooperation and debt relief should be enhanced in addressing poverty-environment issues, particularly for the poorest countries, where aid and debt relief continue to have a valuable role to play in helping governments make many of the changes needed. This includes mainstreaming environment in donor agency policies and operations through staff training; development and application of new skills, tools, and approaches; and revisions to the way resources and budgets are allocated.

There are substantial lacunae in the availability of data that capture environment-poverty inter-linkages. In many cases, environmental data focus on environmental changes without measuring their impact on the poor, and poverty data do not capture environmental concerns. Institutional mechanisms are needed through which the information on those data could be gathered, analysed, and used for designing policies to improve the environment and reduce poverty. For that to happen the capacity of the central statistical agencies and research institutions have to be strengthened to generate environment-sensitive data which cut across all areas of development.

The government should have a clear policy for the retention of CPRs. Any further curtailment of CPR land should be strictly avoided. The role of community in protecting CPRs has to be re-emphasised. Fuel-wood supplying trees and fodder should be grown on available village common lands on the basis of cost-benefit sharing between government and the people. NGOs too can play their role in facilitating development of this partnership. They too can become a partner. Open grazing in the forest CPR should be discouraged and stall feeding should be encouraged to grow fuel-wood and fodder on own personal lands. For households having more land (non poor) it should be made compulsory to grow fuel-wood and fodder on personal lands. Adequate partnership can be developed between groups of the poor and land-owners besides a public road and the local government institute to develop social forests, the outputs of which will

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be shared by each party at a later date. The rural households that derive benefits from CPRs should be convinced about the benefits of regeneration of these resources and sustainable utilisation which will inspire the people to protect and regenerate them. Protection, regeneration and developmental aspects of common property resources should be entrusted to the local government institutions with active participation of the local community.

Emphasis of social forestry should indeed be on community ownership of forestry resources, equitable distribution of accrued benefits among the community. In ‘social forestry’ trees are seen as nothing but instruments of change for poverty reduction. Therefore, the poor should be given ownership of the resources such as social forestry and land. There is an urgent need for realisation in the policy-making arena about “less about forestry and more about social forestry” to have an effective synergy on environmental protection and poverty reduction.

Effective environmental commissions or coalitions have to be developed at the local level with local governments as lead agencies drawing partners from local NGOs, CBOs, and representatives of the landless and other segments of population.

Sustainable IT network (like SDNBD in Bangladesh) be further developed to bring all the actors involved in environmental protection together for raising environmental consciousness among different groups of citizens including the journalists, researchers, NGO activists, teachers/students, local government leaders, and government officials involved in development activities. Efforts need to be made to improve the quality of interaction between national and global civil society activists involved in environmental and poverty reduction activisms.

The budget makers need to be sufficiently sensitised so that both taxation measures and allocations of the national and local budgets reflect environmental concerns of the citizens.

VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADB (2001): “Poverty Reduction Partnership Agreement” in Country Operational Strategy for Cambodia 2002-2004.

Arnold, JEM and P Bird (1999): “Forests and the Poverty-Environment Nexus”, prepared for the UNDP/EC Expert Workshop on Poverty and the Environment, Brussels, January 20-21, 1999.

BIAC (2004): “BIAC Discussion Paper”, presented at the OECD Environmental Ministerial titled Implementing the OECD Environmental Strategy: Accountability, Efficiency and Partnership, 19-21 April 2004.

Bass, S. et al (1995): Participation in Strategies for Sustainable Development, Environment Planning Issues No. 7, IIED, London.

Dasgupta, P (1993): An Enquiry into Well-being and Distribution, Oxford University Press, New York.

Dasgupta, S, U Deichmann, C Meisner, and D Wheeler (2002): The Poverty/Environment Nexus - Findings for Lao PDR, World Bank, Washington, DC, November 2002.

DFID (2004a): Climate change in Asia, at: http.www.dfid.gov.uk.

_____ (2004b) Climate change deepens poverty and challenges poverty reduction strategies.

DFID, EC, UNDP and WB (2002): “Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management : Policy Challenges and Opportunities”, July 2002.

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ESCAP (2003): “Environment-poverty nexus revisited: linkages and policy options”, in Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2003.

Government of Bangladesh (2004): A Strategy for Sustainable Development towards Poverty Reduction: Final Report, Thematic Group 10 Report for Final PRSP Bangladesh.

Gowda, MN and PM Savadatti (2004): “CPRs and Rural Poor: Study in North Karnataka”, in Economic and Political Weekly, August 14, 2004.

Grimble, R, C Cardoso, and S Omar Chowdhury (2002): Poor People and the Environment: Issues and Linkages, Policy Series 16, Natural Resource Institute, Chatham, UK.

Jehan, S and A Umana (2003): “The Environment-poverty Nexus”, in Development Policy Journal, March 2003.

Mink, SD (1993): Poverty, Population and the Environment, World Bank, Washington, DC

Rahman, Atiur (2001): “Chapter 8: Environment”, in Fighting Human Poverty: Bangladesh Human Development Report 2000, BIDS, Dhaka.

Rahman, Atiur, MA Ali and F Chowdhury (2002): “In Search of a People’s Perspective on Environment in Bangladesh”, in People’s Report on Bangladesh Environment, Vol I, Unnayan Shamannay/UPL, Dhaka.

Sen, Amartya (1981): Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford University Press, New York.

Tahmina and P Gain (2002): A Guide to NGO-Business Partnerships, SEHD, Dhaka.

Twyman, C (1998): Policy Frameworks and Context I: Issues and linkages to poverty, natural resources and desertification, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield.

United Nations (2003): Why do the Millennium Development Goals Matter? From the Secretary General’s 2003 Report on Implementation of the United nations Millennium Declaration.

World Bank (2003): World Development Report 2003: Sustainable Development - Transforming Institutions, Growth, and Quality of Life, World Bank/Oxford University Press, Washington, DC/New York.

VIII. ANNEXES Annex 1: International organisations and non-state actors in providing synergies between environmental protection and poverty reduction I. UN Organisations

A. United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP)

• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - provides an integrative and interactive mechanism through which a large number of separate efforts by intergovernmental, non-governmental, national and regional bodies in the service of the environment are reinforced and interrelated

• UNEP Aims to Create Stricter Measures for Environmental Crimes - hosts workshop to identify ways to combat environmental crimes such as illegal trade in endangered species, use of ozone depleting substances, and production of hazardous wastes

B. Commission on Sustainable Development

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• Commission on Sustainable Development - ensures effective follow-up of UNCED and monitors and reports on implementation of the Earth Summit agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels

C. United Nations Development Programme

• United Nations Development Programme - helps countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable human development by assisting them to build their capacity to design and carry out development programmes in poverty eradication, employment creation and sustainable livelihoods, the empowerment of women and the protection and regeneration of the environment, giving first priority to poverty eradication

• Global Resource Information Database (GRID) - a UNEP program, acts as an environmental information and assessment center for policy-makers and the public

II. Administering Treaties: CoPs, Secretariats and Subsidiary Bodies

A. Conferences of the Parties

• U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 7 - establishes the primary policy-making body of the Climate Change Convention

B. Secretariats

• U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Article XII - establishes the Secretariat which helps the Parties to implement CITES by providing interpretation of the provisions of the Convention, and advice on its practical implementation

C. Subsidiary Bodies and Committees

• Convention on Biological Diversity, Article 25 - establishes the functions of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA)

• Meetings of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) - provides full reports of the meetings

III. Reforming the UN for Environmental Protection

A. Environmental Protection Council

• A New Way to Make International Environmental Law - by Geoffrey Palmer, proposing a legislative response to environmental protection by suggesting the formation of an Environmental Protection Council within the UN system

B. Global Environmental Organization

• The Case of Global Environmental Protection - a manuscript by E. Wesley F. Peterson, suggesting the creation of a supranational organization for the provision of international public goods with reference to the problem of global environmental protection

• International Conference on Biotechnology in the Global Economy: Science and the Precautionary Principle - addresses the application of the precautionary principle in biotechnology issues by analyzing its use in international environmental and trade law

C. Trusteeship of the Global Commons

• The Basic Vision - a popular edition of the report of the Commission on Global Governance

IV. Role of Non-State Actors

A. NGOs

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• Centre for International Environmental Law - a public interest, not-for-profit environmental law firm joining the U.S. public interest environmental movement with the strengthening and developing of international and comparative environmental law, policy, and management

• Environmental Defense Fund - a not-for-profit environmental advocacy group with the goals of stabilising the Earth's climate, safeguarding the world's oceans, protecting human health, and defending and restoring biodiversity

• Environmental Law Institute - an internationally recognized independent research and education center, advancing environmental protection by improving law, policy, and management

• Greenpeace - an independent and non-political, international organisation, dedicated to the protection of the environment by peaceful means

• The World Conservation Union (IUCN) - the world's largest environmental knowledge network with the goal of influencing, encouraging, and assisting societies to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature while ensuring that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable

• Sierra Club - the largest grassroots environmental organization working to preserve irreplaceable wild lands, save endangered and threatened wildlife, and protect the fragile environment

• EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund - formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit law firm providing free service for environmental clients with the goal of environmental justice

• World Wide Fund for Nature - the world's largest and most experienced independent conservation organization with the mission of protecting nature and biological diversity

• Abya Yala Fund - an indigenous foundation for peoples of South and Meso America, supports community development initiatives as well as promotes international understanding of and advocacy for indigenous issues

• Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development (A SEED) - a global action network that encourages youth and student groups to participate in campaigns for the environment, development and human rights

• Amazon Watch - an activist group that works with indigenous and environmental organizations in the Amazon Basin on environmental and indigenous rights issues being affected by investment and development projects

• Institute for Local Self-Reliance - a non-profit research and educational organization that encourages and supports the creation of environmentally and economically sustainable communities

• Project Underground - an environmental, human rights and indigenous rights group that provides assistance to communities threatened by the mining and oil industries and to uncover corporate environmental and human rights abuses in those sectors

• EnviroLink - a grassroots, online non-profit organization, connecting individuals and organizations that promote the creation of a sustainable society, that acts as a clearinghouse for the environmental community

B. Corporations

• World Business Council for Sustainable Development - a coalition of 125 international companies united by a shared commitment to the environment and to the principles of economic growth and sustainable development

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• Dow Chemical's Environmental Page - widely regarded as one of the leading companies adopting a pollution prevention approach

• Sustainability - the leading consultancy/think tank on promoting sustainability in corporations Annex 2: Recent proposals to improve poverty-environment/forestry outcomes

Agenda for Action from the FAO/DFID Tuscany Forum

Agenda for Action proposed in the joint DFID/EC/UNDP/WB document on poverty-environment linkages

A. Strengthening rights, capabilities and governance

- Support the poor’s own decision-making power -Strengthen forest rights of the poor and means to claim them - Recognize links between forestry and local governance

A. Improve governance

- Integrate poverty-environment issues into national development frameworks - Strengthen decentralization for environmental management - Empower civil society, in particular poor and marginalized groups - Address gender dimensions of poverty-environment issues - Strengthen anti-corruption efforts to protect the environment and the poor - Reduce environment-related conflicts - Improve poverty-environment monitoring and assessment

B. Reducing vulnerability

- Make safety nets, not poverty traps - Support tree planting outside forests - Cut the regulatory burden on the poor and make regulation affordable

B. Enhance the assets of the poor

- Strengthen resource rights of the poor - Enhance capacity of the poor to manage the environment - Expand access to environmentally-sound and locally appropriate technology - Reduce the environmental vulnerability of the poor

C. Capturing emerging opportunities

- Remove the barriers to market entry - Base land use decisions on true value of forests - Ensure that markets for environmental services benefit the poor - Support associations and financing for local forest businesses

C. Improve the quality of growth

- Integrate poverty-environment issues into economic policy reforms - Increase the use of environmental valuation - Encourage appropriate private sector involvement in pro-poor environmental management - Implement pro-poor environmental fiscal reform

D. Working in partnership

- Simplify policies and support participatory processes - Promote multi-sectoral learning and action - Make NGOs and the private sector partners in poverty reduction Source: FAO/DFID 2001.

D. Reform international and industrial country policies

- Reform international and industrial country trade policies - Make foreign direct investment (FDI) more pro-poor and pro-environment - Enhance the contribution of multilateral environmental agreements to poverty reduction - Encourage sustainable consumption and production Source: DFID, EC, UNDP and WB, 2002.

Annex 3: UNDP Financing for Biodiversity

As the development arm of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with its universal in-country presence and its regional and global networks, assists countries to build cross-sectoral capacities and put in place effective policies and institutions to both protect the environment and reduce poverty. Major areas of support include assisting countries with the development of national strategic, policy and regulatory frameworks for environmentally sustainable development; national and local level capacity development to support participatory approaches to environmental

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management; and helping countries meet their commitments under the global environmental conventions in ways that maximize their synergies with, and contributions to, national development objectives.

During the period 1991-2000, spanning UNDP’s second and third programming cycles, UNDP has allocated more than $920 million of its core resources to assist countries in integrating environment and development. Of this amount more than $120 million has directly supported biodiversity activities, including agrobiodiversity, sustainable forestry and fisheries, support to Indigenous Peoples, and protected areas. UNDP has also been responsible for managing a further $100 million leveraged in cost sharing for these and other projects by governments and other funding sources. In addition, as one of the three Implementing Agencies of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP has mobilized over $430 million of GEF support to countries specifically for biodiversity activities. This in turn has leveraged more than $600 million of support for biodiversity from other sources including the private sector.

UNDP’s biodiversity support to countries is tightly integrated into its core work, mainstreaming biodiversity concerns into activities such as governance and poverty reduction in more than 50 countries. In the Philippines, for example, UNDP’s assistance is helping to empower indigenous peoples to pursue their right to self-determination and strengthen the capacity of government and NGO’s to provide the support for sustainable management of ancestral domains. In agro-ecosystems UNDP’s support of the Sustainable Agriculture Network and Extension (SANE) project promoted an international network of regional and local NGO’s that assist small, resource-poor farmers in the development and demonstration of sustainable farming systems to overcome poverty, ensure food security, and conserve agrobiodiversity. Conservation of biodiversity in agro-ecosystems is also a goal of UNDP’s work on integrated pest management. For example, integrating capacity building with policy advice in the area of IPM resulted in the Republic of Korea becoming the first Asian nation to adopt a pesticide and fertilizer reduction policy.

With its primary focus on capacity development, UNDP has partnered with the GEF in the Capacity Development Initiative (CDI). It is helping, and supporting through ‘south-south’ networking, more than 85 countries to prepare national biodiversity strategies and action plans and assess and develop capacities for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, including critical issues such as biosafety and access and benefit sharing. At the grassroots level, the UNDP managed GEF Small Grants Programme assists local communities to integrate biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into their own local development activities (more than 1,300 projects to date). On a larger scale UNDP biodiversity projects provide more than $1 billion in financing globally to assist countries in activities as diverse as developing sustainable financing mechanisms based on user fees in Belize’s Barrier Reef, training teachers in conservation management, and helping communities establish local conservation site support groups at more than 100 different biodiversity sites in Africa. In all of these activities participation is the key to success and recent work is expanding the traditional notions of participation beyond local communities, NGO’s and governments into partnerships with the private sector and international corporations.

As part of UNDP’s work to capture ‘good practices’ and encourage expanded donor financial support for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and benefit sharing related to poverty eradication, and in support of the Biodiversity Convention, a new program was launched on January 30, 2002 called, the “Equator Initiative: The Innovative Partnership Awards for Sustainable Development in Tropical Ecosystems.” In partnership with BrasilConnects, the Government of Canada, IDRC, IUCN, the Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), the UN Foundation, as well as UNESCO and the other members of the Ecosystem Conservation Group (ECG), UNDP aims to identify and highlight community-based sustainable development and biodiversity success stories, involving civil society, the private sector and/or government, at a high-level awards ceremony to take place at WSSD in Johannesburg. The award component of the Equator Initiative is complemented by major capacity building and research, analysis and policy impact programmes.