Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Groups with little control
The poor
Many identify two challenges for those in charge of development at the end of the
twentieth century: poverty alleviation and environmental care. The two issues are
sometimes closely related, although linkages are often unclear and complex. The
poor, it is often claimed, degrade their environment in the effort to survive—a trap of
poverty. Poor people are vulnerable to environmental problems and the accusation
that they cause environmental damage. In reality they are usually part of a process
not the cause, and blame lies with trade issues, government policies, faulty land

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rights, etc. Getting people out of poverty may be important for protecting the
environment, but the environmental manager must consider each local case to be
sure of causes. For example, the causes of environmental degradation in urban areas
may lie with policies affecting agriculturalists hundreds of kilometres away, causing
them to migrate and swell city populations.
There are situations where there is likely to be poverty-environment stress:
cities where population growth is outstripping employment and infrastructure;
marginal, often vulnerable land where people have relocated, areas where traditional
livelihood strategies are degenerating (Leonard et al., 1989:19).
There is also national or institutional poverty: nations may be unable to
afford adequate environmental management or they may have misspent funds.
Aid may assist, and there have been efforts to establish means of paying that
would improve environmental management in poor countries. For example, the
Montreal Protocol has tried to set up funds to assist with ozone protection, and
the UN Conference on Environment and Development tried to establish a Global
Facility (initially set up by the World Bank in 1990) to channel aid to assist
developing countries with environmental issues. The Earth Increment (established
1992) is supposed to support developing countries seeking to implement Agenda
21. So far progress has been hindered by squabbles over allocation and the failure
of many signatories of the agreements to pay up enough to support the funds
(Holden, 1991; Patlis, 1992).