Chapter Two

2. Issue Related with Environment

2.1. Economic Growth and Environment
The economic growth has somewhat perplexing (puzzling/confusing) relationship with
environmental wellbeing. It is already believed that it is possible to reduce environmental
destruction by increasing the income of the poor. Economic growth, in turn, is important for the
prosperity and wellbeing of the economy and its citizens – in both advanced economies and in
the developing world.
The natural environment plays an important role in supporting economic activity.
Correspondingly, economic growth plays an important role in supporting natural environment
because it contributes to the investment needed to develop new technology, which is
fundamental to both productivity growth and managing environmental assets. In the early years
of industrialization the now developed countries also experienced significant environment
problems especially in relation to air quality, water quality etc.
2.1.1. The benefit of natural environment to the economy
Natural environment provide natural resource inputs and environmental services for economic
production. This ranges from clean air and water, to the soils we use to grow crops and the
minerals and ores we extract from the earth. The ecosystems services framework provided by the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) suggests that the assets and services provided by the
natural environment can be aggregated into four broad categories:
1) Provisioning Services:
These are the tangible benefits humans directly obtain from ecosystems, such as food, water,
timber, and raw materials.
2) Regulating Services:
These are the benefits ecosystems provide that regulate natural processes, including climate
regulation, disease control, and water purification.
3) Supporting Services:
These are the fundamental processes that maintain the other ecosystem services, such as nutrient
cycling, soil formation, and pollination.
4) Cultural Services:

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These are the non-material benefits humans derive from ecosystems, including recreation,
tourism, and spiritual or aesthetic values.

Natural Resources or capital contributes to economic output through two main channels:
a) Directly as an input to the process of economic activity; and
b) Indirectly through its effect on the productivity of the other factors of production.
1. Natural capital as a direct input to wealth creation
Natural capital, encompassing resources and ecosystem services, is a direct and vital input to
wealth creation, providing resources, raw materials, and services that underpin economic activity
and societal well-being. Natural capital refers to the planet's natural resources and ecosystems,
including minerals, energy, timber, agricultural land, fisheries, water, and the vital services they
provide, such as pollination, carbon sequestration, and flood protection.
Non-renewable resources:- are those with a finite endowment, which can be depleted over
time. Non-renewable resources like fossil fuels, minerals, metals, and basic aggregates are
extracted from the natural environment to produce energy, machinery, consumer products, the
built environment, and extraction of fossil fuels and minerals
Renewable resources: - are those which are capable of being replenished through natural
processes or their own reproduction1. However, these resources can be exhausted if they are
consumed at a rate faster than the rate of replenishment. Renewable resource, such as forests and
fisheries, contribute directly to economic activity.
Examples of Natural Capital as a Direct Input:
a) Mining: The extraction of minerals and metals from the earth is a direct use of natural
capital for wealth creation.

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 b) Farming: The use of land and water for agricultural production is a direct use of natural
capital for wealth creation.
c) Fishing: The exploitation of fish stocks in oceans and lakes is a direct use of natural
capital for wealth creation.
d) Tourism: The use of natural landscapes and wildlife for tourism is a direct use of natural
capital for wealth creation.
2. Natural capital as an indirect input to wealth creation
Natural capital, encompassing resources like land, water, and ecosystems, acts as an indirect but
crucial input to wealth creation by providing essential ecosystem services and resources that
underpin economic activities and human well-being, though often uncounted in traditional
economic measures. The indirect inputs provided by ecosystems facilitate the processes of
production and act as a sink for the adverse environmental effects of economic activity. They
include:
Global life support functions –
Natural areas provide global life support functions, including climate regulation and regulation
of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans. While natural areas play a role in the
maintenance of life essential services, it is difficult to evaluate and demonstrate the contribution
that particular habitat types or areas make. However, one area where the contribution of
particular habitats is being recognized and evaluated more explicitly is with regard to the ability
of forests to act as a store for carbon.
Water regulation –
Natural areas can buffer hydrological flows and dampen environmental fluctuations, provide
flood and storm protection, and prevent run-off damage. Natural processes can also provide
water quality benefits; for example, by preventing sediment run-off into rivers.
Pollution filtering –
Natural resources play an important role in pollution control and detoxification, including the
removal of nutrients and pollutants from water, filtering of dust from the air, and providing noise
attenuation.
Waste sink –
The natural environment provides a repository for all non-recycled waste produced by economic
activity. In the absorptive capacity of the atmosphere, the oceans, and the soil, the natural

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environment is able to assimilate some of that waste without diminishing the provision of its
other services.
Soil retention and provision –
The natural environment, such as many wetland habitats, provides benefits by preventing soil
loss and by storing silt.  Nutrient cycling – Ecological processes provide benefits through the
storage, processing, and acquisition of nutrients essential for plant growth.
Waste decomposition –
Naturally occurring micro-organisms provide benefits through their ability to break down
organic matter and speed up the process of waste decomposition. Ecosystems also have a wide
range of impacts on both the quantity and quality of labor.
2.1.2. The debate over economic growth and the environment
While economic growth has produced many benefits: raising standards of living and improving
quality of life across the world, it has also resulted in the depletion of natural resources and the
degradation of ecosystems. There has been much debate over whether or not it is possible to
achieve economic growth without unsustainably degrading the environment, and a growing
realization that economic growth at the current rate of depletion and degradation of
environmental assets cannot continue indefinitely.
For example, the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere as a result of human activity means
that the world is already locked into some climate change, and faces a major challenge to keep
global temperature rises to below two degrees.
Arguments for Prioritizing Economic Growth:
a. Economic Development as a Solution:
Some argue that economic growth is crucial for improving living standards, reducing poverty,
and addressing other pressing social issues.
o Technological Innovation:
Proponents of economic growth suggest that technological advancements spurred by economic
activity can lead to cleaner and more sustainable production methods.
o Resource Constraints:
Some argue that resource constraints do not constitute limits to growth, and that economic
damage from climate change would be negligible compared to the benefits of development.

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 b. Arguments for Prioritizing Environmental Protection:
o Environmental Degradation:
Others argue that unchecked economic growth leads to resource depletion, pollution, and climate
change, potentially undermining long-term sustainability.
o Sustainable Development:
The concept of sustainable development emphasizes meeting current needs without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own, requiring a balance between
economic growth and environmental protection.
o Ethical Considerations:
Some argue that environmental degradation is a moral issue, and that prioritizing economic
growth over the environment is unethical.
Modern Growth Theory
The literature on (endogenous) economic growth and the environment has shown that
environmental sustainability can be consistent with sustained economic growth if certain
conditions are met. Positive economic growth that is achieved along with environmental
degradation may impose several costs to society:
i. The degradation of the environment directly affects the welfare or utility function of
people, so that the welfare benefits of economic growth are at least in part undermined;
ii. In countries where growth itself is significantly dependent on natural resources,
environmental degradation is likely to directly hurt economic growth at least over the
medium run;
iii. For countries where growth is not directly resource-dependent, continuous economic
growth may be feasible, at least over the short run, but the degradation of the
environment may, in the long run, lead the economy to approach certain critical
environmental thresholds, which would compromise the health and even the life of
important segments of society;
iv. Environmental degradation may involve serious social-equity effects, since the costs of
environmental degradation are not evenly shared among groups in society. The poor may
suffer an inordinate share of the negative consequences of environmental destruction,
whereas the wealthy are likely to obtain most of the short-run benefits of such
destruction.

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Modern growth theory shows not only that environmental sustainability is potentially compatible
with positive economic growth but also, and perhaps more importantly, that failure to achieve
environmental sustainability may become an obstacle to sustained economic growth. That is, a
lack of environmental sustainability may entail non-monetary costs to society. It may also make
growth infeasible in countries where the economy is highly dependent on natural resources.
Modern economic growth theory integrates the effects of environmental degradation on social
welfare and utility, medium-run economic growth, and the risk of approaching environmental
thresholds within an optimal dynamic framework by fully accounting for the trade-offs between
them and the speed of long-run, or ‗balanced,‘ economic growth. Growth theory is generally
mute about the social equity effects of environmental degradation, since it mostly sticks to the
representative agent approach and thus assumes away any distributional consequences.
The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) It is often used to describe the relationship between
economic growth and environmental quality. It refers to the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped
relationship between economic output per capita and some measures of environmental quality.
(see the diagram).

The shape of the curve can be explained as follows: As GDP per capita rises, so does
environmental degradation. However, beyond a certain point, increases in GDP per capita lead to
reductions in environmental damage. Specifically:
a) At low incomes, pollution abatement is undesirable as individuals are better off using
their limited income to meet their basic consumption needs;

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 b) Once a certain level of income is achieved, individuals begin considering the trade-off
between environmental quality and consumption, and environmental damage increases at
a lower rate; and
c) After a certain point, spending on abatement dominates as individuals prefer
improvements in environmental quality over further consumption, and environmental
quality begins to improve alongside economic growth.
Other possible explanations for the shape of the EKC include:
a) Technological progress: firms initially concentrate on expanding production as quickly
as possible, but as technology evolves production processes become cleaner and more
resource efficient;
b) Behavior Change: society is at first interested in higher levels of consumption,
regardless of the means by which it is achieved, but after a certain point greater
consideration is given to other factors affecting quality of life, including the environment;
c) Lewis growth model: the development pattern of any economy is characterized by the
changing patterns of economic activity.
Stage 1: society concentrates resources in the primary sector (i.e. extraction, agriculture) to
satisfy necessary consumption;
Stage 2: resources are switched to the secondary sector (i.e. manufacturing) as basic needs
are satisfied and further consumption is concentrated on consumption goods; and
Stage 3: society moves from the secondary to the tertiary sector (i.e. services) characterized
by much lower levels of pollution.
However, this model is less applicable in an increasingly globalized world where the move from
stage 1 to 3 may happen as the result of a shift rather than a reduction in the levels of pollution.
Alternative views on the economy-environment relationship
There are other alternate theories describing the relationship between economic growth and
environmental quality.
The limits theory model:- considers the possibility of breaching environmental thresholds before
the economy reaches the EKC turning point. The limits theory defines the economyenvironment
relationship in terms of environmental damage hitting a threshold beyond which production is so
badly affected that the economy shrinks (see figure 2.2a).

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The new toxic view model: - where emissions of existing pollutants are decreasing with further
economic growth, but the new pollutants substituting for them increase. (see figure 2.2b).
The ‘race to the bottom model:- International competition initially leads to increasing
environmental damage, up to the point when developed countries start reducing their
environmental impact but also outsource polluting activities to poorer countries. The net effect
is, in the best case scenario, a non-improving situation (see figure 2.2c).

2.1.3. Drivers of the Economy-environment Relationship

Drivers of the economy-environment relationship what these various theories demonstrate are
that the relationship between economic growth and the environment is complex and multi-
dimensional. While there may be no conclusive evidence on the shape of the economy-
environment relationship, these theories provide a useful starting point for thinking about the
factors that drive this relationship. These can broadly be divided into three effects.
The scale effect – economic growth has a negative effect on the environment, where increased
production and consumption causes increased environmental damage;
The composition effect – the composition of production changes along the growth path:
initially economic growth leads to industrialization (and as the goods balance shifts from
agriculture to manufactured products, environmental damage increases); but the balance then
shifts from producing manufactured goods to producing services, due to both demand- and
supply-side changes, reducing the level of domestic environmental damage44;
The technical effect – technological developments lead to a change in the environmental
impacts of production. Whilst this often means reductions in environmental intensity, for

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example improvements in energy efficiency, it could also represent technological advances that
lead to greater environmental damage (such as through increased energy use). Changes in the
preferences of society may also drive changes in environmental damage, for example through
encouraging changes in the stringency of environmental regulation of industry.

2.2. Poverty and Environment

2.2.1. Concepts of Poverty
What is Poverty?
Poverty is a state or condition where individuals lack the resources to meet their basic needs and
participate fully in society. It's not just about a lack of money, but also encompasses a lack of
access to essential resources like food, healthcare, education, and safe housing, and a lack of
social inclusion. Poverty can be absolute, where basic survival is threatened, or relative, where
individuals lack resources compared to others in their society.
There are different approaches to treat well-being.
Approach one: - One approach is to think of well-being as the command over commodities in
general. The main focus is on whether households or individuals have enough resources to meet
their needs. Typically, poverty is then measured by comparing individuals‘income or
consumption with some defined threshold below which they are considered to be poor. This is
the most conventional view—poverty is seen largely in monetary terms and is the starting point
for most analyses of poverty.

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Approach Two:-
A second approach to well-being (and hence poverty) is to ask whether people are able to obtain
a specific type of consumption good: Do they have enough food? Or shelter? Or health care? Or
education? In this view the analyst goes beyond the more traditional monetary measures of
poverty: Nutritional poverty might be measured by examining whether children are stunted or
wasted; and educational poverty might be measured by asking whether people are literate or how
much formal schooling they have received.
According to (The World Bank, 2011) Perhaps the broadest approach to well-being is the one
articulated by; who argues that well-being comes from a capability to function in society. Thus,
poverty arises when people lack key capabilities, and so have either or all of the following in
capabilities:
o Inadequate income or education,
o or poor health, or insecurity, or low self-confidence, or
o a sense of powerlessness, or
o The absence of rights such as freedom of speech when viewed in this way, poverty is a
multidimensional phenomenon and less amenable to simple solutions.
Two types of poverties
Better understanding, poverty can be seen from two perspectives: absolute and relative
Dimensions.
Absolute Poverty:
Absolute poverty refers to the inability to meet minimum human needs such as food, cloth,
health care, shelters, etc. Generally, it is lack of basic necessity for survival. An absolute poverty
line is ―fixed in terms of the standards indicator being used and fixed over the entire domain of
the poverty comparison. Nations, further defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of
the following eight basic needs:
Food: Body Mass Index must be above 16. Safe drinking water: Water must not come from
solely rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (less than 15 minutes' walk each way).
Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made
of dirt, mud, or clay.

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 Education: Everyone must attend school or otherwise learn to read. Information: Everyone
must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home. Access to
services: This item is undefined by Gordon, but normally is used to indicate the complete
panoply of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services. For example, a person
who lives in a home with a mud floor is considered severely deprived of shelter. A person who
never attended school and cannot read is considered severely deprived of education. A person
who has no newspaper, radio, television, or telephone is considered severely deprived of
information.
Relative Poverty
Relative poverty refers to the inability to attain a given contemporary standards of living. It is
understandable why people who are hungry, ill, unemployed and lacking the elementary
amenities of life show little interest in environmental considerations. When defined in this way,
it is a truism that ―the poor are always with us.
It is often helpful to have a measure such as this to target programs geared to helping the poor. In
practice, rich countries have higher poverty lines than do poor countries. For instance, the
European Union typically defines the poor as those whose per capita income falls below 50
percent of the median. As the median income rises, so does the poverty line, so this is more
properly viewed as a crude measure of inequality rather than of absolute poverty.
2.2.2. Measuring Poverty
Measuring poverty is one of the most difficult tasks in poverty analysis. This is because it takes
time, energy and money to measure poverty and since it can only be done properly by gathering
survey data directly from households it becomes more complex to measure the variable
Poverty is typically measured using poverty lines, which define the minimum income or
consumption level needed for basic needs.
These lines are often determined by the cost of basic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter,
or by assessing the income or consumption levels required to reach a certain level of food
consumption (in calories). Additionally, subjective evaluations, where individuals estimate the
minimum income needed to make ends meet, are also used.
Increasingly, equal emphasis is being placed on social definitions (life expectancy, literacy rate
etc.), along with the traditional economic ones (Gross Domestic Product (GDP) etc.), to indicate

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the status and trend of poverty, or to develop poverty related indices such as human development
index, human poverty index and gender development index.
1. Keeping Poor People on the Agenda.
A credible measure of poverty can be a powerful instrument for focusing the attention of policy
makers on the living conditions of the poor. In other words, it is easy to ignore the poor if they
are statistically invisible. The measurement of poverty is necessary if it is to appear on the
political and economic agenda.
2. Targeting Domestic and Worldwide Interventions
A second reason for measuring poverty is to target interventions. Obviously, one cannot help
poor people without knowing who they are. This is the purpose of a poverty profile, which
sets out the major facts on poverty and inequality, and then examines the pattern of poverty to
see how it varies by geography (for example, by region, urban/rural, mountain/plain), by
community characteristics (for example, in communities with and without a school), and by
household characteristics (for example, by education of household head, by size of household).
3. Monitoring and Evaluating Projects and Policy Interventions
The third reason for measuring poverty is to be able to predict the effects of, and then evaluate,
policies and programs designed to help poor people. Policies that look good on paper – new
opportunities for microcredit for the poor, for instance - may in practice not work as well as
expected. To judge the effects, one would ideally like to monitor the effects of a policy on poor
people and evaluate the outcomes in comparison with a control group. Rigorous analysis of this
kind is needed both to improve the design of projects and programs and to get rid of ones that are
not working.
4. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Institutions
The fourth reason for measuring poverty is to help evaluate institutions. One cannot tell if a
government is doing a good job of combating poverty unless there is solid information on
poverty. When evaluating projects, policies, and instruments, our concern is with poverty
comparisons. In this context, we typically want to know whether poverty has fallen (a qualitative
measure) and by how much (a quantitative measure). Then the first step in measuring poverty is
defining an indicator of welfare such as income or consumption per capita. Information on
welfare is derived from survey data. Therefore, note that good survey design is important!

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The other tools are:-
The Headcount Index (P0):-
The head count index measures the proportion of the population that is poor. It is popular
because it is easy to understand and measure. But it does not indicate how poor the poor are.
The index is denoted by;

Where, Np is the number of poor and N is the total population (or sample). Then for example
if 60 people are poor in a survey with a sample size of 300 people, then P0 = 60/300 = 0.2 =
20 percent are poor in head count.
The Poverty Gap Index (P1):-
The poverty gap index measures the extent to which individuals fall below the poverty line (the
poverty gaps) as a proportion of the poverty line. The sum of these poverty gaps gives the
minimum cost of eliminating poverty, if transfers were perfectly targeted. The measure does not
reflect changes in inequality among the poor. Thus, the poverty gap index, adds up the extent to
which individuals on average fall below the poverty line, and expresses it as a percentage of the
poverty line.
This measure is the mean proportionate poverty gap in the population (where the non-poor have
zero poverty gap). The minimum cost of eliminating poverty using targeted transfers is simply
the sum of all the poverty gaps in a population; every gap is filled up to the poverty line.
However, this interpretation is only reasonable if the transfers could be made perfectly
efficiently, for instance, with lump sum transfers, which is unlikely.
2.2.3. Causes of Poverty
While the causes of poverty (and their interrelationships with the environment) are not always
discreet, they can be divided broadly into internal (local) and external (global) causes.
i. Internal Causes
There are many internal, or local, causes of poverty in the region. For example, a lack of
essential assets; living in a remote or a resource-poor area; vulnerability on account of age,
gender, health, living environment or occupation; and discrimination against an ethnic minority
or a community considered socially inferior, conflicts and civil ware generally social crisis.

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 ii. External Causes
The major external (or global) factors facing developing countries in their efforts to alleviate
poverty are those associated with the vagaries of the global economic system, a system over
which individual countries have little control. The world has, in recent decades, become
increasingly interdependent with the emergence of a global economy; for developing countries,
access to financial resources is dependent upon a country‘s participation in this international
economy. Moreover, globalization has generally been accompanied by changes of policies and
practices whereby the developed countries dictate the terms through which the developing
countries participate in the international system.\
2.2.4. Relationship between poverty and environment
Poverty and environment are closely interrelated. Whilst people living in poverty are seldom the
principal creators of environmental damage, they often bear the brunt of environmental damage
and are often caught in a downward spiral, whereby the poor are forced to deplete resources to
survive, and this degradation of the environment further impoverishes people. When this self-
reinforcing downward spiral becomes extreme, people are forced to move in increasing numbers
to marginal and ecologically fragile lands or to cities.
Environmental degradation is usually understood in terms of over use of scarce non-renewable
resources, destruction of key renewable resources (such as soils & forests) and generation of
wastes that are not easily assimilated or broken down by natural processes. In the period of
prolonged and severe food shortages, the disparately hunger farmers have been known to eat the
seeds with which they would have planted the next year‘s crops, knowingly paving the way for
further disaster.
The continued prevalence of poverty throughout the world keeps its alleviation as a central
objective of economic development. Strategies for reducing poverty have begun to pay more
attention to the relationship between environmental degradation and poverty. There are two way
relationships in poverty and environment.
o Environmental degradation contributes to poverty through worsened health and by
constraining the productivity of those resources upon which the poor rely, and
o Poverty restricts the poor to acting in ways that are damaging to the environment.
o In addition, demographic factors can be involved in complex ways; high growth rates are
associated with poverty, and directly exacerbate problems of environmental degradation.

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 I. Environment's Impact on the Poor
The poor's exposure to environmental degradation is distinctive for two reasons. First, locations
inhabited by the poor are often environmentally vulnerable or degraded. Whether erosion-prone
hillsides in rural areas or urban neighborhoods with inadequate water and sanitation
infrastructure, the areas to which the poor can gain access are often the riskiest for health and
income generation. Second, being poor entails lacking the means to avoid the impacts of
environmental degradation. A lack of resources makes it difficult for the poor to buy out of
exposure to environmental risks, or to invest in alleviating the causes of environmental
degradation.
A. Pollution Damages the Health of the Poor
Several types of pollution have the most pervasive and serious consequences for the health of the
poor. In order of severity, the most important is pollution of water by disease vectors that cause
infectious and parasitic illnesses. The poor are less protected from polluted waters than other
income groups. Numerous country surveys demonstrate that there are significant differences in
access to safe water and sanitation by income. Second is indoor air pollution from the use of
biomass as a household energy source, principally in rural areas. Third is outdoor air pollution,
which is mostly an urban problem. Air pollution is typically thought of as an urban health
problem because of the concentration of emissions sources vehicles, power plants, and industries
in these areas. But in many countries, indoor air pollution, primarily in rural areas, is a more
important health issue for the poor. The poor rely on biomass fuels such as wood, crop residues,
and dung because these are the cheapest and most available option, but which produce many
combustion pollutants.
B. Environmental Degradation Lowers the Poor's Productivity
In addition to affecting their health and capacity to work, environmental degradation depresses
the poor's ability to generate income through two channels: first, it requires the poor to divert an
increasing share of their labor to routine household tasks such as fuel wood collection; and
second, it also decreases the productivity of those natural resources from which the poor wrest
their livelihood.
II. Poverty's Impact on Environment
The very poor who are struggling at the edge of subsistence levels of consumption are
preoccupied with survival on a day-to-day basis. The ability to plan ahead is often restricted to a

Page 15
critically short time horizon, measured in days or weeks. But these short time horizons should
not be viewed as an innate characteristic of the poor, but rather the consequence of complex
interactions among policy, institutional and social failures. Simplifying the relationship of
poverty and the environment to a single concept of short time horizons, while useful as a
heuristic device, does not capture all important elements of the relationship. First, there are
revealing examples of poor farmers or herders who demonstrate long time horizons, although
they may be constrained in pursuing them. Such examples are usually of cohesive communities,
with strong cultural or religious values that may define obligations of stewardship in managing
natural resources in honor of ancestry. Communities often have social welfare arrangements that
support families in times of crisis, thus reducing certain kinds of risks.
In regard to non-renewable resource use, most of the houses in which low income groups live
(and often build for themselves) use recycled or reclaimed materials and little use of cement and
other materials with a high energy input. Low income households have too few capital goods to
represent much of a draw on the world‘s finite reserves of metals and other non-renewable
resources. Most low income groups in urban areas rely on public transport (or they walk or
bicycle) which means low average figures for oil consumption per person.
In regard to the use of renewable resources, low-income urban dwellers have much lower
levels of consumption than middle and upper income groups. They use much less freshwater,
although this is more due to inconvenient and/or expensive supplies than need or choice. They
occupy much less land per person than middle and upper income groups in extreme cases, the
poorest 30-50 percent of a city‘s population live on only 3-5 percent of the city‘s land area. In
many low income countries, many urban dwellers use fuel wood or charcoal for cooking (and
where needed heating) and this may contribute to deforestation although these fears have often
proved to be without foundation.
In regard to waste generation, low-income groups generate much less per person than middle
and upper income groups and the urban poor generally have an ecologically positive role as they
are the main re-claimers, re-users and recyclers of wastes from industries, workshops and
wealthier households. It is likely to be middle and upper income groups who consume most of
the goods whose fabrication generates most toxic or otherwise hazardous wastes or persistent
chemicals whose rising concentration within the environment has worrying ecological and health
implications.

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In regard to greenhouse gas emissions, on average, low-income groups generate much lower
levels per person than middle and upper income groups as their total use of fossil fuels, of
electricity derived from fossil fuelled power stations and of goods or services with high fossil-
fuel inputs in their fabrication and use is so much lower. The only exception may be for some
low income households in urban areas where there is a need for space heating for parts of the
year and they use biomass fuels or coal in inefficient stoves or fires. Such households may have
above average per capita contributions to carbon dioxide emissions (and also to urban air
pollution) but these are exceptional cases.
There are at least five myths about the relationship between environment and poverty:
Myth 1: Most environmental degradation is caused by the poor. In fact, it is the other way
around: The wealthier classes are responsible for the most serious forms of environmental
degradation. By the sheer necessity of survival the poor may overgraze the land and deplete the
forest of fuel wood, resulting in local deforestation, subsequent topsoil erosion, and surface water
contamination and runoff causing flooding. However, the pollution from the non-poor is driven
by profit maximization. There is a world of difference between the two, especially in the
magnitude and extent of the damage incurred.
Myth 2: Poverty reduction necessarily leads to environmental degradation. Reduction of the
income gap and environmental stress are closely related. If the income gap is reduced, the stress
on the environment should also be reduced. Furthermore, poverty reduction is not likely to create
overconsumption, which could, in turn, enhance environmental degradation. When the poor
increase their earnings from one dollar per day to two dollars per day, they will be less likely to
pollute the environment, because they will finally have the resources and a reason to protect the
very environment upon which their survival depends.]
Myth 3: Population growth necessarily leads to environmental degradation. An increasing
population could place increasing demands on natural resources, which can lead to
environmental degradation and an unsustainable demand for natural resources. However,
environmental impact depends not only on population growth but also on GDP and development
of technology.
Myth 4: The poor are too poor to invest in the environment. The Department for International
Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom (UK) has done several studies at the local level
showing that poor communities are willing to invest in their environment but under certain

Page 17
favorable conditions, such as when they have property ownership and control over their common
resources. However, they are reluctant to invest in the environment if the area is controlled by
outsiders, such as a logging company or the government, leaving them with no stake in their
surroundings. Given the proper conditions, particularly land title or tenure, the poor are willing
to provide what they can to upgrade their environment—usually labor, since they have little cash.

Myth 5: Poor people lack the technical knowledge for resource management. While poor people
may fall short of modern technical knowledge for resource management, their indigenous
knowledge is often more appropriate or even better suited to support their habitat. Unfortunately,
this type of indigenous knowledge is too often ignored. Furthermore, when modern technology is
imposed upon the poor, it tends to undermine their indigenous knowledge. Modern technology
and machinery also fail to do the job because the community often does not know how to utilize
and/or maintain the alien technology.
2.3. Population and Environment
1.3.1. Trend of human Population
Population growth accelerated. The population climbed to about 760 million in 1750, reached 1
billion around 1800, and 6 billion by the end of the twentieth century World population
accelerated after world war II, when the population of less developed countries began to increase
dramatically. After millions of years of extremely slow growth, the human population indeed
grew explosively, doubling again and again; a billion people were added between 1960 and 1975
another billion were added between 1975 and 1987. Throughout the 20 th century each additional
billion has been obtained in a shorter period of time. By 2000 the number has grown to 6,100
million. Human population entered the 20th century with 1.6 billion people and left the century
with 6.1 billion people. Today, population reached to approximately 7.7 billion in mid-2019.
Population projections suggest that it will fall between 8 to11 billion by 2050, depending on
changes in national level fertility and mortality rates.
2.3.2. Populations and Environmental Issues
Population growth is the increase in the number of people living in a particular area. At the same
time the ecosystems that support people‘s livelihoods and well-being are being rapidly degraded.
Increases in human population size have dynamic impacts on the environment and speeding
environmental degradation. Since populations can grow exponentially, resource depletion can

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occur rapidly, leading to specific environmental concerns such as global warming, deforestation
and decreasing biodiversity. Populations in developed countries trend toward using substantially
more resources, while populations in developing countries feel the impacts of environmental
problems more quickly.
ver the past century, many scholars maintained thinking that rapid population growth is the
major cause of many environmental concerns especially in developing countries. Human beings
have been viewed as destructive intruders to natural environment; hence, the solution is to effect
stringent rules and legislation that protect the environment.
More people require more resources, which mean that as the population increases, the Earth‘s
resources deplete more rapidly. The result of this depletion is deforestation and loss of
biodiversity as humans strip the Earth of resources to accommodate rising population numbers.
Population growth also results in increased greenhouse gases, mostly from CO emissions.
In short, the overall degradation of the environment is affecting the habitat of species worldwide,
from the tropics to the Polar Regions.
Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in
any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for
food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely
irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.
Population Size and Environment
No simple relationship exists between population size and environmental change. However, as
global population continues to grow, limits on such global resources as arable land, potable
water, forests, and fisheries have come into sharper focus. In the second half of the twentieth
century, decreasing farmland contributed to growing concern of the limits to global food
production. Assuming constant rates of production, per capita land requirements for food
production will near the limits of arable land over the course of the twenty-first century.
Likewise, continued population growth occurs in the context of an accelerating demand for
water: Global water consumption rose six fold between 1900 and 1995, more than double the
rate of population growth.
Population Distribution and Environment
The ways in which populations are distributed across the globe also affect the environment.
Continued high fertility in many developing regions, coupled with low fertility in more

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developed regions, means that 80 percent of the global population now lives in less developed
nations.
The distribution of people around the globe has three main implications for the environment.
First, as less developed regions cope with a growing share of population, pressures intensify on
already dwindling resources within these areas. Second, migration shifts relative pressures
exerted on local environments, easing the strain in some areas and increasing it in others. Finally,
urbanization, particularly in less-developed regions, frequently outpaces the development of
infrastructure and environmental regulations, often resulting in high levels of pollution.
Population Composition and Environment
Composition can also have an effect on the environment because different population subgroups
behave differently. For example, the global population has both the largest cohort of young
people (age 24 and under) and the largest proportion of elderly in history. Migration propensities
vary by age. Young people are more likely than their older counterparts to migrate, primarily as
they leave the parental home in search of new opportunities. As a result, given the relatively
large younger generation, we might anticipate increasing levels of migration and urbanization,
and therefore, intensified urban environmental concerns. Other aspects of population
composition are also important: Income is especially relevant to environmental conditions.
Across countries, the relationship between economic development and environmental pressure
resembles an inverted U-shaped curve; nations with economies in the middle-development range
are most likely to exert powerful pressures on the natural environment, mostly in the form of
intensified resource consumption and the production of wastes. By contrast, the least-developed
nations, because of low levels of industrial activity, are likely to exert relatively lower levels of
environmental pressure.
Environmental pressures can be greatest at the lowest and highest income levels. Poverty can
contribute to unsustainable levels of resource use as a means of meeting short-term subsistence
needs. Furthermore, higher levels of income tend to correlate with disproportionate consumption
of energy and production of waste.

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