By Natasha Gilbert
World leaders will gather at the United Nations in New York next week to discuss progress on two goals said to be complementary: saving species and lifting people out of poverty. Conservationists often claim that efforts to preserve biodiversity can also benefit the people who rely on natural resources for food and income, and since 2002, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity has linked its conservation plans to poverty alleviation.
Yet despite many small-scale, often anecdotal studies, the evidence for a link is inconclusive. Many studies have simply shown that poverty frequently overlaps with areas that are a high priority for biodiversity conservation.
Disappointing progress on two of the UN's Millennium Development Goals -- stemming the loss of biodiversity by 2010, and lifting half of the world's poorest people out of poverty by 2015 -- has focused high-level political interest on potential synergies between the two. So researchers are now tackling wider studies. These projects are finding that although conservationists' optimism is sometimes borne out, synergy can't be taken for granted.
Last year, Will Turner, a researcher at Conservation International, a non-profit agency headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and his colleagues completed a global assessment of the question, drawing on maps illustrating the extent and function of 17 different ecosystem services, such as water supplies from rivers and streams. The team used the maps to pin down who benefits from the services, and whether conserving these resources was likely to have a marked effect on poverty.
One set of maps drawn up by the international conservation group WWF, headquartered in Gland, Switzerland, used data collected during NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission in 2000 to depict global water networks. Onto these, Turner and his colleagues overlaid LandScan data from the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which uses satellite monitoring of indicators such as roads and land cover to estimate population. Using child malnutrition as a proxy, they estimated the poverty levels of the populations living along rivers shown on the maps.
The researchers then calculated how many people depended on the rivers for their water, whether they had access to other water sources, and how poor they were. They used this to assess whether conservation projects to protect these rivers could also improve people's livelihoods -- for example, whether paying for upstream conservation would have knock-on benefits for everyone living along the river.
The study, as yet unpublished, showed that water conservation projects could aid poverty alleviation. The 16 other ecosystem services they assessed, including crop pollination by insects and waste treatment, showed similar results. "This suggests we should continue to push for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development where these synergies exist," says Turner.
But a study published last month by the International Institute for Environment and Development, a non-profit research organization based in London, offered less certainty. Linking Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: the Case of Great Apes(go.nature.com/g6ZpP5) reviewed existing projects to protect apes in Africa, and used follow-up interviews and other methods to assess whether these are helping to reduce the poverty of local communities.
"We can say that under some circumstances tourism generates lots of money," says co-author Chris Sandbrook, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK. But the study was unable to clarify whether the money reaches the poorest people and genuinely leads to a reduction in poverty levels. One problem was the lack of good-quality socio-economic data about the conservation projects, he adds.
A UK-funded programme to catalogue and assess conservation and poverty reduction projects in Africa, South Asia, China and the Amazon should help unpick some of the confusion. The seven-year Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme, announced at the end of last year, is being funded with more than £40 million (US$62 million) from the UK government's Department for International Development, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council. The first call for projects will come in the next few weeks.
Political leaders must be prepared to make tough choices about where to focus efforts to alleviate poverty, even if there are negative impacts on biodiversity, he adds. But that should not stop them from seeking ways to achieve both. "Saying it can't be done is like saying we can't achieve peace," says Adams. "Maybe we can't stop biodiversity loss and lift people out of poverty at the same time, but we have to try to make it work."Bill Adams, who studies conservation and poverty at the University of Cambridge, says that conservation and poverty alleviation are not natural bedfellows, not least because development usually goes hand in hand with greater consumption of natural resources. "They are not in principle incompatible, but most ways of doing poverty alleviation are not good for the environment," he says.
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add CommentI think you can look at people living in poverty and tell that there is no money getting to them; you don't have to run million dollar surveys.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne way you can elevate poverty is to move those people living out in the desert in straw huts to an area where they can grow gardens and raise some live stalk. And even a better way to elevate poverty is to create jobs and lower utilities to where they are not robbing people of 2/3 of their payday. Install solar panels in areas where there are a lot of sun or install full spectrum solar panels in cloudy areas like London so the only thing coming out of the peoples payday is some food and clothing. Just eliminating utility bills will bring some people out of poverty and eliminating gas vehicles will bring some more out of poverty. There is something wrong when you have to pay more more a months worth of gas than you do for a months worth of food and both takes the greatest part of your pay.
There will always be people living in poverty because that is the way they want to live and to them, they are not living in poverty. Some countries even use poverty to keep their population down.
Changing the landscape is not a good idea because most of the people living in poverty will just move to the place you just destroyed by changing the ego system so they can continue living in poverty.
Every country on Earth is rich in some kind of resource. Why can't these countries that have the highest poverty levels use those resources to bring their people out of poverty? If their population is too high for their area to support them, then they should lessen their population to the point where people can afford to live out of poverty. China is an excellent example in how to lessen their population so the land can support their society. ...Follow their example.
James, to start with, I have to say, I'm just guessing, but do you vote democrat, and consider yourself progressive?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight out of the box, you, (as well as all these other do gooders) think that you are capable of making decisions for people that will better their lives, and you think, uprooting them, and taking away their freedom is the answer.
Is money the only thing that you can think of to measure poverty? I feel sorry for you, really I do... you think you know the answer to their problems, yet you don't even know what their problem is.
I would never be so bold as to try to fix their 'poverty' without first meeting with them, and seeing what they think.
Then of course, you can fix the problems of the world if we can only institute solar panels, and do away with those cars that use gasoline..
Are you REALLY that ignorant? who is going to pay for it? how are you going to produce ALL that extra power (or whatever you choose) to propel this new fleet of vehicles that will apparently just appear, I mean at current or even upgraded production we can probably replace all the vehicles on this planet in 20 years... so lets stop driving gas cars now... and walk, no wait, how will get our food to those that need it, oh THEY can still use gas/diesel vehicles??
Oh yeah, and changing the landscape there is a terrible idea, lets not add vegetation to areas that don't have it so people can eat better, did you think any of this through?
Here is one of my favorites, WHY DON'T those in power use their countries resources to improve conditions for those without.. maybe its called GREED? Power? this is a long list, but basically, those in power like power, and the money and control that comes with it.
And then there is my favorite, why can't these countries be more like China, and FORCE their people to behave and only have 1 child, why that is the way freedom is, no wait, once again, that is the model of Nazism, and Fascism, communism, no wonder you approve, it is also the way of progressive-ism..
Living in poverty; are we speaking of material wealth or mental health? I've known poverty, having lived in situations with no money, no job, and not even having electricity or modern plumming and I've been happy (fortunately we had books), whereas we all know people who have plenty and are miserable and can see that no amount of money or material will make them any better or address that which is missing in their lives and the absence of which is what they think causes their misery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSometimes, oftentimes, enough is a banquet. Measuring misery by one's bank account and tax return sometimes misses the point.
"jabwocky", you didn't read the article, did you? You are a Republican wanting to spew venom at a Democrat because you lost miserably in two major elections because you plunged this country into a worse recession than the depression of 29, collapsed the housing market, collapsed Wall Street, started two wars, lost one billion dollars in cash in Afghn., lost hundreds of thousands of weapons and bombs in Afghn., shot the gas prices up to $4.15 a gallon, collapsed the insurance companies, collapsed the banking system, left office with a 2.9 trillion dollar deficit - the worst deficit ever in the history of this country, and placed the blame of all of this on Obama while he was running for Senate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article talked about trying to cut down on poverty in the world and try to improve peoples living conditions. My comment was offering other suggestions on how this can also be done. The only suggestions I saw in your comment on how to cut down on poverty was how to increase poverty by stupidity, ignorance and laziness...the typical Republican way.
Sorry, but when 2% of the people have 98% of the worlds resources tied up, that 98% can either kill themselves trying to fight each other over the remaining 2% of the resources to cover their needs, or they can just get right to the root of the problem and kill the 2% of the people, take their stuff, and start over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think 7 billion people + multiplying exponentially + the rich getting richer and everyone else getting poorer will last indefinitely, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Or maybe everyone will just keep being obedient little cogs in the machine and never rise up against it. Right... cause humans don't have a history of overthrowing the wealthy & powerful, every time.
James, really? I think your ignorance is showing again, and I am NOT a republican, I think politics in general is screwing us as a nation to the point of collapse, but once again your retort is misguided, your suggestions were totally ignorant to the problem, and I did give the solution to the problem, and once again you missed it because it didn't allow any control over the people I guess. As Doug stated, and fairly well, and the point I was trying to make, and you missed it, is who's description of poverty are you using, I would venture to guess that a lot of those people are content in their lives, and with very little help could be very happy. Yes if you were to offer them glitter and gold and cars and TV's and other things that you think are so important, they would take them, but would they really improve their lives??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd trying to blame this whole depression on me is fairly moot, I really had nothing to do with it, neither did anybody I voted for, the only people to blame are those that sponsored and passed the bills, then you can also place some of the blame attached to those bills to the President that signed them (this is how our Republic works) to see Obama continually blame Bush is redundant, it was the congress in power at the time that passed the laws.
You seem to want to spew all of your anger at me like I did it, but once again in your ignorance this is misplaced you need to direct at the congress that has been spending like crazy over the last 40-60 years, (it actually goes back nearly 100 years if you look at history) and we let them do it. More so those that voted those in that actually did it I would gather, than those that voted against it.
When our debt, and money owed is larger than the amount of money if you took all the money in the world and put it in one place, we are in trouble, and given the fact that the republicans have only had control of both houses for 2 out of the last 40 years, to blame them is pretty much insane.
(if you want to really see where this all started, go back and see who proposed and got the bills passed that actually changed the banking/lending laws to allow the all the bad loans to be given out, and then follow the greed as they bundled those bad loans in with the good loans, and then sold them as A rated packages. See who the people were that were involved, and who their friends are, and who they voted for, and gave money to.
Then come back and see if you feel the same way.
I am an American, I vote for those that will fix the problem our current politicians have created.