ONE of the most damning charges made against environmentalists is that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation. Nonsense, says new research.
"The vast majority of the world's poor people live in extremely urban areas... only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild," says Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, the author of a study mapping poverty and human environmental impact around the world. Even the rural poor mostly live in grasslands, Redford says, while biodiverse forests are largely empty (Oryx, DOI: 10.1017/S0030605308001889).
WCS and other conservation groups are often accused of taking land from its rightful occupants in the name of conservation. Some observers, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature, have called on greens to do more to combat rural poverty in areas where they work. Redford's study suggests that neither of these concerns is particularly justified.
However, critics say that even if relatively few poor people live in the most biodiverse areas, their needs must still take priority. "Security of livelihoods is still vitally important for people that do live in such areas," says Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Alliance UK. "Like it or not, conservation groups are going to have to improve the lot of local people if they want their programmes to succeed."
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Have your say
The World' S Human Poor.
Wed Aug 06 23:40:43 BST 2008 by Dr. Nigel Miles
Yes the comments made so far are correct. But like a lot of people who live in the crazed consumption consciousness of western countries(>5 h/p.p) many who live in rural environs live their because their needs are suffice but the quality is often thought better than that of their urban cousins. Surely the converse is true for emigrants who have been economically forced to leave urban areas to seek life and liberty in delicate biodiverse regions. Think on this a little before using a hammer to crack the proverbial nut.
Bizarre Logic . . .
Thu Aug 07 14:50:42 BST 2008 by Sci_tek
I can not agree with this. It is typical green logic wrong touched in the upper storey.
Devil Al Gore take harming people by saving species.
The key problem is: poverty people don't protect nature. All conservation efforts walked around poverty are absurd. The best thing for endangered nature in developing would be make them more developed.
Protecting nature is noble but luxurious.
Rationalisation
Mon Aug 11 20:38:47 BST 2008 by Dave
It sounds suspiciously like rationalisation to me. If the poor people are living in the area to be conserved... Then even if they are few, they're affected. That was their livihood, their land, their way of life, for which no kind of truly adequate recompense can ever be made. They're inevitably now forced into an urban hell, or to do with less resources and thereby forced into urban living. If they're living in cities, they have nothing to do with it anyway, and therefore should never have been included in this study. You want for example to kick a bunch of San out of the Kalahari where they have lived for centuries ? -- the price must be commensurate with qualities they feel they are losing - not only for themselves, but their descendants. You're a conservationist or lawmaker who want's them to go? They deserve _your_ home and your income at the very least. In return you can have what you offer them - a loss of everything and no chance of recovery, and sentence any children you have to the same. If that's acceptable to you, well, do it. But I have a feeling that a lot of conservationists and all lawmakers would balk to pay the same price they impose on the weak.
Rationalisation
Tue Aug 12 12:50:01 BST 2008 by Fritz
Without people in those areas, the biodiversity will be one species less. So sure, you have to keep them.
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