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Risk to food security from
environmental degradation
By Muhammad Abbas Aziz
THE World Commission on Environment and Development has
warned that unless we change our lifestyle, the world will
continue to face environmental damage and human suffering.
 The
Commission, echoing an urgent need to tailor the pace and
pattern of economic growth according to the Planet’s
capacity, said that the humanity has the ability to promote
sustainable development by meeting the present-day needs
without compromising on the needs of future generations.
About 70 per cent fossil fuel consumption and 85 per cent
chemical products are attributable to 25 per cent of the
world population. Water consumption is also not evenly
distributed. The consumption pattern for forest products and
other commodities has the same proportion.
Though international environmental concerns are expressed in
broad terms, the environmental problems of vulnerable groups
are generally localized, revolving around immediate issues
such as the degradation of a rangeland or soil erosion on
farmland or the progressive shortening of fallow. These
affect the poor because they are directly related to
household food security.
Degradation of the resource base translates into decreased
production and incomes. Declining soil fertility leads to
lower crop yields while rangeland depletion reduces
off-take, and deterioration in water quality adversely
affects the fish catch. Degradation of property resources
pulls labour away from directly productive activities
towards gathering - simply collecting non-wood and minor
forest products - and diminishes opportunities for deriving
income from this source. In addition, recurrent drought or
natural calamities also result in loss of food security.
In their quest for food, the rural poor sometimes have to
overuse the limited resources. The environmental degradation
imposes further constraints on their livelihood in what has
been called a ‘downward spiral’. They are often forced to
make trade-offs between immediate household food
requirements and environmental sustainability both in
production and consumption. Their negligible man-made
capital assets, ill-defined or non-existent property rights,
limited access to financial services and other markets,
inadequate safety nets in time of stress or disaster, and
lack of participation in decision-making can result in their
adopting ‘short time horizons’, which favour immediate
imperatives over longer-term objectives. This can result in
coping strategies that rely on the drawing down of the
capital available to them - mainly in the form of natural
resources.
The poor may be both agents and victims of environmental
degradation, especially in marginal areas, where the
resource base is ill-suited to agriculture.
However, it cannot be assumed that the poor have an
intrinsic propensity to degrade environmental resources. On
the contrary, many poor traditional communities demonstrate
an admirable environmental ethic and have developed complex
resource management regimes. There is little evidence that
the rural poor, when offered an appropriate environment -
including secure tenure and access to markets- pursue
resource-degrading strategies.
Affluence and poverty affect the environment in different
ways: poverty eradication would not erase environmental
degradation but change the nature of environmental problems
facing society.
The combination of more productive technologies, fertile
land and water, and high levels of development and public
investment have raised incomes for people living in these
areas. While this development has not always been equitable
- or sustainable, the most important disparities are not
between rich and poor people within high - potential areas,
but rather between high-potential high-investment areas and
fragile ecosystems.
As the challenge for poverty alleviation in high-potential
areas remains considerable, the prognosis is not grim
provided agricultural intensification proceeds without
environmental destruction.
On the other hand, for the 60 per cent of poor populations
who are found in fragile ecosystems and mainly remote and
ecologically vulnerable rural areas, the challenge of
environmentally sustainable poverty alleviation is immense.
A high proportion of the absolute poor in ecologically
fragile areas are indigenous peoples, estimated at some 300
million worldwide. They depend on renewable resources to
maintain their well-being. This has led to the development
of livelihood systems that are well-adapted to harsh
conditions in which they live. Their holistic, traditional
knowledge of natural resources and environment constitutes a
rich human heritage.
However, their traditional ways of life are now being
threatened, disturbing the delicate balance of natural
resource use. Nevertheless, viable technology and
institutional arrangements for resource conservation in
these areas could be built upon indigenous knowledge and
similarly effective disaster prevention policies can benefit
from coping strategies developed by the local population.
Over the past few decades, environmental degradation,
including land degradation has continued to worsen
exacerbating further poverty and food insecurity.
Conversely, awareness of the importance of the environment
and its conservation has increased. There has been a
transformation in people’s perception of the poverty problem
in developing countries. If one accepts that hard-core rural
poverty is increasingly a phenomenon associated with
marginal lands, then new strategies are required that
integrate poverty alleviation and environmental management.
Effective actions against poverty, food insecurity, and
environmental degradation in marginal areas require first
and foremost the empowering and equipping of local
communities to take up the reins of resource management.
Many conservation policies and strategies in the past have
failed because of their top-down approach and their reliance
on technologies that were irrelevant to the local
circumstances. Within this context, a consensus has emerged
on the importance of indigenous people’s traditional
knowledge and practices in the management of arid land,
forest, pasture and farmland to conserve soil and moisture,
and in diversifying crop and livestock production to
minimize risks.
Increasingly, people are realizing that: (a) the fragile
environment on which they depend for their survival is being
neglected or over-exploited, and it is now necessary to
rehabilitate it and manage it on a sustainable basis; and
(b) the environment belongs primarily to them, and they must
take the responsibility for the land and organize themselves
in groups, cooperatives, village development associations
and other local association to defend it.
The private sector, as well as the civil society at large,
should also be encouraged to think beyond individual or
corporate interests towards recognition of a shared
responsibility for the environment. Vigorous resource
mobilization to combat desertification would stand a better
change of succeeding if launched on the basis of empirically
verifiable improvements.
Courtesy: The DAWN
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