Eliminate Poverty by Managing Ecosystem Services for Rural Communities (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Numerous ecosystem services provided by nature are essential for human survival and wellbeing. However, the state of some natural resources and associated ecosystem services may undergo extraordinary changes, particularly in rural areas, due to current global developments. By offering benefits, a socio-ecological system's output has the potential to provide a variety of goods that people use daily. The well-being of human life depends mainly on the benefits provided by natural resources, especially for the poor living in rural areas. However, the degradation of natural resources due to developmental limitations and lack of knowledge of the social-ecological system has also affected the availability of human resource benefits. This study aims to assess the degree of knowledge and awareness among poor households regarding the significance of the natural resources surrounding the study area for their livelihoods. This study used a survey method through a questionnaire form. The respondents were selected by snowball sampling, and a total of 124 questionnaires were distributed around Jerlun, Kedah, Peninsular Malaysia. The research found that poor households had high levels of knowledge since, on average, their understanding of the benefits of natural resource supply ranges between 75 and 100 points. With a high level of knowledge of the benefits of natural resources, the poor household is increasingly concerned about caring for and protecting natural resources and various activities utilising natural resources in their lives.
Dependence of rural poor on local ecosystems for livelihood has potential to accelerate loss of ecosystem services. In this study, we use ecosystem services concept to investigate poverty and ecosystem interactions in the Darjeeling district, West Bengal, India which is a part of the eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspot. First, we assessed multidimensional poverty in six villages (57 households) in the region using household surveys. Chronic poverty existed in all the six villages in the study area and the cash income per capita per day was US$ 0.16-0.34 which is far below the international standards of defining poverty on income basis. Second, we identified five direct and three indirect drivers of ecosystem change through semi-structured interviews with the head of the households. Then we identified linkages between ecosystem services and basic human needs. These linkages were used to identify measures to improve livelihood of rural poor. The major outcome of this study is in highlighting the ecosystem-based approach to improve livelihood of rural poor.
Ecosystem Services, 2014
As interest grows in the contribution of ecosystem services to poverty alleviation, we present a new conceptual framework, synthesizing insights from existing frameworks in social-ecological systems science and international development. People have differentiated abilities to benefit from ecosystem services, and the framework places emphasis on access to services, which may constrain the poorest more than aggregate availability. Distinctions are also made between categories of ecosystem service in their contribution to wellbeing, provisioning services and cash being comparatively easy to control. The framework gives analytical space for understanding the contribution of payments for ecosystem services to wellbeing, as distinct from direct ecosystem services. It also highlights the consumption of ecosystem services by external actors, through land appropriation or agricultural commodities. Important conceptual distinctions are made between poverty reduction and prevention, and between human response options of adaptation and mitigation in response to environmental change. The framework has applications as a thinking tool, laying out important relationships such that an analyst could identify and understand these in a particular situation. Most immediately, this has research applications, as a basis for multidisciplinary, policy-relevant research, but there are also applications to support practitioners in pursuing joint policy objectives of environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation.
Analyzing Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Poverty: South Asian Perspectives
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The region has witnessed rapid economic growth since 1990, averaging 5.4 percent a year. The economic growth has helped in reducing the poverty in the region. India has reduced its poverty rate by 5-10 percent since 1990; most other countries registered reduction in poverty over the period, except for Pakistan, where poverty has stagnated at around 33 percent. The region has also some success story in reducing infant mortality and increasing the schools enrolments. However, the challenges remain in the areas such as child malnutrition 2 , primary and secondary education completion rates, maternal mortality, and gender balance in education and health. The resurgence of tuberculosis and the threat of HIV/AIDS are also a cause for concern. The degradation of ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to reduction of poverty, hunger and disease. Ecosystems provide private as well as public good type of services. They provide private goods like food, fresh water, wood and fiber and fuel, which people could buy from the market. In addition to supporting all life and regulating natural systems, they supply public good type of services like preserving biodiversity , nutrient cycling, soil formation, controlling diseases and floods, avoiding climatic change problems, and aesthetic, spiritual and recreational benefits. The markets for the public good type of services are absent and everybody gets the benefits of conservation of ecosystems. Equally everybody receives the damages from the degraded ecosystems. While both rich and poor gain from the conservation of ecosystems, the poor are relatively more affected from their degradation 3. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) reported that 15 of the 23 ecosystem services are affected due to resource degradation. Dasgupta (2007) warns that if nothing substantial is done to prevent the degradation of ecosystems, the average per capita consumption level at the world level may decline. Moreover, the impact of human activities on earth's ecosystems can be measured as the fraction of the net primary production (NPP) 4 that is appropriated by the humans for their own use. Imhoff et al (2004) shows that South Central Asia consumes more than 80 percent of its regional NPP. The ongoing growth and consumption pattern in South Asia is likely to impoverish local ecosystems and diminish the important services they provide (Imhoff et al., 2004). Moreover, Dasgupta (2007) finds that economic development during 1970-2000 in the Indian subcontinent was either unsustainable or barely sustainable when the productive base of the 1 Our analysis is restricted to Indian subcontinent only, i.e., it covers India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. 2 About half of all children under the age of five are malnourished in Bangladesh and Nepal. 3 This point is discussed in detail in Section IV which shows that the dependence of the poor on ecosystem services decreases with the increase in income levels. 4 " Net primary production-the net amount of solar energy converted to plant organic matter through photosynthesis-can be measured in units of elemental carbon and represents the primary food energy source for the world's ecosystems. Human appropriation of net primary production, apart from leaving less for other species to use, alters the composition of the atmosphere, levels of biodiversity, energy flow within food webs and the provision of important ecosystem services", Imhoff et al. (2004). and situation, reflecting local physical, social, and personal factors such as geography, environment, age, gender, and culture (MA, 2005). The Human Development Index (HDI) draws on a bundle of indicators referring to general standards of health, education, and wealth, which may be used to indicate general levels of development (Ravaillion, 1992; Reardon and Vosti, 1995). The HDI types of measures of poverty are aggregate measures and suffer from a number of weaknesses. These measures are based on arbitrary selection of components and their weights. They are being aggregative, may hide small-scale variations that may have significant implications for certain social groups. Moreover, they may not provide policymakers with sufficient guidance for specific local problems (Lipton, 1991). The processes of impoverishment need to be disaggregated to show such differences as well as those linked to particular ecological conditions or diminished access to key environmental goods or services (Forsyth and Leach, 1998). The income/consumption-based definitions of poverty or aggregate measures such as HDI do not include the factors like vulnerability, physical weakness and powerlessness, which may be interlinked and mutually enforcing. Vulnerability raises the importance of net asset position rather than flows of income, and of shocks (short-term impacts) rather than stresses (longerterm threats to income) (Chambers, 1983). The concept of vulnerability is of central importance in notions of livelihood, and where environmental resources may take on particular importance as security. Moreover, the conventional measures of poverty fail to take into account the people's (especially poor's) gain from public assets. * This paper forms part of the ongoing project on 'Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation: A Situation Analysis of India and Hindukush Region' sponsored by the NERC-ESRC-DFID.
Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation: A review of the empirical links
We present the results of a review of the empirical evidence and of the state of knowledge regarding the mechanisms linking ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. The review was undertaken to determine the state of current knowledge about the scale and nature of these linkages, and focus the future research agenda. Research has, to date, focussed largely on provisioning services, and on just two poverty dimensions concerning income and assets, and food security and nutrition. While many papers describe links between ecosystem services and dimensions of poverty, few provide sufficient context to enable a thorough understanding of the poverty alleviation impacts (positive or negative), if any. These papers contribute to the accumulating evidence that ecosystem services support well-being, and perhaps prevent people becoming poorer, but provide little evidence of their contribution to poverty alleviation, let alone poverty elimination. A considerable gap remains in understanding the links between ecosystem services and poverty, how change occurs, and how pathways out of poverty may be achieved based on the sustainable utilisation of ecosystem services.
Environmental Conservation, 2011
The concept of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, is increasingly applied to environmental conservation, human well-being and poverty alleviation, and to inform the development of interventions. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) implicitly recognize the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of maintaining ES, through monetary compensation from ‘winners’ to ‘losers’. Some research into PES has examined how such schemes affect poverty, while other literature addresses trade-offs between different ES. However, much evolving ES literature adopts an aggregated perspective of humans and their well-being, which can disregard critical issues for poverty alleviation. This paper identifies four issues with examples from coastal ES in developing countries. First, different groups derive well-being benefits from different ES, creating winners and losers as ES, change. Second, dynamic mechanisms of access determine who can benefit. Third, individuals' contexts and needs determine how ES contribute to well-being. Fourth, aggregated analyses may neglect crucial poverty alleviation mechanisms such as cash-based livelihoods. To inform the development of ES interventions that contribute to poverty alleviation, disaggregated analysis is needed that focuses on who derives which benefits from ecosystems, and how such benefits contribute to the well-being of the poor. These issues present challenges in data availability and selection of how and at which scales to disaggregate. Disaggregation can be applied spatially, but should also include social groupings, such as gender, age and ethnicity, and is most important where inequality is greatest. Existing tools, such as stakeholder analysis and equity weights, can improve the relevance of ES research to poverty alleviation.(Received December 08 2010)(Accepted August 30 2011)(Online publication November 03 2011)
2021
ContextUnderstanding the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in rural areas of rapidly urbanizing watersheds is one of the core research questions of landscape sustainability science. It is important for poverty alleviation and forming related policies. However, there is insufficient investigation on the impact of ecosystem services on poverty alleviation at the household level in such regions. ObjectivesThis paper investigates whether household characteristics play an important role in connecting ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in a rapidly urbanizing landscape from the perspective of landscape sustainability science.MethodsWe use an urbanizing watershed with a large number of poor people, analyzing the impacts of ecosystem services on poverty alleviation among different types of rural households based on surveys, cluster analysis, and multinomial logit models. ResultsThe results suggested that neither provisioning services nor cultural services ...
Poverty and Environmental Services: Case Study in Way Besai Watershed, Lampung Province, Indonesia
Ecology and Society, 2007
Local communities in developing countries are often forbidden to earn their livelihood from stateowned forests, but nonetheless local people commonly manage these lands and depend on them to survive. In these places, community participation is the key to successful conservation programs intended to rehabilitate environmental functions and produce environmental services for beneficiaries outside the area. This paper reviews the relationship between poverty and environmental services and briefly discusses the main ways in which approaches that rely on payment for environmental services are thought likely to alleviate poverty. It also discusses the poverty profile and inequality of upland dwellers in the Sumberjaya watershed in Indonesia's Lampung Province, using income, education, and land-holding indicators. Data related to these three indicators were collected from intensive household surveys and interviews and used via Gini decomposition to measure inequality. In addition, analysis of data on stem at breast height and horizontal root diameter of coffee and other noncoffee trees planted on coffee farms showed that index of root shallowness could be used as an estimator of environmental services. This study revealed that state forest land in Lampung Province, Indonesia, not only provides important income for poor farmers but also leads to a more equitable distribution of income and land holdings. These farmers have also successfully rehabilitated degraded land by establishing coffee-based agroforestry. As found in other recent studies, these findings show that coffeebased agroforestry can perform watershed service functions similar to those of natural, undisturbed forests. This supports the argument that poor farmers who provide environmental services through their activities in state-owned forests should be rewarded with land rights as a policy to alleviate poverty.