Sustainable livelihoods: the poor's reconciliation of environment and development (original) (raw)

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Many Taylor & Francis and Routledge books are now available as eBooks. 2 14 Human nee& and aspirations employment, to recognize the primacy of local wishes and realities and to find ways of helping them to be realized. This applies especially when the needs are being articulated by those whom development professionals characterize as 'poor'. Sustainable livelihoods: the poor's reconciliation of environment and development Robert Chambers I shall argue in this paper that the thinking and strategies advocated and adopted with regard to problems of population, resources, environment and development (PRED) have largely perpetuated conventional top-down, centre-outwards thinking, and have largely failed to appreciate how much sustainability depends upon reversals, upon starting with the poorer and enabling them to put their priorities first. The context of the interrelationships between population, resources, environment and development is well understood and generally accepted. A summary overview, with which most would agree can set the scene. The context is the rural South, mainly but not only in the tropics. Three major processes stand out. These are population growth, 'core' (urban, industrial, rich) invasions of rural environments, and responses by the rural poor. Population growth Rapid population growth is the norm in the South. According to World Bank estimates (rounded), in the thirty-seven years from 1988 to 2025, populations will grow by 80 per cent in low-income countries and by the same 80 per cent in middle-income countries, in total from less than 4 billion to over 7 billion, while in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) taken on its own the increase will be over 180 per cent, from 464 million to over 1.3 billion (World Bank 1990: 228-9). As in much of SSA, it is often where the environmental base is most fragileand deteriorating, and where the rural population is a high proportion, that population growth is projected to be most rapid. 'Core' invasions and pressures The second process-'core' invasions and pressuresis shorthand for extensions into rural areas of the power, ownership and exploitation of central, I urban institutions and individuals which include the richer world of the North, governments of the South, commercial interests, and professionals who are variously wealthy, urban and powerful. 'Core' also reflects the bias of language and thought which makes urban areas the centre, from which other I vastly larger numbers of people can be enabled to gain adequate, secure, I decent and sustainable livelihoods in rural areas.