Is poverty to blame for environmental degradation?
When the people living in poverty are asked to identify their priorities, care for the environment or the need for sustainable development are rarely at the top of their lists. Housing, feeding and clothing the family, education for their children and care in their old age are much more significant concerns. Both production (or employment) and consumption patterns are determined more by these basic needs than by any consideration of their long-term impacts. The poorest people are sometimes seen as complicit with those forms of economic activity in which the environmental costs of production are displaced onto the public purse or into the future. This ignores the extent to which the people living in poverty are able to exercise choice in their productive or purchasing behaviour and the degree to which this is determined by more powerful players in the local and global markets. Poor people are attracted to more environmentally sustainable activities when they see that adopting them will
