1. The landmark report of the World Commission on
Environment and Development, entitled "Our Common Future", warned that
unless we change many of our lifestyle patterns, the world will face unacceptable levels
of environmental damage and human suffering. The Commission, echoing the urgent need for
tailoring the pace and the pattern of global economic growth to the planet's carrying
capacity, said that: "Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable and to
ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs."
2. In the final analysis, the environmental crisis affects everyone on the planet, but
the degree to which the inhabitants of different parts of the world contribute to this
crisis depends on the level of their economic development and their consumption patterns.
As much as 70% of the world's consumption of fossil fuel and 85% of chemical products is
attributable to 25% of the world's population. Water consumption is also unevenly
distributed. The per caput water consumption in the United States is about 2 300
m³ per annum, as compared to 1 500 m³ for the Canadians and 225 m³ for the British. The
average per caput consumption of water in developing countries ranges between 20 to
40 m³. The consumption patterns for forest products and many other commodities have the
same direct inverse proportion to the size of population of the top 20% of the richest
societies. This profligate demand puts excessive pressure on both national and global
natural resources. The rest of the world, comprising 80% of its population with a share of
less than 20% of global income, has a far more modest consumption level.
3. While international environmental concerns are often expressed in broad terms such a
desertification or climatic change, the environmental problems of concern to
vulnerable groups in marginal areas are generally quite localized in nature, revolving
around immediate issues, such as the degradation of a particular 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
generally translates into decreases in production or income and thus in the availability
of food. Declining soil fertility leads to lower crop yields while rangeland depletion
reduces offtake, and any deterioration in water quality adversely affects the fish catch.
Degradation of common property resources pulls labour away from directly productive
activities towards gathering - simply collecting non-wood and minor forest products - and
probably diminishes opportunities for deriving income from this source. Linkages with food
security can also be less direct. Shortages of biomass may result in a transition to
lower-nutrition foods that require less fuel for cooking. In addition, recurrent drought
or natural calamities also directly result in progressive loss of food security prospects.
4. In their quest for food security, the rural poor have sometimes little choice but to
overuse the limited resources available to them. The resulting environmental degradation
imposes further constraints on their livelihood in what has been called a "downward
spiral" or "vicious circle". 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. It also makes them more vulnerable to environmental degradation,
including degradation wrought by others than the poor themselves.
5. The poor may be both agents and victims of environmental degradation, especially in
marginal areas, where the resource base is ill-suited to agriculture. But 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. Thus, while poverty may be an underlying
cause of environmental degradation, it is more accurately seen as a proximate cause
influenced by a complex of policy and institutional factors. The very same processes that
lead to and perpetuate poverty constrain the poor in their decision- making with regard to
natural resource management. 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.
Poverty in Fragile Ecosystems
6. Absolute poverty has been on the retreat in most high-potential areas in developing
countries. The combination of more productive technologies, fertile land and water, and
high levels of development and public investment have raised incomes significantly 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. In the latter areas, politically marginal indigenous populations have been
neglected and have been joined by new groups displaced from more fertile areas through a
variety of processes. These processes, although varying across countries and regions,
include expropriation, demographic pressures, land fragmentation, privatization of common
property lands, and consolidation and expansion of the commercial sector combined with
reduced demand for labour due to mechanization.
7. While 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% 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. It has been
estimated that 80% of poor people in Latin America live in such areas, 60% in Africa and
50% in Asia. Reliance on the currently prevailing patterns of growth will postpone the
resolution of poverty in marginal areas, with severe implications not only for the people
affected but also for the environment. The immediate-to-medium-term prospects for the
rural poor to abandon these areas for other sectors of the economy, as was the case in
Europe in the last century, are not promising. As a result, fragile ecosystems are rapidly
becoming ghettos of poverty and environmental degradation.
8. The need for urgent action can be recognized in relation to the following
characteristics of these regions:
(a) They constitute a significant part of the world's land resources. Forty percent of
the earth's land surface is considered dryland, of which approximately 70% is already
degraded or subject to heavy degradation. On the other hand, hilly and mountainous regions
cover about 21% of the earth land mass and, although not so extensive as dry lands, they
exert a far-reaching influence on other areas, primarily through watershed functions.
(b) The role of both ecosystems in terms of human habitat is also significant:
approximately 900 million of the world's population are subsisting in dry zones. Although
only about 10% of the world population live in mountain areas, a much larger percentage
(about 40%) occupies the watersheds below. It is safe to assume that the future of
mountain ecosystems affects the life of half of the world's population. From the Andes to
the Himalayas, and from South East Asia to East and Central Africa a serious ecological
deterioration caused by overgrazing, deforestation and excessive cultivation threatens the
livelihood of these populations.
(c) Mountains are important sources of water, energy, minerals, agricultural products
and a major reserve for the world's biodiversity. Similarly, dry zones are rich in
biodiversity, hosting many endangered species. Moreover, crops, grasses, trees, and
livestock species, that form the core of survival in drought prone regions, exist in these
regions only.
(d) 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 which are
well-adapted to the harsh conditions in which they lived. Their holistic, traditional
knowledge of their 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.
(e) Rural women play a key role in on- and off-farm activities in the developing
countries. This is particularly true in the case of the ecologically fragile areas. With
the growing male out-migration from marginal areas, the number of women headed households
in these areas is increasing. Women are becoming more and more responsible for the day to
day survival of the family. Women tend to be more vulnerable than men to the effects of
environmental degradation because they are often involved in harvesting common property
resources such as wood and water. Since women usually make a greater contribution to
household food security than men, a decline in women's access to resources may have a
significant impact on household consumption. Environmental degradation implies further
burdens and responsibilities which are not compensated for by increased decision-making
power.
(f) Degradation of land and loss of its vegetative cover also have consequences at the
global level, primarily because of its influence on carbon exchange, but also in terms of
loss of biodiversity. The large amount of carbon stored in the vegetation of the dry
zones, for example, averaging about 30 tonnes per hectare, decreases when the vegetation
is depleted or disappears. Carbon-rich soils, frequently found in dry zones, store a
substantial amount of this element (nearly half the total quantity of carbon is stored in
the organic matter in the soil, much more than is found in the world's vegetation). The
destruction of these soils has a very powerful effect on the carbon cycle and boosts the
greenhouse effect as a result of the release of carbon.
Towards Action
9. Over the past two 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. Until recently, the international community and
national governments have tended not to appreciate the need for integrated rural poverty
alleviation and environmental management programmes in marginal areas. There were a number
of promising initiatives in this field, usually undertaken by NGOs and community- based
organizations, but they were usually small and very localized. At the same time, in many
regions, rural people's perception of their environment and the priority they give to a
better relationship with it have changed. Increasingly, rural 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 sustainably; 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.
10. UNCED's Agenda 21, the global action programme for sustainable development, is
perhaps the first expression of international commitment to addressing the poverty-
environment nexus. Chapter 3 on "combating poverty" called for specific
long-term strategies that integrate poverty eradication and sustainable management of the
environment. Agenda 21 devoted two chapters to the special needs of fragile ecosystems,
namely Chapter 12 on "Combating Desertification and Drought" and Chapter 13 on
"Sustainable Mountain Development". In the follow-up to UNCED, promising
initiatives have emerged for these thematic areas. For drylands, the United Nations
Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought
and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (CCD) provides a framework for concrete
action at the local level. For mountainous areas, efforts are currently under way to
develop the basis for an action plan for sustainable mountain development, known as the
"Mountain Agenda".
11. The Agenda involves the establishment of a network on sustainable mountain
development consisting of United Nations agencies, NGOs and intergovernmental
institutions. A set of action proposals has been developed by those involved in promoting
sustainable mountain development. In recognition of the need to give prominence to the
"Mountain Agenda" on the international and national lists of priorities, a
global Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGO)/NGO Conference, as well as regional
inter-governmental consultations are being convened. The main proposals for action that
are emerging, identified through a broad participatory process involving the major NGOs,
encompass five specific areas of focus: poverty eradication; the strengthening of a global
information network and database; strengthening country capacity and the generation of
"National Mountain Action Programmes"; raising awareness through the preparation
and organization of a World Conference on Sustainable Mountain Development in early 1997;
and the formulation, negotiation and implementation of regional or sub-regional mountain
conventions and possibly the development of a "Global Mountain Charter".
12. The Desertification Convention offers new and exciting opportunities for collective
action, as well as a fertile field for testing and nurturing innovative partnerships in
development cooperation for local level action. It is the first International Treaty to
squarely address poverty and environmental degradation in rural areas. Unlike the other
Conventions associated with Rio, the direct beneficiaries of CCD are the hundreds of
millions of predominantly poor and food-insecure people who populate the drylands of the
world. It is the first Convention that casts resource users and their communities as
central to the solution rather than part of the problem. At the very heart of the CCD is
the concept of "Partnership". Partnership embodies the new thrust in development
assistance, in which it is finally recognized that interdependence rather than dependence
is the way forward. But partnerships won't work unless all partners stand to benefit. CCD
tries to translate this attractive concept into more or less concrete terms.
13. While the underlying incentives to enter into partnership must exist, what is also
needed is a favourable context to promote its emergence and functioning. In the context of
CCD, the National Action Programmes - or NAPs - are the instrument for partnership. NAPs,
which are not intended as static plans but as a dynamic programming capacity, should offer
a macroeconomic and institutional framework that will support local-level action. Here,
more is meant than economic and fiscal policies, although these are of course extremely
important. It also means a policy orientation that actively focuses on empowerment of
local actors to take advantage of new opportunities and overcome old constraints. The
Convention therefore encourages devolution of decision-making from the centre to local
populations and resource users. The most important reasons for this are compellingly
obvious:
Local Ownership in Decision-making - Local structures are more likely to make
decisions that are relevant and suitable to local circumstances.
Removing Bottlenecks in Information Flow and Decision-making - Decision-making
for natural resource management requires prompt and relevant information.
Improved Ability to Involve Marginalized Groups - Decentralization might allow
better targeting of services and better identification of needy groups.
Better Tailoring of Approaches to Local Conditions - Local appreciation of
constraints and opportunities can only improve the quality of solutions.
14. An emphasis on empowerment of local populations and civil society should not be
construed as a wish to actively withdraw from the sustainable development arena. Instead,
it is based on a recognition that the public sector and multilateral finance can
facilitate but cannot substitute for action that must come from economic agents at the
local level that act individually or collectively. What is needed now is to build an
operational coalition between NGOs, CBOs as well as other institutions of civil society
together with government institutions and international agencies, to form action-oriented
partnerships around specific and concrete areas of intervention.
The Challenge of Financing Action
15. Promoted by the world's distress over the loss of life in the Sahelian famine of
early 1970, the UN Conference on Desertification (UNCOD, Nairobi 1977) adopted a plan of
action to end desertification by the close of the century. The response to the plan of
action was dismal and it was virtually left on the shelf. Now with only four years left to
the day when UNCOD's promises should have materialized, desertification has almost
doubled, and the poor are paying the cost, with their health and lives. The CCD diligently
negotiated and enthusiastically adopted holds new promises, as the degree of awareness,
globally and locally, has increased. But unlike its sister Conventions on climate change
and biological diversity, the CCD does not promote establishment of a new financial
mechanism. Instead it foresees the creation of a "Global Mechanism" to be housed
in an existing organization to coordinate and facilitate the flow of additional funds
including grants and concessional loans through both bilateral and multilateral channels.
16. Neither national budgets nor statistics on international financial flows to
developing countries give clear figures on resources presently allocated to combat
desertification. But there is little argument about the dearth of international funding
for desertification control. Even resources formally provided under Global Environmental
Facility (GEF) - which, by and large, precludes eligibility for desertification programmes
- are judged to be inadequate. Nevertheless, financing constitutes a major pillar for the
success of CCD without which it may very well face the same fate as UNCOD. Within this
context, a proactive role for the Global Mechanism should be promoted.
17. The multi-source and multi-channel orientation of the CCD is more of a strength
than a weakness. Instead of relying on one mechanism - say, the GEF - the Convention is
not predicated on the availability of external grant finance earmarked for the purpose. In
contrast, the Global Mechanism configuration is about improving the effectiveness and
efficiency of existing flows, in addition to catalyzing and leveraging new flows
and sources of finance. It encourages a greater role for domestic resource mobilization,
private sector initiative, and a blending of various concessional and non-concessional
external finance.
18. This diversity of flows and the multifaceted diverse coalition which one hopes it
would represent, will in the end make the Convention and the actions it triggers more
robust and sustainable. One should work towards that coalition, by assisting to set in
place policy and institutional frameworks that are favourable to private initiative, by
helping governments to provide public goods, by pump-priming promising initiatives, and by
assisting local populations and community organizations to interface more productively
with the private sector.
Financing Peoples' Participation
19. Local-level activities and creativity championed by CCD have a number of
implications for the nature of resource mobilization as well as the manner through which
resources are utilized. First, there is a need to step up efforts aimed at
awareness- building at local level. This is a task for which NGOs and CBOs are best
suited. The NGO community, and in particular the international NGOs, should give a high
priority to this objective when mobilizing resources for CCD as stipulated in the
Convention. Second, CCD calls upon Parties to promote a National Desertification
Fund (NDF) and similar mechanisms for directing funds to the local level. Such mechanisms
should be run on the basis of a participatory governance involving local communities and
their partners in the NGO community.
20. NDF should also be flexible and simple in design. To preserve the confidence of
both donors and local populations, it is imperative to ensure full transparency and
effective accountability in its management. Moreover, the local populations could be true
shareholders and effectively claim their share in the partnership if, in addition to the
contribution from the external donors and national resources, they shoulder part of the
financial burden. This could be done by mobilization and pooling of individual savings as
well as through decentralization of collection and management of taxes, levies and other
revenues derived from local resources. Third, it is absolutely important that the
NDF resources are to be utilized for community level investment and that they lead to the
creation of durable economic assets, shared collectively. Using the proceeds of NDF for
relief activities or financing individually- owned enterprises would be a costly mistake.
The former would deplete the resources of the fund without any lasting benefit, and the
latter would distort the local financial market, preventing the creation of sound
credit/saving structures. Such structures are equally important to facilitate investment
for crop intensification or to promote economic diversification to lessen man and
livestock pressure on land.
Conclusion
21. Populations in marginal areas are not doomed to despair. On the contrary, it is in
these very regions that the people, forced by circumstance, manage to cope most creatively
with their harsh and unpredictable environment, and to diversify their resource use
strategies over space, season and sector. They capitalize as much as they can on
biological diversity - most pronounced in these regions and constituting a core of their
survival. They are responsible for most appropriate technological and institutional
innovations which depend minimally on costly and external inputs. This is particularly
true in the conservation of rainwater, notwithstanding the saline soils common in those
regions. It is also true for the institutions which developed for the collective
management of very scarce common resources, such as water points, grazing land and
forests.
22. Effective actions against poverty, household 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. The importance of local
area development and improved local governance - also covered in the other issues papers -
must be emphasized. An important factor in this context, of course, is the issue of
incentive frameworks and enabling environments, with specific regard to the question of
how to combine longer-term concerns for environmental rehabilitation and conservation with
the pressing short-term needs of household food security. Also important are the
technology and related measures to be promoted that build on traditional knowledge, such
as those which will in the short term generate tangible benefits for the farmer, as
outlined in the discussion paper on this topic.
23. Many conservation policies and strategies in the past have failed because of their
top-down approach and their reliance on technologies which were irrelevant to the local
circumstances. In contrast to the result of these efforts, the micro-projects implemented
in many places over the past decade have made it possible to build up a store of knowledge
allowing for the implementation of new approaches. 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.
24. Some traditional rural communities have developed complex resource management
systems that have stood the test of time, and have much to offer in addressing present-day
concerns over long-term resource sustainability. Their admirable environmental ethic
deserves its due place. Asserting the importance of local knowledge calls for the
empowerment of local people through their own organizations. Moreover, the considerable
cultural and environmental heterogeneity of mountain areas and the scattered nature of
dryland populations underline the need for decentralized local-level action toward
integrated management of local areas.
25. This is not to suggest that local communities can be left to their own devices.
There is a need for supportive and facilitating measures on the part of governments. The
international community should also be aware of the global dimension of the process and
the responsibility that this implies. There is therefore a need for a coalition of actors
ranging from the international to the national and the local level. This is precisely what
the CCD is promoting and what an eventual Mountain Agenda might promote. In the short
term, what is needed is what one might risk calling "affirmative action"
in the form of finance and assistance to local communities.
26. The immediate challenge is to consider how ratification of the CCD can be
expedited, how it can be implemented and how to secure adequate financing for local area
development. The CCD also stipulates a major role for civil society organizations,
foremost among them the community-based organizations - namely that they should galvanize
energies and mobilize resources. The private sector, as well as civil society at large,
should also be encouraged to think beyond individual or corporate interests towards a
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.
Discussion Paper 1: Empowerment of the poor
Discussion Paper 2: Enhancing technology generation and diffusion
Discussion Paper 3: Combating environmental degradation
Discussion Paper 4: Preventing disaster and reducing its impact on
the poor
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