Environment and the Poor

This volume, one of the ODC's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives series, "offers useful steps for policymakers concerned with the critical challenges of integrating environment and development concerns," --Jessica Tuchman Matthews, World Resources Institute. Six out of every ten of the world's people are being inexorably pushed by agricultural modernization and continuing high population growth rates into ecologically vulnerable environments: tropical forests, dryland and hilly...
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This volume, one of the ODC's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives series, "offers useful steps for policymakers concerned with the critical challenges of integrating environment and development concerns," --Jessica Tuchman Matthews, World Resources Institute. Six out of every ten of the world's people are being inexorably pushed by agricultural modernization and continuing high population growth rates into ecologically vulnerable environments: tropical forests, dryland and hilly areas, and the fringes of great urban centers. Unless development strategies support their capabilities to ensure their own survival, the 470 million people living in these vulnerable areas will be forced to meet their short-term need to survive at the cost of long-term ecological sustainability and the well-being of future generations. In response to these startling statistics, the authors call for new policies and new forms of collaboration among participants at the local, national, and international levels. They offer practical and stimulating recommendations to bring together population planners, water engineers, health professionals, bankers, among others, to find solutions to both poverty and environmental problems.