Poverty and the Environment

The theme of this year's Blog Action Day is Poverty. It used to be said that environmentalists didn't care about people. However, all the time it is becoming clearer that environmental issues are closely bound with poverty. In many countries poorer people are driven to destroy their environment, eg a need for farmland and firewood driving people to cut down forests, at the same time many environmental injustices are disproportionately borne by poorer people - eg in many richer countries including Scotland, toxic waste dumps are more likely to be located near poorer communities. Many issues connect the environment and poverty - eg biofuels made from maize and other food crops are accelerating rainforest destruction at the same time as causing food crises in several countries.

It is becoming clearer too that to ensure a future for the human race, we need to take better care of the natural environment. More and more charities and governmental agencies are now realising this. There are a lot of resources out there, but to start to find out more, why not browse some of these links (please note I've not read everything in the links and don't necessarily agree with everything said there, but they are good resources to start reading about the issues):

Oxfam Climate Change Resources
World Wildlife Fund pages on rural poverty and environmental degradation
UK Department for International Development Document on Poverty and Environment
United Nations Poverty and Environment Initiative
Poverty Environment Partnership

and if you only read two other Blog Action Day posts, make sure it's Melissa's over at Poet with a Day Job and Beth's at Fake Plastic Fish.