Relationship between rural poverty and environmental degradation in Latin America

This was a research project aimed at studying the relationships between rural poverty and environmental management and degradation, with a view to generating information that can be used to formulate public policy.

The research comprised ten case studies in different agro-ecosystems in seven countries of the region covering several locations in the Andes, low humid tropics, temperate zones and a dry tropical zone. All cases used a similar methodological approach and analytical tools, allowing for several generalizations. A constant and important result in all cases has been the impossibility of determining the characteristics of the management of the environment and resources in general by the poverty levels of the producers.

The strongest relationship of environmental management and its consequences on the condition of resources seems to be with the type of production systems and not with poverty levels. However, assets such as high levels of education, security of ownership and the use of certain ancestral practices linked to social capital, play a preponderant role in the good management of the environment, beyond the levels of poverty based on monetary income and the degree of satisfaction of basic needs and minimum living conditions.

An important observation was the absence of evidence that poverty prevents technological change.