There is a relatively new development policy approach, which combines environmental conservation and poverty reduction and which is based on the existence of a “Poverty-Environmental Degradation” nexus (P-ED nexus), resulting in “win-win opportunities”.

Acknowledging a variety of different relations between those two development issues there is a big debate (1) concerning the nexus nature, the conditions under which it applies and the intensity of its application. Nevertheless, academics (2) seem to agree on its general nature, concurring on the dual causal relation between environmental degradation and poverty.
 

However, the nexus debate considers that the policy response, to one of the two issues or to both, can negatively affect one of them. In fact, there are several notorious South American examples suggesting that possibility, such as bio-fuels production increasing the pressure on land use or even the implementation of protected areas restricting the livelihood of forest inhabitants. Even so, there is some concern about the possibility that sustainable use of natural resources could be harmful for the environment. We will review this possibility in the Bolivian forest conservation context.

To begin, some clarifications are required. Firstly, for the argumentation developed here, an understandable distinction between poverty alleviation and economic growth is assumed. Secondly, the impacts of poverty alleviation on the environment, considered for this analysis, are only impacts on the environment as the natural resource provider (source side) and not on the waste absorber (sink side).

Since the P-ED nexus is uncertain there can be several different perspectives (3) adopted to answer the question posed in the title.

Assumption 1: The nexus does not exist and the two issues should be treated as separate matters.

In the absence of synergies, poverty alleviation policy responses can to some extent be bad for the environment. Given a limited budget, the allocation of funds to poverty alleviation reduces and constrains the financial capacity to address environmental degradation, and vice versa.
 

Assumption 2: The nexus exists and these two matters should be treated together when it is the case.

Decision makers can face two types of cases:

1.      The nexus does not apply in the given case or seems not to.

Environmental issues incorporate complex interactions and involve multiple dimensions; therefore there can be some uncertainty when determining the application of such nexus in a case to case perspective. Under such uncertainty, the precautionary principal should apply, which in this case recommends the use of economic incentives instruments, since there effective use requires taking into account population’s socio-economic conditions. Although, some relatively good environmental results can be attained through the use of economic incentives, the socio-economic benefits tend to be limited. The implementation of such instruments, in environmental context, requires well defined and established property rights, which generally excludes the involvement of the poorest share of the population. Moreover, the financial benefits received represent only a small socio-economic improvement. A good example is the case of payment for environmental services (PES) for watershed protection in Santa Cruz department (4).  

2.      The nexus clearly applies in the case faced.

Therefore, win-win opportunities can be identified; poverty alleviation is complementary with, or attained through, the sustainable use of the environment.

For instance, deforestation in the Amazonian area has been identified (5) to be driven by a variety of economic factors. Some of the major drivers are big industrial timber and land interests and one of the minor drivers is poverty that comprises the weak socio-economic conditions and lack of alternatives motivating the local population to enter in the logging activity.

A range of solutions are available to address the issue of poverty being a deforestation driver. Increasingly gaining in popularity is the development of sustainable exploitation of non-timber forest products (NTFP), in particular Brazil nuts gathering, which is seen as an economic substitute to logging and a way to commit the population to protect the forest. Nevertheless some doubts exist due to one characteristic of the Brazil nuts sector, common to some NTFP, which potentially increases environmental degradation. Analyzing the Peruvian experience (6), the labor demand in this sector varies greatly according to the season. The harvest phase requires an important working force but only lasts from mid-December to mid-March and as such is completely complementary with logging and agricultural activities. This phase is not rewarding enough alone to take its participants out of poverty. The Peruvian experience has shown that under that constraint, Brazil nut gatherers invest their harvesting profits to increase their logging capacity thus boosting their profits for the rest of the year. The more profits are made from Brazil nut gathering, the more logging activity becomes an important source of revenue.   
         

As such this kind of projects seems not to be a sustainable substitute for logging activity and could even be increasing its volume capacity. The same crititicism could be sustained for PES schemes that would not constrain the financial beneficiaries’ actions on the environment.   
 

Of course this argumentation does not suggest that increasing poverty would contribute to environmental conservation. The implementation of some policy recommendations could avoid that productive initiatives that are intended to encourage sustainable development fail in reducing environmental degradation and even exacerbates it. Firstly, the promotion of environmental awareness among local population is necessary but not sufficient. Secondly, it is essential to promote other sustainable poverty exit opportunities than logging activities. For instance the success of ecotourism in poverty reduction and environmental protection comes from the necessity in this activity to have a strong relation between environmental conservation and profitability. Without doubt, the replicability of this particular activity is limited, but the lesson would rather be to reproduce this sort of strong relation, for example through an ethically traded Brazil nut market (7). Moreover, brazil nuts projects should be complemented with other economic activities to achieve environmental protection.

This argumentation illustrates and supports the criticism that small scale poverty alleviation can harm the environment putting more pressure on natural resource exploitation. No categorical conclusions can be established on poverty alleviation impacts on environmental conservation from this essay, but rather a warning to strongly take into account interactions beteween these two types of policies before taking decisions based on false assumptions.