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How Poverty Affects The Environment

How Poverty Affects The Environment

Approximately a billion people around the world suffer from hunger. One billion people also live on less than a dollar a day, which is the official measure of poverty. Yet, just a few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.

So, how does poverty impact the environment? Poverty  has been shown to result in resource stripping just to survive or pay off debts. For example, Nepal has suffered from environmental problems such as devastating floods, which are a result of large-scale deforestation.

Increasing population is another factor putting burdens on the world’s resources, as a growing source of environmental problems.

Essentially, the world’s resources are allocated to meet a few people’s wants and not everyone’s needs. In other words, if you don’t have the money to buy food, no one is going to grow it for you. Ironically, many farm products flow from areas of hunger and need, to areas where money and demand are concentrated.

This global interconnectedness needs more recognition if environmental degradation, poverty and other problems are to be addressed.

Source: Linking The Environment And Poverty, by Anup Shah, Global Issues Organization, 12 February 2005.

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