University of Maryland, USAInstitution:
E-mail: Sjscherr@aol.com
Biosummary:
Sara J. Scherr is a natural resource economist with extensive experience in policy and economic research on the relation between agricultural development and land and resource management in the tropics. She earned her B.A. from Wellesley College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. She has held positions at Stanford University’s Food Research Institute, the International Center for Research in Agroforestry in Kenya, the International Tree Crops Institute in California, and the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC. She is currently Adjunct Professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department of the University of Maryland, College Park. Her main areas of research have been the impacts of petroleum development on agriculture; agroforestry policy, adoption, project evaluation, and on-farm research design; policies for sustainable development of fragile lands, in particular tropical hillsides; the economic impacts of land degradation; and community natural resource management. Her fieldwork has focused on Mesoamerica and East Africa.
Title: "A vicious cycle? New research evidence on the relationship between poverty and natural resource degradation."
Theme: 3A
Abstract:
Many observers have conceptualized the link between rural poverty and environment as a "downward spiral" associated with population growth and inadequate resources, or economic marginalization resulting in environmentally damaging migration. Recent micro-scale empirical research challenges this model, showing striking heterogeneity in environmental management by the rural poor, their success in adapting to environmental change, and the efficacy of policies in influencing outcomes. A "rural livelihoods" perspective and an analytical framework emphasizing household and community adaptation processes help make sense of this variation.
Eight key factors appear to condition poverty-environment interactions and outcomes in relation to agriculture: the type of natural resource base and farming system, sustainability of available technology, farmers’ capacity to mobilize investment, economic incentives for conservation management or investments, security of tenure and access rights for the poor, local institutional capacity to support adaptive response by the poor, and the degree of political inclusion of the rural poor.