GEOG 3020 Lecture Notes - Land Degradation, Soil Management, Wced

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Geography
• Course: GEOG 3020
• Professor: Noella Gray

Document Summary

Poverty and environment: example: cotton in mali (see moseley reading) Wealth and environment: example: global water use/scarcity. A) the poor degrade the environment because they have no other choice. B) the wealthy degrade the environment because they consume too much. Emerging mainstream view as alternative to neo- Malthusianism in 1970s/1980s: those who are poor and hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive (wced, 1987: 28: lack of capital: don t have resources to invest in more sustainable activities, short time horizon: Neo-classical economics: production at the margin = diminishing returns. + ecology: vulnerable landscape poor have least productive land to work on. + political economy: groups on the fringe, with little power: 3 marginalizations above lead to a cycle of social & environmental degradation poor get poorer. Discourse = increased population in developing world increased poverty peasants/poor will overuse land desertification/soil erosion move to more marginal lands.