ABSTRACT

This book began by stating that it matters how poverty–environment relationships are understood and portrayed, suggesting that the ‘vicious circle’ and ‘downward spiral’ portrayals of poverty–environment relationships are misleading and unhelpful. Reviewing a diverse range of frameworks and approaches that enable a much deeper, nuanced analysis of poverty–environment relationships has shown how much the internal and broader political economy, governance and power context matters. An examination of the broader context implies that questions should be asked concerning why people are poor; why people have the access they do, or do not, to resources; and, why they have the capacity to manage resources or, indeed, have such limited capacity to manage the natural resources in question. This may lead analysts to investigate the governance context or to investigate who has power and what the implications of such power are for how people gain and maintain access, or how, and why, that access is so limited and complex.