ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the main features and key challenges involved in linking conservation with poverty reduction. Not all conservation can contribute to poverty reduction. Some conservation activities appear to have little obvious relationship to poverty and livelihoods (protecting the Antarctic or high seas environment, for example). But where conservation and poverty intersect, conservation can do much more to contribute to poverty reduction, simply because natural resources are important for livelihoods and human wellbeing. Conservation should take poverty and livelihoods more seriously because it can help alleviate a serious global problem and because addressing these issues often makes for better conservation. In cases where conservation has negative effects on the livelihoods of poor people, or where it limits their opportunities for development, we believe there is an ethical imperative to address these impacts.
