ABSTRACT
The idea that poverty and environmental degradation are linked has been discussed, debated, rediscovered and reinvented numerous times. An early published manifestation came from Thomas Malthus who saw the main threat to “the intention of the Creator that the earth should be replenished” being “an unhealthy, vicious and miserable population” (Malthus 1826: XXIV). Colonial powers in Africa and Asia ensured continuity of the thesis. The entire discourse of increasing populations of poor and desperate people undermining the integrity of the natural environment is imbued with hidden messages, not least of which is that rural peasantry equates with poverty, poverty with ignorance, and ignorance with environmental stupidity.
