ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the evidence and study of the relationship between poverty and ecosystem services in the academic literature. It also provides an overview of the contribution of ecosystem services to well-being in developing countries, the different discourses on the relationship between poverty and ecosystem services, and the trade-offs in ecosystem services management and poverty issues. Poverty is generally considered to be a multidimensional state, with both subjective and objective aspects. Traditional economic approaches have tended to focus on income and have defined poverty as a lack of purchasing power, which builds on the concept of utility or welfare. The relationship between ecosystem services and poverty is hence far less linear and more complicated than a focus on provisioning services as inputs to well-being generation would suggest. Most of the work on the role of ecosystem services in poverty has focused on provisioning services, whilst intermediate services, regulating services and cultural services have received less attention.
