This publication describes the direct link between environmental degradation and rural poverty. Drawing on examples from a number of countries (including Chile, Cameroon, Ghana, El Salvador, Paraguay, East Timor, and Colombia), it details the cycle of over-exploitation of the environment, loss of cultural, political and economic self-determination, inequity, hunger and poverty. On the positive side, the report highlights cases in which community-based natural resource management has enabled people to gain access to and control over these resources, thereby realising the possibility of povery reduction.
