1.
Poverty, Environmental Degradation,
and Human Rights:
Exploring the Nexus

2.
Outline
Define poverty
Interrogate the connections
Examine evidence of the nexus
Evaluate potential solutions
Design a field experiment
PPD132: Sustainability II 2

3.
What is poverty?
Lack of income Lack of assets
• Natural
resource assets
• Human
resource assets
• On-farm and
financial assets
• Of-farm
physical and
financial assets
Lack of
entitlements
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4.
Poverty Environmental
Degradation
Human Rights
?
Exploring the Nexus
PPD132: Sustainability II 4

5.
Environmental Kuznets Curve
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6.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
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7.
• “The failures that we need to correct arise
both from poverty and from the short-sighted
way in which we have often pursued
prosperity. Many parts of the world are
caught in a vicious downwards spiral: Poor
people are forced to overuse environmental
resources to survive from day to day, and
their impoverishment of their environment
further impoverishes them, making their
survival ever more difficult and uncertain.”
Our Common Future (1987)
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8.
So poverty causes
environmental
degradation, right?
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9.
Is it really that simple?
• EKC is spatially myopic
• Studies tend to focus on the
state, not households
• Difficult to generalize across
different kinds of
environmental changes
• Fails to explain future-
oriented behavior
No!
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10.
Hypotheses
H1: Exogenous poverty  Environmental degradation
H2: Power, wealth, and greed  Environmental degradation
H3: Institutional failure  Environmental degradation
H4: Market failure  Environmental degradation
H5: Environmental degradation  Poverty
H6: Endogenous poverty  Environmental degradation
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11.
What does the evidence say?
Power, wealth, and greed  Environmental
degradation  Poverty
Institutional/market failures + Lack of
information  Environmental degradation 
Poverty
Poverty  Environmental degradation
• BUT only 10% chose these activities freely; 90% were
forced into unsustainable practices
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12.
Solutions?
Property Rights
Environmental Rights
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13.
Property Rights
• Up to 2.5 billion people
depend on land and
natural resources that are
held, used, or managed
collectively
• Only 1/5 of these lands are
formally recognized as
owned by them
• This leaves 1/3 of the
world’s population
vulnerable
How do
property
rights
relate to
global
poverty?
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14.
Property Rights
Provide shelter, dignity, and a means for
accumulation
In particular, land:
• Can be used as collateral for credit or exchanged for
capital
• Provides a buffer to smooth consumption in times of
shocks
• Confers social standing, increases bargaining power
PPD132: Sustainability II 14

15.
Property Rights
So to reduce poverty, we should pass laws
that give land to individual poor people, right?
If only it were that easy!
• Understand the context (i.e. legal pluralism)
• Pay attention to the bundle of rights, including use,
management, exclusion, and alienation
• Might negatively impact those with joint or secondary
rights (i.e. women)
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16.
Procedural Environmental Rights
Information
Participation
Access to Justice
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17.
Procedural Environmental Rights
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18.
Do PERs work?
• Courts in Ecuador, India, Peru, South
Africa, South Korea, and Slovenia have
upheld PERs
• A global quantitative study shows that
that PERs to information are associated
with greater access to improved water
and sanitation sources
Limited
evidence,
but so far
promising:
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19.
Limits of Rights-Based Approaches
Litigation can be slow and expensive
Property rights suggest a ‘win-win’ situation, but
poverty still driven by market forces
Procedural environmental rights require
enforcement and resources
Might conflict with cultural practices
PPD132: Sustainability II 19

20.
Exercise: Design a field experiment
• 1) Partner up with someone nearby (friend or enemy)
• 2) Decide whether you’ll test property rights or PERs
• 3) Design a specific research question
• 4) Generate a hypothesis based on this lecture
• 5) Develop an intervention that tests your hypothesis
• 6) Identify the country, scale, and number of subjects
• 7) Describe any ethical concerns that might arise
• 8) Write it all up and be prepared to share!
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21.
What can *I* do?
Mobilize others to support campaigns and programs
• #LandRightsNow, #EnvironmentalRights
Donate to organizations
• Landesa, EarthRights International
Start or join a student group
• Global Environmental Brigades at UCI, Students for Sustainability
Volunteer your time with the less fortunate
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22.
Thank you!
Contact info:
@JoshGellers
www.joshgellers.com
josh.gellers@unf.edu