ONE of the most damning charges made against environmentalists is that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation. Nonsense, says new research.
鈥淭he vast majority of the world鈥檚 poor people live in extremely urban areas鈥� only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild,鈥� says Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, the author of a study mapping poverty and human environmental impact around the world. Even the rural poor mostly live in grasslands, Redford says, while biodiverse forests are largely empty (Oryx, ).
WCS and other conservation groups are often accused of taking land from its rightful occupants in the name of conservation. Some observers, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature, have called on greens to do more to combat rural poverty in areas where they work. Redford鈥檚 study suggests that neither of these concerns is particularly justified.
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However, critics say that even if relatively few poor people live in the most biodiverse areas, their needs must still take priority. 鈥淪ecurity of livelihoods is still vitally important for people that do live in such areas,鈥� says Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Alliance UK. 鈥淟ike it or not, conservation groups are going to have to improve the lot of local people if they want their programmes to succeed.鈥�
