Environment and Disaster Management
Panel 2: Development Interventions and the Poverty-Environment Nexus
Development Interventions and Stakeholders: the Case of Forest Governance in NWFP, Pakistan
by Babar Shahbaz*, Urs Geiser **and Abid Qaiyum Suleri***
This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the stakeholders in the context of interventions in the forestry sector of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. Empirical context of this paper is generally based on the research conducted within the framework of National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, Switzerland. The core study area of the research were highland districts of NWFP and the case study is based on the efforts by state authorities in NWFP towards decentralising the planning and implementation of participatory forest management. There is a wide range of actors who can influence or can be influenced by any forest related intervention in the province. This paper describes the characteristics, livelihood strategies and power relations of different stakeholders.
Based on the analysis we argue that the stakeholders interact at multiple levels – from local to national to the global level. Although the ‘local communities’ are the most important stakeholders and users of the local natural resources and have most significant influence on poverty-environment nexus, yet actors and institutions at higher levels determine their actions. The essential aspect, however, is how these diverse actors see each other in terms of trustworthiness and what their perception/interpretation of poverty, environment and related institutional arrangements is?
Various groups of stakeholders, for example, local communities, civil society organizations, religious and traditional institutions, state agencies, global actors etc. are trying to operate within the contested political arena of NWFP. The paper shows that on the one hand, the state as well as donor led interventions do not really engage in a meaningful dialogue with the local stakeholders and institutions, and on the other hand these entities themselves are not in a position to initiate a change in local resource use.
The transformation of forest management to a multiple stakeholder community based approach is always fraught with difficulties. The holistic analysis of the ‘local communities’, their livelihood assets and strategies, resource use patterns, and power relations, before the implementation of the development projects, would ensure the sustainability of such interventions and active participation of local actors.
* Dr. Babar Shahbaz is a Senior Researcher, National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR North South), Switzerland and a Visiting Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan, as well as Assistant Professor at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
** Dr. Urs Geiser is associated with the Development Study Group, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
*** Dr. Abid Q Suleri is the Executive Director (Interim) of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad Pakistan.
Global Value Chains, Industrial Clusters and Corporate Environmental Responsibility: Identifying New Research and Policy Agendas
by Peter Lund-Thomsen*
International organizations, bilateral aid agencies, national governments, and local business associations are increasingly trying to incorporate social and environmental concerns in their interventions aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of industrial clusters in the developing world. This happens at a time when many of the key export-oriented industries in the developing world are coming under immense pressure for the implementation of social and environmental standards from foreign buyers. Several industrial clusters - geographical concentration of firms working within the same industry - in South and East Asia have responded to these challenges through joint action initiatives, thus assuming new social and environmental responsibilities.
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (a) to make an initial theoretical exploration of the key linkages between the global value chain, industrial cluster and Corporate Environmental Responsibility literatures, outlining key themes for future research within this area, (b) with reference to recent fieldwork, to empirically investigate the potential, limitations, and actual impacts of donor-financed collective action schemes on supplier competitiveness, working conditions, and environmental pollution within industrial clusters operating in the Pakistani leather tanning industry. The paper finishes with a discussion of key policy implications for future Corporate Environmental Responsibility interventions in industrial clusters.
* Dr. Peter Lund-Thomsen is associated with the Center for Business and Development Studies, Center for Corporate Values and Responsibility at the Copenhagen Business School. He is also Visiting Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan.
Management of Common Pool Natural Resources for Rural Livelihood Improvement and Income Generation in Himalaya
by Prakash C. Tiwari*
The Himalayan terrain imposes severe limitations on resource productivity levels, as well as infrastructure efficiency. Hence, subsistence agriculture constitutes the main source of rural livelihoods. This biomass based traditional agro-ecosystem is interlinked with forests and pastures. The maximum proportion of these resources falls under Common Pool Resources (CPR). Rural poor are heavily dependent on CPR for their various resource needs, as well their livelihoods.
During the recent past, a variety of changes have emerged in traditional resource use structure mainly in response to the growing population, and increasing political, economic and social marginalization. Consequently, Common Pool Resources have deteriorated and depleted steadily and significantly leading to their conversion into degraded and non-productive lands. As a result, productivity of rural ecosystems has declined and livelihood securities of poor adversely affected.
The headwaters could not escape this process of resource depletion, and emerged as frontiers of environmental conservation and resource exploitation conflicts. The main objective of this paper is to evolve a framework for CPR management to help implement livelihood improvement and rural income generation schemes by local government agencies, with a case illustration of Kosi Watershed (108 km2) in Kumaon Himalaya, India. Using the Community based Participatory GIS approach an integrated framework for sustainable development of common pool resources has been evolved and various non-traditional, pro-poor and environmentally sustainable livelihood and income generating options identified. This has lead to local grass-root institutional mechanisms being strengthened to institutionalize common pool resources and sponsor non traditional livelihood interventions.
* Dr. Tiwari is a Reader at the Environment and Natural Resource Management, Department of Geography, Kumaon University Nainital, Uttaranchal, India.
Linkages of Poverty and Ecosystems: Indicators for Effective Response Policies
by Flavio Comim* and Pushpam Kumar**
The relationship between poverty and ecosystem is complex. The phenomenon of poverty can influence the rate of extraction of natural resources like forestry, fisheries, topsoil, biological resources, ground and surface water. This might lead to erosion of these resources faster than what one can ordinarily expect. Conversely, if the condition of environmental resources worsens like degradation of forest canopy, depletion of ground water, exploitation of biodiversity at species level, they can make the people who depend on these resources, just as poor and deprived. The first and foremost assumption behind this two way relationship between poverty and ecosystem is the fact that through its various functions and subsequent benefits, natural resources and environmental conditions contribute to the well being of people. The complexity of the relationship is widely acknowledged. The interaction between poverty and environmental destruction sets off a downward spiral of ecological deterioration that threatens the physical security, economic well-being and health of many of the world’s poorest people. They suffer from malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, shorter life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality. Men, women and children live along the subsistence margin that, while not life-threatening, preclude attainment of minimal necessities. The complexity poses serious challenges to decision makers who find it hard to design effective response policies to manage ecosystems for enhanced human well being, including poverty reduction.
This paper attempts to organise the complexities of the relationship between poverty and the health of ecosystems and suggests some indicators to map this relationship. The paper is divided into four sections. Section I introduces the issue of the poor and their physical environment. Here the multiple dimensions of the linkages between poverty and degradation of ecosystems are examined. Section II discusses the criteria and indicators to capture the degree and direction of this relationship. Concepts like ecological footprint, environmental sustainability index and sustainable wealth etc have been discussed. While developing the indicators following steps have been identified:
- Identifying the of dimensions of human well being;
- Selecting indicators for identified dimensions of well being;
- Scaling diverse indicators for harmonising their magnitude;
- Assigning weights to the (scaled) indicators in composite indices; and
- Time span for which scaling & weighing procedure is held valid for facilitating inter-temporal comparability of indices.
Similarly, health aspects and vulnerability of the poor have been discussed with the help of adequate indicators showing their dependence on ecosystems and their services.
Section III of the paper synthesises the discussion on indicators and suggests how these indicators can be used in designing response policies like poverty reduction strategy and policies (PRSPs) to reduce poverty without affecting the condition and resilience of ecosystems. The discussion in the paper follows the generic approach and demonstrates how simple statistical methods like tabular analysis, correlation and panel data method can be used to discern useful insights for policy makers. The paper takes into account some of the recent development in the theoretical construct of poverty-environment linkages and few concrete examples on indicators have been used from South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa.
* Dr Flavio Comim is a Faculty Member, St Edmunds College and is Director of the Center for Capability and Sustainability (CSC), University of Cambridge, UK. Dr. Flavio specialises in Poverty and Welfare Economics.
** Dr Pushpam Kumar holds joint position, as a Faculty Member in the Department of Geography, and as Environmental Economist, Institute for Sustainable Water, Integrated Management & Ecosystem Research (SWIMMER) at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is also a Research Associate, Centre for Capability and Sustainability (CSC), St Edmunds College, University of Cambridge. Dr. Pushpam specialises in valuation and accounting of Ecosystem Services.
Impact of the NREGP on Rural Livelihoods
by Amir Ullah Khan* and M R Saluja**
This paper looks at the National Rural Employment Guarantee Program (NREGP) in India that was launched in the year 2005 as a social security measure aimed at providing employment security to the poor in villages. The NREG was also meant to use this labor to construct rural infrastructure that is clearly wanting in India. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act guarantees 100 days of work to all households. This analysis looks at the direct and the indirect effects that the NREGP has on employment generation and poverty reduction in a local area. For this, a detailed survey in a specific village was undertaken to highlight the impact of the NREGP. This survey covered a poor agricultural village with 600 households and nearly 3000 people. The survey recorded income and expenditure levels by type of household (large, small and marginal farmers, agricultural labor, services etc). The survey also recorded production activities undertaken by the inhabitants.
* Dr. Amir Ullah Khan is an Economist. He was awarded his PhD for his work on Intellectual Property Issues in International Trade. His forthcoming book for SAGE is titled States of the Indian Economy.
** M. R. Saluja holds a Master degree in Mathematics and a Masters in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute. He has written two books, Indian Official Statistical System; and Input-Output Tables for India: Concepts, Construction and Applications.
Environmental Law in Pakistan: International Obligations and Lower Riparian Sindh
by Abrar Kazi* and Zulfiqar Halepoto**
Much like air, water is a crucial component of the environment of planet earth. But unlike air the quantum of water is finite, wherein competing demands of water for food security and water for conservation of wetlands, lakes, swamps, mangroves and deltaic eco-systems have created an intense introspection and debate in the human society around the globe.
From the United Nation’s Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, in 1972, to Dublin Principles; to the United Nation’s Protocol on Non-Navigational International Waterways, all the deliberations and the resulting international covenants and agreements are but efforts of the international community to enunciate and to formulate such laws that bind the human kind to a framework that sustains the fresh water resources and at the same time protects the environment that is directly dependent upon the water resources.
Laws are formed so that civilized societies can regulate life of their citizens and the weak and the vulnerable are protected in as much that their life and livelihood should be safeguarded. Pakistan has also entered into a number of international covenants for the protection of environment and related livelihood like 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment & Development, the 1998 UNICEF Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Access to justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), 1991 Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Trans-boundary Context (Espoo Convention), 1993 Protocol on strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), The 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, the Johannesburg Declaration o Sustainable Development 2002 and UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The constitution of Pakistan also contains provisions of such laws that protect and conserve environmental resources. For example the water apportionment accord of 1991 clearly identifies the need of fresh water release in the Indus River for the protection of deltaic eco-system.
Several laws exist in Pakistan like the Canal & Drainage Act 1873, The Explosives Act 1884, The Ports Act 1908, The Forest Act 1927, The Agricultural Pesticides Ordinance 1971, and the recently promulgated Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997, that are specific to, and can be invoked for, the protection of the environment in Pakistan. However, these laws are seldom invoked and evenless implemented.
Sindh is the southern province of Pakistan and is also the lower riparian of the Indus River System, that sustains the agriculture and drinking water of the 160 million people of Pakistan. As more and more water is diverted to the production of food security, the Indus River has turned into a bowl of swirling sand in lower reaches of Sindh. The water diverted for the production of food percolates underground raising the brackish ground water throughout the province, causing immense suffering in the shape of water logging and land degradation. On the other hand, sea intrusion caused by less inflow of water in to the ocean has added more to the disaster of downstream life, livelihoods and economy. Decline in agriculture produce, displacement and migration, unemployment, increase in poverty, disease, and lawlessness are the worst outcome of the environmental degradation. Wrong designs of the discharge and faulty structure of drainage outlets has further caused saline water flow into productive agriculture fields resulting in more devastation.
Those who stand for sustainability of environment as against water for food security claim that natural resources are being used wastefully in a manner that the long-term development prospects are undermined due to environmental degradation. It is argued that efficient usage of the increasing scarce resources of fresh water will result in both the resources and the ecology remaining sustainable.
The war between water for food sovereignty and water for environmental security is being lost by the latter, because the upper riparian, Punjab, is more inclined towards its food sovereignty. The environmental laws in Pakistan are also heavily tilted in favor of the upper riparian Punjab since it is the most populous and powerful province of Pakistan.
The paper will focus on the legal and constitutional position of the lower riparian rights in the national legal framework and environmental laws, vis-à-vis Pakistan’s commitment to international covenants to protect the environment. This paper will also examine the weaknesses in the environmental law in Pakistan and the inefficiency in the mechanism implementation and will also suggest means to overcome the deficiency.
* Abrar Kazi is a political analyst and a technocrat. He is a retired Air craft Maintenance Engineer. He is author of the book Kalabagh Dam: The Sindh Case. He has written a number of articles on politics of water and dams in Pakistan in English and Sindhi.
** Zulfiqar Halepoto is a water and environmental columnist. He has done his Masters in Contemporary History from the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is doing his PhD from the Department of Sindh Development Studies Center (SDSC), University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan. He has edited three books on water and environment.
Are We Destroying the Himalayas? A Balance sheet of Ecosystems, Energy projects and Livelihoods
By Arun Shrivastava*
Energy starved India is increasingly dependent upon the estimated 200,000 MW hydro-electric potential of Himalayan rivers from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. In Himachal Pradesh, about 445 projects (Over 300 small and 145 medium and large) are planned, under execution or operational. To expedite capacity addition, Environment Protection Rules have been diluted or ignored affecting the livelihoods of estimated 128,000 households.
Hydro-electric projects depend upon water flows, a critical resource provided by ecosystems that are common pool resources. The sustainability and profitability of energy projects and livelihoods of local people are both inextricably linked to the ecosystem services. With untrammeled access to main rivers and diversion from tributaries project authorities are destroying ecosystems and impoverishing people. Environmental degradation is affecting not only the designed life and capacity of hydro-electric projects, but also the settled traditional communities and their economic, social, cultural and psychological patterns.
This paper explores the interaction between three systems-governance, free market and the environment- impacting livelihoods. The setting is three villages: Jadera, Sahoo and Jamjhi, all Gram Panchayats (village councils] of about 300 households each in the district of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh. The paper captures the:
- contradictory, frequently destructive, role of the Government despite obligations under various international and regional treaties
- pressures encountered by private and public sector hydro-electric projects
- range of responses of the affected communities
- role of the civil society; and
- policy ramifications.
The purpose of the paper, based on empirical observations and cases histories, is to highlight the need for exploring solutions that address environmental concerns, livelihoods issues and energy needs in an acceptable and workable manner with consensus of all stakeholders. The paper is precursor of a major survey-based research currently underway.
* Arun Shrivastava, is a Certified Management Consultant, former Visiting Professor of Strategic Management & Business Policy at the International Management Institute, New Delhi (1990-94), and member of the Himalayan Policy Campaign Committee (HPCC).
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