[Asia] Groups: Poverty In Asia Destroying Environment

from All Headline News

Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - A study commissioned by the Asian Development Bank and the World Conservation Union found that extreme poverty in Asia would wreck havoc in the environment over the next 10 years.

The study titled: "Poverty, Health, and Ecosystems: Experience from Asia," said the growing number of poor people in the region were putting tremendous strains on natural resources such as bodies of water, grasslands, soils and forests.

Both the ADB and the WCU said the more than 620 million poor people living in Asia were also at the most risk from environmental degradation.

AFP quotes the book, "It is also the poor who have the most at stake when ecosystems degrade, as they suffer disproportionately from the health risks caused by inadequate or dirty water and polluted air, and bear the burden of collecting the resources for their daily use, such as water and fuel."

The book also presented a grim prediction on the declining living condition in Asia's poor. Using the most optimistic growth model, the book say poverty in the region would decline only to between 150 million and 300 million living on a dollar a day by 2015, by then an estimated 1.5 billion people would be living on two dollars a day.

It said it was not true that "poverty causes environmental degradation, or improvements in the environment reduce poverty." But it suggests lowering poverty level can limit the pressure on the environment and resources.

The book's authors studied the agricultural systems in China, India, and Pakistan and evaluated links between households or communities and aquatic ecosystems in Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and Sri Lanka.