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Action 2: Alleviate Poverty to Reduce Environmental Degradation

Poverty and prices affect the choices that individuals and households make about the use and management of natural resources. Poor households may rely disproportionately on the environment to provide fuelwood and timber for energy and shelter as well as wildlife f lora and fauna for food and livelihood security.

Poor households are often disproportionately dependent on natural resources to supplement unstable and insufficient incomes. These households do not have sufficient access to productive resources or alternative sources of income and turn to "unpriced" or free environmental goods to meet their immediate needs.

The complex relationship between poverty and the use of fuelwood was apparent in both sets of country findings. In El Salvador, results demonstrated that being poor increases the likelihood that a household uses and consumes environmental goods. According to national household surveys, the poorest inhabitants live in rural areas. In 1995, almost 60 percent of rural households lived below the poverty line, compared with 41 percent of urban households (Gammage 2000). It was estimated that 87 percent of rural households used fuelwood as a primary source of domestic energy for cooking, compared with 29 percent of urban households (Gammage 2000). Further analyses using national household survey data for 1995 revealed significant differences between the demand for fuelwood by region and income. Poor households were almost six times more likely to consume fuelwood than non-poor households. Controlling for poverty, households located in former conflict zones in El Salvador were almost three times more likely to consume fuelwood. Not only are households in former conflict zones more likely to be poor, but they lack critical infrastructure linking them to markets or enabling them to purchase alternatives to fuelwood energy. Consequently, these households face fewer opportunities to substitute other forms of domestic energy for fuelwood.

Table 3 illustrates how poverty shapes resource consumption in the two countries. Poor and extremely poor households typically consume more fuelwood in total than non-poor households in El Salvador and Honduras. Yet, in El Salvador, poor and extremely poor households may consume less fuelwood per capita than non-poor households. This is because of the relative scarcity of fuelwood in El Salvador. Although poor and extremely poor households are larger, they may often be more time constrained and, therefore, invest less time in fuelwood gathering than households that are non-poor or have less cash to purchase fuelwood. As forest supplies dwindle in El Salvador, these households must cut back their consumption. Furthermore, it is likely that poor and extremely poor households eat meals of lower volume and nutritional content and cook less frequently or maintain their stoves lit for shorter periods of time (Benitez and Machado 2000; Gammage, Benítez, and Machado 1999).^[8]

The case study data for both countries revealed that out-migration is a consistent strategy to meet household subsistence needs in the face of declining rural employment and rising poverty. Households with family members that have migrated to the United States receive dollar remittances that supplement their income. Remittances cushion these households against poverty and enable them to purchase gas propane stoves and reduce the extent to which they use fuelwood. Remittance income fluctuates over time and is not necessarily predictable. Most households that receive remittances do continue to use fuelwood although the volume of fuelwood consumed is reduced.^[9]

As a result of out-migration, there are often more female-headed and female-maintained households.^[10] These households appear to be particularly dependent on fuelwood. This may be because their income fluctuates dramatically over time or because their earnings are consistently less than those of male-maintained households (see table 6). To meet their subsistence needs or to provide income, these households rely disproportionately on gathered fuelwood for domestic and productive activities.

The pronounced difference in fuelwood consumption between urban and rural areas in El Salvador mirrors the lack of access to cheap and effective alternative sources of energy (Current and Juarez 1992). In urban areas— where markets are more accessible, roads are largely paved, and electricity is more readily available to the urban poor— fewer households rely on fuelwood as their sole source of domestic energy. Alternative sources of fuel are easier to find and purchase in the cities; as a result, the use of electric and gas stoves is more widespread in urban areas. Access to these basic goods and services can diminish fuelwood consumption and dependency on other environmental resources. Conversely, rural areas tend to be poorer and more remote. Rural communities often lack those basic goods and services ensured through better market access; consequently rural inhabitants depend much more on local natural resources.

The Honduras research revealed a similar relationship between poverty and fuelwood demand in the Gulf of Fonseca. Ninety-five percent of all households surveyed used fuelwood, and 76 percent of these households lived below the poverty line (Aburto and Durón 2000; Aguilar and Campos 1999) (see tables 4 and 5). In contrast to the Salvadoran findings, extremely poor households in Honduras consume more fuelwood per capita than poor households. This is likely to be because fuelwood is still relatively abundant in these communities and the cost of gathering or purchasing fuelwood in terms of time invested or income expended is less. Fishing and agricultural households in the mangrove communities in Honduras were disproportionately the poorest; these households also had the highest demand for fuelwood. It is likely that both sets of households lack the ability to purchase gas stoves and depend primarily on fuelwood for domestic energy. Furthermore, fishing households use fuelwood to smoke and cook fish for domestic consumption or sale.

As both the actual consumption figures and the projected estimates of fuelwood demand in the regions surveyed demonstrate, there will be increasing pressure on the mangrove forests and surrounding wooded areas (Gammage 2000; Benítez and Machado 2000). 11 Targeted and complex strategies are needed to reduce the unsustainable extraction of fuelwood and other forest products destined for household consumption and markets. Particularly, these measures will need to alleviate poverty through a series of policy actions and incentives that encourage land intensification and land investments that are not environmentally damaging and that give equal weight to economic development and environmental sustainability.

Next Steps

This recommendation builds upon the "Regional Treaty for the Management and Conservation of Natural Forestry Ecosystems and for the Development of Forest Lots," signed in 1993 by six Central American nations in support of participatory reforestation programs, which prioritize meeting household demands. 12 The second chapter of the treaty states:

"Focus national and regional reforestation programs on the recuperation of degraded marginal lands optimally used for forestry. These programs should encourage multiple use forestry by different land users; promote the use of native species; and employ local participation in the planning, implemention and distribution of resources. These programs should also prioritize fuelwood and forest products for domestic consumption in the communities"

(Convenio Regional Para el Manejo y Conservación de los Ecosistemas Naturales Forestales y el Desarrollo de Plantaciones Forestales 1993)

The agreement emphasizes the multiple benefits from reforestation. Reforestation can provide fuelwood resources for households, improve land quality, as well as provide multiple products such as fruit, nuts, medicines, and bark, which may be used to diversify income and meet subsistence needs. The treaty adds that cohesive partnerships between governments and local communities are needed throughout the program phases, so program objectives are not dissonant with the communities most pressing needs.

» Extend micro-credit services to women and poor households. The poor have limited opportunities to diversify their source of income or increase earnings. Micro-credit has been effective in addressing this gap through the disbursement of small group and individual non-collateral loans. Remittances sent back from family members working in the United States may prove to be a fruitful source of community capital. The challenge is to provide access to formal banking services and provide loans where the repayment schedules are tailored to the productive activity undertaken. Both agricultural and fishing households have benefited from micro-credit initiatives increasing the opportunities to upgrade and transform traditional economic activities and improve the processing and commercialization of their products. These initiatives may be particularly important for women and female-maintained households enabling them to diversify their income-earning activities and relieve environmental dependence.

» Subsidize fuel-efficient stoves. Fuel-efficient stoves can reduce fuelwood consumption. Governments and development agencies should provide cash vouchers for the purchase of materials to make improved woodfuel stoves or should subsidize the use of gas propane stoves. This will enable many more households to change their resource use, alleviating pressure on the environment.

» Pave roads as a means to link markets, increase employment, and promote access to goods and services for rural poor. Roads can contribute to poverty reduction and help minimize dependency on local natural resources. Roads can provide greater access to off-farm and better-paid employment or to markets. Higher and more stable incomes mean greater surplus that can be invested in improving food security, purchasing household improvements, such as gas stoves, as well as in land intensification practices.

Roads can ensure the availability of other goods and services essential to the welfare of the rural poor, and the sustainable management of local resources. Reducing transport costs can mean lower input prices for agricultural and aquaculture production, which in turn leads to higher margins on the sale of produce. Furthermore, lower prices for commercial household goods, such as gas stoves and gas propane, may stimulate an increase in the use of substitutes for mangrove fuelwood.

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[8] Extremely poor households typically have higher economic and demographic dependency ratios , there are fewer income earners and fewer members who can dedicate their time to gathering fuelwood among the many subsistence tasks that they engage in. On average, these households spend less on food and consume fewer calories (Benítez and Machado 2000).

[9] This is not the case for El Salvador in 1997. The decline of real income in the community between 1993 and 1997 has affected the purchasing power of all households. Even households that receive remittances must survive on cash earnings while they are waiting for the next installment of dollars. Consequently, the use of propane gas stoves has decreased throughout the community.

[10] Female-maintained households are those where women earn more than 50 percent of total household income.

[11] Fuelwood and timber demands on the mangroves in Honduras and El Salvador are increasingly being concentrated on smaller areas of mangrove forest as much of the forest is converted to other uses. It is the concentration of this pressure on smaller and smaller tracts of forest that results in rapid deforestation. The use of mangrove wood for fuelwood, timber and salt ovens, is generally less-harmful use than clearing mangroves for shrimp or salt ponds. The pond construction often results in irreversible land use change, whereas selective logging for fuelwood and timber can be undertaken in such a way as not to cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem.

[12] The six signatories included Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panamá.

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