Escaping Poverty's Grasp
The Environmental Foundations of Poverty Reduction

Despite decades of poverty reduction plans, international campaigns by governments and charities alike, poverty is persistent and environmental degradation is accelerating. Though there have been some improvements, little has worked to create real economic and ecological opportunities for the poor. This is because of a failure to place their needs at the centre of action or to link local-level development to urgently needed reforms in national and international development policies. This book has been written to change all of that.

Working closely with teams in China, Indonesia, El Salvador, South Africa and Zambia, WWF devised a revolutionary three-level approach to analysing and intervening to eradicate poverty in all countries. This universal approach helps to develop ways of improving the local environment and community livelihoods as well as identifying and tackling state/provincial and national and international policy obstacles. Unashamedly critical yet unceasingly practical, this book provides both the tools and successful case studies to show practitioners how to adopt the approach in a variety of international contexts, including integrating it with existing methods, to improve livelihoods and enhance conservation and help the world’s poor escape poverty’s grasp.

A revolutionary practitioners’ guide for eradicating poverty and improving biodiversity conservation in any country, anywhere, it includes powerful, proven cases studies from China, Indonesia, El Salvador, South Africa and Zambia with valuable lessons and recommendations.

Authored by David Reed and WWF, pioneers in making poverty alleviation and conservation efforts work successfully together.

Format: 235 x 155 mm, 206 pages, paperback

About the Author
David Reed is director, Macroeconomics Program Office, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-International) in Washington DC, US, author of Economic Change, Governance and Natural Resource Wealth (2001) and editor of Structural Adjustment, the Environment and Sustainable Development (1996)