Linking poverty and environment as causes of conflict: a case study of Pakistan

• Main Author: Azhar, Masood ur Rehman
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: GE Environmental Sciences; HC Economic History and Conditions
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/20430/1/ICOGPA%202016%201%208.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/20430/; http://icogpa2016.weebly.com/

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of an International conflict i.e. East Pakistan Crisis, 1971, and reveals that un-equal development creates conflict in society. Natural resource scarcity and environmental degradation can also become a source of conflict, so marginalized and excluded people fight for their rights through non-peaceful means.This essay supports the theoretical approaches of poverty, environment, and conflict nexus and reveals that un-equal development and resources scarcity deepens the poverty and creates conflicts in the society, causing harm to the environment.The degraded environment deepens the poverty as environment and poverty are interlinked and poor has limited choices other than to degrade the environment for their survival.This vicious downward spiral link of poverty and degradation of environment requires working extensively for poverty alleviation to reverse the environmental decline.