Natural Assets:
Can We Advance
Environmental Protection
and Poverty Reduction?
James K. Boyce
Department of Economics & Political Economy Research Institute
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
New Economics Summer Institute, Boston College, June 2012
THE QUESTION
• Is there an inexorable tradeoff
between environmental protection
and poverty reduction?
• Or can they be complementary
goals?
The Conventional Wisdom: Tradeoff
Environmental
protection
Economic well being
Poverty reduction
Beyond the tradeoff: Natural asset building
Environmental
protection
Poverty reduction
Natural Asset Building: Complementarity
Environmental
protection
Poverty reduction
Economic Status:
Income or Assets?
Median income
Median net worth
B/W ratio = 0.6
B/W ratio = 0.08
Source: Melvin Oliver & Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth (1995).
Assets & Poverty
• Assets  income flows
• Assets  collateral for credit markets
• Assets  social status
Assets: Broadly defined
• Net worth: financial assets & real-estate
property
• Human capital: education & health
• Social capital: bonding & bridging
• Natural capital: sources & sinks
The Right to a Clean and Safe
Environment – at home
‘All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. They include
the right to a clean and healthful environment.’
- Constitution of the State of Montana
‘The people shall have the right to clean air and water, freedom from
excessive and unnecessary noise, and the natural, scenic, historic, and
esthetic qualities of their environment; and the protection of the people in
their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural,
mineral, forest, water, air and other natural resources is hereby declared to
be a public purpose.’
- Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
‘The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of the
natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.’
- Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania
The Right to a Clean and Safe
Environment - abroad
• All residents enjoy the right to a healthy,
balanced environment.
- Constitution of Argentina, article 41
• The Constitution guarantees to all persons: . . .
The right to live in an environment free from
contamination.
- Constitution of Chile, Ch. III, article 19(8)
• Every individual has the right to enjoy a healthy
environment.
- Constitution of Colombia, article 79
Building Natural Assets
• Investment: Adding value
• Redistribution: Democratizing access
• Internalization: Capturing benefits
• Appropriation: Defending the commons
Investment: Adding value
The creation of new natural capital or the
increase of existing natural capital.
Examples:
• mangrove restoration - Mexico
• “soil banking” - Amazonia
• people’s artificial reefs - India
Investment: Mangrove restoration
Laguna Manialtepec, Oaxaca. Photo: James Boyce
Investment: Soil banking
Investment: People’s artificial reefs
Photo credit: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers
Redistribution:
Democratizing access
The transfer of natural capital to low-income
individuals and communities.
Examples:
• land reform – east Asian countries
• extractive reserves – Brazil
• mineral resources - Peru
Redistribution: Land reform
Redistribution: Land reform
Redistribution: Land reform
Redistribution: Extractive reserves
This portrait of the late Chico Mendes hangs in the Chico Mendes Environmental Park in Xapurí, Brazil.
Photo credit: Anthony Hall.
Redistribution: Mineral resources
The Tintaya copper mine in Espinaor, Peru. Photo credit: CooperAcción.
Internalization:
Capturing benefits
Rewards for previously uncompensated
positive externalities.
Examples:
• payments for environmental services – El Salvador
• certified organic & “Bird Friendly®” coffee – Costa Rica
• Forest Stewardship Council-certified timber – Mexico
• in situ conservation of crop genetic diversity – ??
Internalization:
Payments for environmental services
Terraces can improve both the quantity and quality of water supplies. Photo credit: Barry Shelley.
Internalization:
Certified organic & “Bird-friendly®” coffee
Internalization:
Forest Stewardship Council certification
Internalization:
In situ conservation of crop genetic diversity
Photo: Peter Menzel, “Farming Diversity: Glimpses of Oaxaca” http://www.peri.umass.edu/276/
Appropriation:
Defending the commons
Establishment of rights to what have previously
been treated as open-access resources.
Examples:
• Environmental justice – anti-toxics
• International carbon rights – greenhouse justice
• National carbon rights – “cap-and-dividend”
Appropriation: Environmental justice
Appropriation:
National carbon rights
Who owns a nation’s share of
the atmospheric commons?
Appropriation:
International carbon rights
Appropriation:
International carbon rights
Countries should act to protect
the climate system “in
accordance with their
common but differentiated
responsibilities and
respective capabilities.”
-- UN Framework
Convention on Climate
Change (1992)
For more
James K. Boyce and Barry G. Shelley, eds., Natural
Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership.
Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003.
James K. Boyce, Sunita Narain, and Elizabeth A. Stanton,
eds., Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and
Ecological Restoration. London and NY: Anthem Press,
2007.
James K. Boyce and Elizabeth Stanton, Environment for
the People. Amherst, MA: PERI, 2005. Available at
http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/envtforpeopleweb.pdf.