Environmental, degradation, population and poverty in India

This paper addresses the developing country interrelationship between poverty, population growth and environmental degradation with reference to the archetypal Indian experience. The first section describes the typical characteristics ofbiomass based subsistence economies, and the theoretical and empirical bases of the population-poverty linkage. The second section outlines the incidence and nature of rural poverty in India, the major causes of the mediocre performance ofIndia's agricultural sector to date, and the rural poverty-environmental degradation interrelationship. The third section provides an overview and critique ofthe policy measures implemented to slow population growth, alleviate poverty, arrest environmental degradation and their interrelationship. The paper concludes with a comment on how the reform-averse political system might be induced to implement and enforce the necessary reform measures.