Bac 2011 Oral Test
For the rural poor, productive and renewable natural resources constitute a fundamental source of subsistence, economic growth and social capital. Soils are the foundation of agricultural and livestock rearing activities; water is essential for the survival of humans, livestock and wildlife; and forests protect water sources and provide income.
It is estimated that over 70 per cent of the world's poor live in rural areas, and are therefore heavily dependent on the natural resource base for food production and processing, animal husbandry, fishing, trade, forestry, water and fuel. Agriculture and pastoralism are seen as major ways of exploiting the natural environment.
Over the last few decades, rural livelihoods have been profoundly affected by a number of ecological, socio-economic, political and institutional factors, which have modified local land tenure systems and conditions of popular access to and control over renewable natural resources. The cumulative, combined effects of population growth, stagnant agricultural growth and environmental degradation have created a downward spiral of poverty. Poor people are the hardest hit by the worsening environmental conditions because of their limited assets, and poor communities that rely heavily on biodiversity and natural resources for their subsistence and income are increasingly vulnerable, especially in dry land areas prone to recurrent droughts.
As a consequence of this, entire ecosystems in a number of developing countries are now in great jeopardy. Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) reported that "expanding human requirements and economic activities are placing ever increasing pressures on land resources, creating competition and conflicts and resulting in suboptimal use of both land and land resources".
Angelo Bonfiglioli, Lands of the Poor, p. 11
Vocabulary:
Jeopardy: a danger
Animal husbandry: élevage.