Role of Environmental Conservation in Poverty Alleviation: a Case Study of Malawi

Abstract

Promoting health and economic stability ensures progress in improving lives. Improving health and economic stability through environmental conservation and development has proved its value in most Western countries. The growth in Western countries behooves developing countries like Malawi to create a strategic and long term policy on environment and development. This thesis assessed whether environmental conservation can be used as a tool of poverty alleviation in Malawi. Despite vast research by Malawians on the impact of the pursuit of development on the environment, little is known about its effect on the poor populace. In fact, questions abound whether environmental conservation, development and poverty alleviation can be pursued concurrently. The overall image that emerges from this research is undesirable: soil erosion, decreasing soil fertility, extreme climatic variations, sewerage pollution in urban areas, poaching, declining fish catches and altering the species composition, widespread poverty and decreasing trends in food and economic security are the salient features of Malawi‘s environmental conservation measures. An analysis of this trends reveals a weak legal and policy framework, poor corporate governance structures, lack of education, corruption, and poor governance as the causes of the challenges. This research is important because it instigates questioning of the necessity of sustainable development policies for poverty alleviation.