TY - CHAP

T1 - Environmental income and rural livelihoods

AU - Smith-Hall, Carsten

AU - Jiao, Xi

AU - Walelign, Solomon Zena

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - The recent decade has seen a wealth of studies documenting the economic importance of environmental income in rural livelihoods in the Global South. Such subsistence and cash income is derived from fuel, food, fodder, medicine, construction materials, and a string of other products harvested across a range of non-cultivated habitats including forests, meadows, and rivers. Environmental income also often includes wages from natural resource-based activities and transfer payments for environmental services. This chapter summarises what we know considering the household-level economic evidence on the static and dynamic contributions of environmental income to: (i) current consumption, including patterns of absolute income and reliance, (ii) gap-filling and safety nets, and (iii) poverty reduction. The debate on forest vs non-forest environmental income is detailed as is the discussion on the role of environmental products and services in moving rural households out of poverty. The chapter ends by specifying the research frontier, including the need to better understand intra-household factors and employ new data generating methods.

AB - The recent decade has seen a wealth of studies documenting the economic importance of environmental income in rural livelihoods in the Global South. Such subsistence and cash income is derived from fuel, food, fodder, medicine, construction materials, and a string of other products harvested across a range of non-cultivated habitats including forests, meadows, and rivers. Environmental income also often includes wages from natural resource-based activities and transfer payments for environmental services. This chapter summarises what we know considering the household-level economic evidence on the static and dynamic contributions of environmental income to: (i) current consumption, including patterns of absolute income and reliance, (ii) gap-filling and safety nets, and (iii) poverty reduction. The debate on forest vs non-forest environmental income is detailed as is the discussion on the role of environmental products and services in moving rural households out of poverty. The chapter ends by specifying the research frontier, including the need to better understand intra-household factors and employ new data generating methods.

U2 - 10.4324/9781003014041-28

DO - 10.4324/9781003014041-28

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-0-367-85635-9

SN - 978-1-032-26005-1

T3 - Routledge International Handbooks

SP - 259

EP - 270

BT - The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South

A2 - Nunan, Fiona

A2 - Barnes, Clare

A2 - Krishnamurthy, Sukanya

PB - Routledge

ER -