out of poverty. Specific policies need to be targeted at the poor where they live, especially the rural poor clustered in fragile environments and remote areas. This will require a variety of measures including involving the poor in these areas in payment for ecosystem services, targeting investments directly to the rural poor, reducing their dependence on exploiting environmental resources, and tackling their lack of access to affordable credit, insurance, land, and transport. Where possible, efforts should be made to boost rural employment opportunities, especially for those poor households dependent on outside labor employment. These measures can complement other actions to improve livelihoods by increasing economic mobility, including physical or institutional migration out of low-return agriculture and the informal sector.

# **Ecological scarcity and poverty in poor economies**

From an economic perspective, ecological scarcity has been defined as the loss of myriad benefits, or “services”, as ecosystems are exploited for human use and activity (Barbier 1989, pp. 96-7; see also Barbier 2011, ch. 9). Certainly, at a global level, ecosystems and their services are in decline. An important indicator of the growing ecological scarcity worldwide was provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005), which found that over 60% of the world's major ecosystem goods and services were degraded or used unsustainably. Some important benefits to humankind fall in this category, including fresh water, capture fisheries, water purification and waste treatment, wild foods, genetic resources, bio-chemicals, wood fuel, pollination, spiritual, religious and aesthetic values, and the regulation of regional and local climate, erosion, pests and natural hazards.

For many developing economies, ecological scarcity also is manifesting itself in another way – it is contributing to the economic vulnerability of the rural poor. Increasing ecological scarcity is disproportionately affecting the world's poor in rural areas, who depend critically on many ecosystem goods and services for their livelihoods (Barbier 2005 and 2010; MA 2005; TEEB 2010; Wunder 2008). As shown below, many of the world's rural poor continue to be concentrated in the less ecologically favored and remote areas of developing regions, and their livelihoods are intricately linked with exploiting fragile environments and ecosystems (Barbier 2005 and 2010; Bird et al 2002 and 2010; Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture 2007; CPRC 2004; Dercon 2009; Fan and Chan-Kang 2004; Sunderlin et al. 2008; World Bank 2003 and 2008). Such conditions often result in _spatial poverty traps_ – geographic pockets of poverty, marginalization and disadvantage (Barrett 2008; Bird et al. 2002 and 2010; Jalan and Ravallion 1997 and 2002; Kanbur and Venables 2005). The clustering of poor rural populations in less-favored areas and fragile environments that are located far from market centers is also likely to continue into the foreseeable future, given current global rural population and poverty trends (Chen and Ravillon 2007; Dercon 2009; Population Division of the United Nations 2008).

Since 1950, the estimated population in developing economies on “fragile lands” prone to land degradation has doubled (World Bank 2003). These fragile environments consist of upland areas, forest systems and drylands that suffer from low agricultural productivity, and areas that present significant constraints for intensive agriculture. Today, nearly 1.3 billion people – almost a fifth of the world’s population – live in such areas in developing regions (Barbier 2011, Table 9.10). Other estimates suggest that poor people in developing countries are predominantly found in areas with the greatest potential for land and water degradation; i.e., land with highly 3