The majority of Asia's poor live in rural areas where they depend on ecosystems that include bodies of water, grassland, soil and forest. They now face difficulties from unsustainable exploitation or conversion of these areas to other uses, according to a publication released last week by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Conservation Union.

The latter is still known by the acronym IUCN, from its earlier name International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Some 620 million Asians are still living in severe poverty which, even projecting the most optimistic growth rates, will decline only to between 150 million and 300 million living on US$1 (Bt37) a day by 2015. However, as the book points out, a staggering 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion people will still be getting by on only $2 a day.

For many of the millions of rural Asians who live in poverty, ecosystems and natural resources are essential to daily health and well-being. It is also the poor, especially women and children, who have the most to lose when ecosystems degrade, as they suffer disproportionately from the health risks caused by inadequate or dirty water and polluted air and bear the burden of collecting resources for daily use, such as water and firewood.

"Poverty, Health and Ecosystems: Experience from Asia" highlights in 16 case studies the challenges faced by these poor and often resource-dependent households across Asia.

"The ADB and IUCN are pleased to have commissioned these case studies in an effort to promote debate about and a greater understanding of Asian resource-management systems and why they matter for poverty reduction," say Nessim J Ahmad, an ADB director, and Aban Kabraji, Asia regional director at IUCN, in the preface.

"We trust that the documentation and analysis of this Asian experience will lead to improvements in both poverty-alleviation efforts and ecosystem conservation."

The case studies include analyses of pressures facing agricultural systems in China, India, and Pakistan. They also cover examples of links between households or communities and fresh-water or marine ecosystems in Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and Sri Lanka.

A case from Mongolia examines the relationships between grassland ecosystems as a source of pasture for livestock while cases from Nepal and China document how the poor rely on forests for fodder, medicine, firewood and other products. One study looks regionally at the complex linkages between gender, poverty and environment while other cases from the highlands of Vietnam, tribal groups in the Indian state of Orissa and the Chinese province of Yunnan illustrate how ethnic minorities are not only among the poorest and most marginalised but also among the most natural-resource dependent.

The book also offers new insights into the relationships between healthy ecosystems and healthy people. A case study on mining in Mongolia shows how indiscriminate exploitation of resources has damaged the health of the poor by polluting water and destroying pasture.

Another regional case examines how contacts between humans and animals can increase the spread of diseases such as Sars and avian influenza. 

The cases also delve into the social processes that underpin poverty and often perpetuate the unsustainable management of natural systems by both the poor and non-poor and by local and external groups.

"These issues are part of broader governance challenges that are pervasive across rural Asia, tied especially to the inequitable distribution of resource rights and management regimes that often favour vested interests at the expense of the poor," the book says.

The case studies present a range of efforts to overcome such problems, often relying on alliances between civil society and development agencies and resource-based NGOs that can facilitate wider legal redress.

Some of the cases also point to the results that can be achieved when a more complex, multifaceted and politically toned approach is adopted, in contrast with a focus on awareness-raising, capacity-building or technological improvement.

The book was prepared as part of the ADB's Poverty and Environment Programme, which is financed by the ADB, Sweden and Norway.

The programme is pilot-testing and disseminating innovative approaches to reduce poverty.