Poorer Countries and the Environment: Friends or Foes?

Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

World Development, 2015, vol. 72, issue C, 419-431

Abstract: This article focuses on delineating the conditions under which the governments of poorer countries become active defenders and protectors of the environment. It does so based on field work in two poorer countries, El Salvador and Costa Rica, where the governments have instituted moratoria on financially lucrative but environmentally destructive mining in order to protect the environment. Building on these case studies and prior work, the article posits three conditions—related to civil society, the private sector, and the public sector—under which governments of poorer countries implement policies that favor environmental ends over shorter term economic rewards.

Keywords: Costa Rica; El Salvador; mining; environment; political ecology; poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15000662
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:72:y:2015:i:c:p:419-431

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.03.007

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().