Fighting back: human adaptations in marginal environments

Studies of the fragility of the natural environment often accord a prime role to human activities such as habitat destruction, land cover change, and "overuse" of biotic resources. One of the factors most closely associated with environmental degradation in the developing world is poverty. A well-known analysis suggests that the poor are found disproportionately in the dryland, highland, and rainforest zones of the tropics, several of which have been identified by other researchers as "critical" in terms of the quality of their natural resource base and the stresses placed upon them by human uses.(1)