The occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June, is an opportunity to highlight IFAD’s approaches to natural resource and environmental management. The rural poor, including farmers, artisanal fisherfolk, the landless and pastoralists, depend on the environment for their water, food and livelihoods creating a link between environmental degradation and rural poverty.

Approximately 70% of IFAD-supported projects are located in ecologically fragile, marginal environments.

In Western and Central Africa, land and water degradation have reached alarming levels due to desertification and growing scarcity of arable land surface, groundwater and rangeland. Forest cover is declining with growing population demands for expansion of agriculture, fuelwood and timber. Consequently IFAD is focusing on sustainable approaches to agricultural intensification in the region, as well as promoting appropriate technologies and community empowerment.

Degradation of natural resources is a serious problem in Eastern and Southern Africa. Major areas of concern are arresting and reversing deforestation, erosion control and soil management, soil moisture and water management halting the degradation of pastures, recovering and conserving marine resources, and conserving biodiversity. Overfishing by both artisanal and industrial fleets and destructive fishing practices has seriously depleted fish stocks in much of the region and has damaged the marine environment.

The major environmental problems facing poor rural farmers in Asia and the Pacific are land and water resource degradation, sedimentation of watercourses, loss of forest resources and biodiversity and degradation of fisheries. Because the Asian financial crisis of 1997 hit hardest rural people in marginalized areas, i.e. the uplands, hills and mountains, special attention is being given to programmes in upland areas. Environmental issues have been mainstreamed through a focus on conservation farming, forests and their biodiversity, and policy, legal and institutional frameworks.

About 60% of the current lending portfolio of the Latin America and the Caribbean Division clearly state a concern for the environment and include activities related to sustainable agriculture, soil erosion, desertification, land and property rights, and improved natural resource management. The concern for the environment is not an end in itself but is aimed at reducing poverty on a sustained basis.

Major environmental threats facing both North East and North Africa and Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. Project components focus strongly on the sustainable management of natural resources for increased agricultural production, including soil and water conservation, land reclamation, and irrigation.

Many lessons have been learned from IFAD’s evolving experiences in addressing the environment and management of natural resources, including:

• The need for promoting participation and community organisations because sustainability is achieved when beneficiaries engage in managing resources and maintaining structures;

• The requirement for focused, but flexible, technologies as the success of technology packages depends on detailed knowledge of local farming systems and the livelihoods of local populations;

• Improving women’s access to productive natural resources and their participation in the decision-making process, because they are experienced natural resource managers;

• Ensuring secure land rights - they are an incentive for farmers to invest in and engage in sustainable land and water management practices

Unless environmental degradation is reversed and the constraints to sustainable use of natural resources overcome, attempts to alleviate rural poverty may be jeopardised and the potential sustainability of rural development projects undermined.