Chapter Six

Environment

Revitalizing, Restoring, and Improving Rural Areas

Claudia Ringler and Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Rural revitalization must go beyond economic progress as conventionally measured to also restore and improve the natural environment—not only for better rural living conditions, but also for the health of the planet.

KEY FINDINGS

Rural areas are the locus of essential ecosystem services for the planet, and rural dwellers are key custodians of these services; at the same time, rural livelihoods, including agriculture, contribute to loss of forests, groundwater depletion, land degradation, water and air pollution, and climate change.
Challenges contributing to this environmental degradation include population and (unequal) economic growth and the resulting pressures on natural resources; associated poverty and inequality that leave people—particularly women—with few options; and lack of rights and poor pricing of resources, which hamper sustainable use.

Restoring and improving the natural environment is a key component of rural revitalization, essential not only to improving rural living conditions but also to the health of the planet. Agriculture and its custodians—women and men farmers—are central to the revitalization and restoration of rural environments.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Invest in rural revitalization to create healthy and thriving rural areas and to provide safe food, clean water, climate change mitigation, and other key environmental services.
Provide economic incentives to address environmental degradation. Possibilities include payments for environmental services, removal of subsidies that distort resource use, and well-defined, tradable rights for environmental “goods,” such as clean water, and “bads,” such as pollution.

Invest in innovative practices and technologies, such as precision farming, small-scale irrigation, and communication technologies, that can increase agricultural yields and reduce environmental degradation.
Support context-appropriate institutions to motivate and coordinate action among rural dwellers to address environmental issues. These institutions include land and other resource rights, local resource users’ associations, and partnerships with national governments.

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