The small island nation of Timor-Leste illustrates some of the environmental pressures faced by developing countries. Timor-Leste is categorized as a “least developed country,” with high rates of hunger, poverty, and child and maternal mortality. Roughly the size of Connecticut and with a population of approximately 1 million, the country has 700 miles of coast line and a varied topography that includes dense forests and steeply sloping hillsides.27 According to Conservation International, Timor-Leste and its surrounding region is also a biodiversity hotspot. It’s an immensely rich ecosystem, but it’s under extreme stress and the threat of irreparable environmental degradation.
One of the major environmental concerns in Timor-Leste is the loss of forests. Under Indonesian rule, timber was unsustainably harvested as an export commodity. War in the late 1990s heavily damaged forests, turning many areas into degraded scrubland, a problem made worse in recent years by large-scale forest fires.28 Wood also serves as a major source of energy for cooking, and population pressures are increasing the need to comb the forest for available fuel. Efforts to increase food production have also contributed to deforestation as farmers practice slash-and-burn techniques in an effort to enlarge and enrich arable land.29 In 1972, more than half of the area that now makes up Timor-Leste was forested. Today, only about one-third of this forest remains intact.
The rapid loss of forest in Timor-Leste presents several important development problems. First, woodlands are an important asset for poor people, providing resources to improve their lives and sustain their livelihoods. Rivers, grasslands, and forests provide timber, fuel, food, and water to use at home or sell in local markets. Estimates from the World Bank suggest that 90 percent of the world’s poor people rely on forests for some part of their income or livelihood.30 The declining availability of natural resources means that families, particularly women and girls, must walk greater distances and spend more hours searching for firewood simply to survive. Time and energy spent securing basic goods such as fuel is time that children could instead be learning and adults pursuing other economic opportunities.
Conflict and Instability: Conflict not only stops development but reverses it. It is critical for countries emerging from conflict to get onto a development track quickly; otherwise, they are likely to fall back into conflict.
Weak states preoccupied with quelling violence or staving off coups cannot focus on important development goals. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s very poorest countries, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, have a recent history of conflict. Unfortunately for many of these countries, escaping conflict and building a sustained path to development is not easy.
The reality is that poverty is both a cause and an outcome of conflict. Livelihoods are abandoned and economic development reversed. Displaced populations are more vulnerable to hunger and disease. Violence can quickly destroy the physical and financial environment needed to ensure sustainable development. Bombs and bullets scar the natural environment; unexploded landmines can make land permanently unusable.
In his work studying the challenges to development, economist Paul Collier finds that low-income countries are much more prone to civil wars than wealthier countries. “Halve the starting income of a country and you double the risk of civil war,” he concludes. Moreover, he argues that the rate of economic growth is another marker for conflict: higher growth rates decrease the risk of a country going to war.31
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27 World Factbook: Timor-Leste, Central Intelligence Agency: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tt.html.
28 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper—National Development Plan, Road map for Implementation of National Development Plan, Overview of Sector Investment Programs-Strategies and Priorities for the Medium Term (2005), Government of Timor-Leste.
29 Human Development Report (2006), United Nations Development Program.
30 The Wealth of the Poor: Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty (2005),World Resources Institute: http://multimedia.wri.org/wr2005/015.htm.
31 Paul Collier (2007), The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, Oxford University Press.
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