Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
1000
Malaysia
800
Brazil
600
400
200
0
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Gini ratio of household income inequality 1989
Figure 8.1 Relationships between the Gini ratio of income inequality and early
indicators of biodiversity loss. (Source: Mikkelson et al., 2007)
activities, then the bargained solution between these winners and the less well-off
losers (sufferers of the impacts of the environmentally damaging activity) will be
skewed towards the benefi ts of the powerful.
The direct consequences of inequality are diffi cult to discern, but global patterns
of inequality and ecological vulnerabilities are striking. Figure 8.1 reports the analy-
sis of Mikkelson et al. (2007) showing that societies with more unequal distributions
of income experience greater loss of biodiversity. Figure 8.1 shows the country-level
Gini coeffi cient of household income inequality (a standard measure of inequality)
in 1989 has a signifi cant power relationship with the number of threatened plant
and vertebrate species in 2004. A 1 percent increase in the Gini ratio for the data
in fi gure 8.1 is associated with an almost 2 percent rise in the number of threatened
species. Vulnerabilities are transmitted through the mechanisms of skewed land
ownership and lack of accountability. Countries such as Brazil and Malaysia are
prominent in fi gure 8.1 because where land ownership is also highly skewed, there
are high rates of ecological threat (Mikkelson et al., 2007). Similarly, recent research
on corruption and environmental degradation show similar patterns of loss (Smith
et al., 2003). Many countries have experienced increases in inequality in the past
two decades, despite contested evidence of overall convergence of world income
levels.
The third mechanism of interdependence of social-ecological systems across space
and time is the closer connection between places in the world through movements
of people and resources around the world. This mechanism has several conse-
quences, both positive and negative in terms of vulnerability. Demographic changes
and migration fl ows produce new forms of sensitivity to risk, while providing some
populations with new opportunities or access to resources that enable them to miti-
gate vulnerability. Population movements in Asia, for example, from lowland to
uplands in Vietnam, and rapid urbanisation in China, Thailand and Malaysia over
Search WWH ::




Custom Search