ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF POVERTY ON URHOBOLAND AND THE PEOPLE
The environmental crisis is now the gravest crisis that the planet Earth and its people are facing. The crisis has resulted in a warming climate, environmental tragedies, emergencies, environmental refugeeism, destruction of biodiversity, deforestation, desertification, and so forth. All life on Earth is endangered as a result of the environmental crisis. A multitude of factors are responsible for the environmental crisis, such as mismanagement of solid and chemical waste, resource wars, violence and criminality, ecoterrorism, unplanned urbanisation, industrialisation, consumerism, etc. However, poverty can also have some negative impacts on the environment as a result of poor people overexploiting environmental resources or lacking awareness of the issues of environmental conservation. This is not to blame all poor people for their predicament, for much of poverty is a result of structural injustice. This paper uses critical analytic, hermeneutic, and evaluative methods to examine the issue of environmental consequences of poverty as it relates to Urhoboland. The paper concludes that there is poverty in Urhoboland; that this poverty also affects the Urhobo environment; and that there should be poverty alleviation strategies to overcome this poverty.
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