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Byline: Manzoor Elahi Chowdhury, Sarwar Uddin Ahmed Poverty and environmental deterioration are among the gravest challenges faced in the developing world today. The relationship between poverty and the environment is complex and highly influenced by the socio-economic factors of a country or region. The main objective of this preliminary study was to examine the nature of poverty-deforestation relationships for an area in Bangladesh by using secondary data, interviews and a questionnaire survey. The study found that although the rate of deforestation has decreased in recent years, it is still continuing in the study area, poverty is not the primary cause of deforestation and poor people are not the primary agent for such degradation. Environmental degradation makes people poorer through lack of availability of natural resources, and management of natural resources should include the full participation of local residents and cooperation with government to ensure socio-environmentally sustainable resource management.

Byline: Harvey F. Ludwig, Anwarul Islam Industrial development in the developing countries of Asia, and in developing countries everywhere, has proceeded without control of pollution emissions and the resulting environmental degradation has now reached a serious level. The population problem, already severe, continues to get worse, forcing acceleration of urbanisation and industrialisation. An effective system for controlling industrial wastes should be established while it is still relatively feasible to do so. Based on lessons learned in the industrialised countries, an action programme is proposed as a meaningful first step toward achieving the long term optimal solution. The essential element is to establish an effective Industrial Waste Permit System including use of appropriate standards and of necessary monitoring. This is the need in virtually all the developing countries, and it is timely for the international assistance agencies to give realistic attention to this problem.