The following paper examines aggregate evidence of a link between rural poverty, land degradation and deforestation in Latin America.

Overall trends in land degradation and deforestation are discussed, as well as the geographical ‘location’ of the rural poor. The paper also compares and contrasts three statistical analyses of the factors influencing deforestation across the region, and finds evidence of potential rural poverty-resource degradation linkages given the negative relationship between income per capita as well as agricultural yields and deforestation, as well as the positive relationship between rural population density and forest clearance.

However, policies aimed at increasing economic growth are not sufficient on their own to reverse the rural poverty-resource degradation linkage in Latin America. Instead, these need to be

supported by more targeted policies and investments to raise the comparative returns to existing agricultural lands, improve the access of poor rural households to land and credit markets, extend key infrastructure, extension and marketing services to the rural poor, and remove tax and pricing distortions that benefit mainly

wealthier farmers and landowners