Poverty and the environment The case study in Sarkhoon and Bidele in Chahrmahal Va Bakhtiari Province

Nowadays, many environmentalists believe that poverty is the main cause of environmental problems. They remark that poor people in their efforts to survive usually exploit the environment and impose more pressure on the natural resources. But this is just one side of the story. More recent approaches about relationship between poverty and environment emphasize on the effects of the environmental conditions on exacerbating the poor livelihood. Today's many of the vulnerable and poor people live in the marginal and remote areas. They usually face with terrible situations like pollution, low quality soil, unsustainable climate, limited land etc. This study intends to analyze the relationship between poverty and environment with a social approach. This field study accomplished in the rural area in Chaharmahal Va Bakhtiari province. The methodology of this study is grounded theory. The results show that the environmental degradation in this area is not only caused by the poor whereas the role of the poor in degradation is much less than the industrial activities. We have found that the "conflict of benefits" as an important variable has a considerable role on this relationship. Conflict of benefits refers to conditions in which the interests of the poor locals are in contrast with the interests of the governmental and environmental organizations as well as industrial projects in the rural places.