In recent decades, environment security issues have been raised in relation to growing concerns about environmental change. Predominantly North geopolitical concerns about the impacts of environmentally-caused conflicts upon national sovereignty and the destruction of the global commons associated with comprehensive security have largely dominated policies and practices associated with environmental security issues to date. However, criticisms directed towards these two approaehes focus on their failure to address the causes of inequality and injustice that underpin poverty and environmental degradation at local and global levels. An alternative approach to environmental security challenges the assumptions that underpin comprehensive and geopolitical environmental security, and places the social and environmental welfare ofthe majority poor at the centre of any strategies that deal with environmental change.