_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: zgetah@gmail.com; Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology 24(3): 1-13, 2018; Article no.AJAEES.39310 ISSN: 2320-7027 The Poverty - Environment Nexus in Developing Countries: Evidence from Ethiopia: A Systematic Review Getahun Kassa 1* , Biruktait Teferi 1 and Nardos Delelegn 1 1 Mizan-Tepi University, Mizan-Aman, Ethiopia. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between all authors. Author GK designed the study, and wrote the protocol and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Authors BT and ND managed the literature searches. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/AJAEES/2018/39310 Editor(s): (1) N. Karunakaran, Vice-Principal, Department of Economics, EK Nayanar Memorial Govt. College, Elerithattu, Kasaragod, Kerala, India. Reviewers: (1) Randa El Bedawy, Misr International University, Egypt. (2) Jorge Hernandez, Universidad Metropolitana, Puerto Rico. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sciencedomain.org/review-history/24339 Received 10 th January 2018 Accepted 2 nd April 2018 Published 27 th April 2018 ABSTRACT The relationships between poverty and the environment are highly contested, debated and researched. Environmental degradation and poverty, however, may have mutual causality. This paper, therefore, tried to examine whether there is an association between poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries. An extensive literature review was made to evaluate the effect of environmental degradation on the poor. The paper posited that poverty worsens environmental degradation by leaving poor with no alternatives rather than degrading their environment to meet their present needs at the expense of future benefits. Conversely, environmental degradation exacerbated poverty through deteriorating poor’s livelihood, income and health. Therefore, an effort has to be made to curb the effect of poverty on the environment. Keywords: Poverty; land degradation; deforestation; environmental degradation; developing countries. Systematic Review Article