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Environmental Challenges and Local Strategies in Western Sahara

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Environmental Challenges and Local Strategies in Western Sahara Climate crisis and local communities 7 FMR 64 June 2020 www.fmreview.org/issue64 management of conflicts including those over time shape the way countries respond related to access to natural resources. to climate change crisis, contribute to the promotion of food security and natural Rethinking assumptions resource protection practices, and at the There needs to be a rethink about the same time offer protection to refugees. commonly held perception that an influx Fouda Ndikintum [email protected] of refugees or persons relocating to other Livelihoods Officer, UNHCR Sub Office, places because of climate change crisis or Bassikounou, Mauritania conflict or both is always negative. Refugees https://data2.unhcr.org/en/country/mrt bring a wealth of resources with them, including human resources developed Mohamed Ag Malha [email protected] through facing climate-related crises in their President of the Refugee Council, Mbera Camp, home countries. These experiences often Mauritania enable them to tackle similar challenges in This article is written in a personal capacity and the country of asylum and to inspire host does not necessarily represent the views of any country citizens to do the same. Harnessing organisations mentioned. the potential and resourcefulness of both 1. 61.3% Tuareg; 37.2% Arab; 1.5% other minority tribes refugees and host community members can Environmental challenges and local strategies in Western Sahara Matthew Porges Sahrawi refugee-nomads are finding ways to tackle the interconnected climate-related challenges that they face. Their responses show the importance of flexible, refugee-driven initiatives. Much of the attention paid to the Western and are also complicated by ongoing Sahara conflict, particularly from the movement of families and individuals perspective of refugee and forced migration between Polisario’s territory and northern studies, has understandably focused on Mauritania, as well as by temporary the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, labour migration from the camps to Algeria. These camps were set up in 1975 Spain and Algeria. Population figures, following the outbreak of war between particularly for the camps, are therefore Morocco and the Polisario Front (Western best understood as snapshots of a Sahara’s pro-independence movement) and continuously circulating set of inhabitants.1 have an estimated population of around The harshness of the desert climate 173,000 Sahrawis, the indigenous people of combined with the population’s historic Western Sahara. Polisario administers the reliance on nomadic pastoralism (of camels, camps, as well as about 20% of the territory goats and sheep) have left the population of Western Sahara – an area it calls the extremely vulnerable to climatic variations. Liberated Territories. This area may have a Catastrophic droughts during the colonial population of around 30,000–40,000 (although period triggered rapid (though temporary) population figures here are even harder to urbanisation, with much of the dispersed measure), primarily comprising nomadic nomadic population coalescing around herders. Population estimates in both the Spanish-controlled cities. The war with camps and the Liberated Territories are Morocco, which lasted until 1991, similarly politicised by both Morocco and Polisario, resulted in significant damage to the 8 Climate crisis and local communities FMR 64 www.fmreview.org/issue64 June 2020 nomadic economy. Since the war, most of the contingent on the replenishment of either population has resided in the Tindouf camps. naturally occurring surface water or small Following the conclusion of the war with man-made wells. Irregular, unpredictable Morocco, Polisario – which itself maintains rainfall patterns and prolonged drought, substantial camel herds – made a concerted however, make it difficult to depend on effort to develop the Liberated Territories ephemeral water sources, and also increase specifically for nomadic pastoralism pressure on the Tindouf aquifer. This by implementing large-scale landmine problem can be partially mitigated by the clearance, installing and maintaining wells, use of mechanical wells. The development and rejuvenating the nomadic economy. of artificial water resources in the Liberated Territories, moreover, has also allowed for Climatic challenges – and appropriate the development of community gardens, responses with Polisario-run gardening projects Camp life has presented unique challenges emerging in a number of locations. for the previously nomadic population, The unpredictable rainfall, generalised and many of those challenges have been drought and depletion of groundwater are exacerbated in recent decades by a changing problems for both nomads and refugees, but climate. Attempts by NGOs to encourage the population of the Western Sahara camps is sedentary agriculture – Oxfam, for instance, unusual in that it retains a tie to both refugee has invested in the cultivation of the multi-use and nomadic worlds. The anthropologist plant Moringa oleifera2 – have met with mixed Cindy Horst, writing about Somali refugee- success, in part because the camp population nomads in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, is more familiar with animal pastoralism. defined Somalis’ nomadic heritage “as Another increasingly severe problem has consisting of three elements: a mentality of been the increased frequency of flooding in looking for greener pastures; a strong social the camps. Rather than experiencing a steady, network that entails the obligation to assist continuous decline in rainfall, the Algerian each other in surviving; and risk-reduction desert around Tindouf has seen long droughts through strategically dispersing investments interspersed with brief but very intense in family members and activities.”3 In a rainfall. Most semi-permanent structures in sedentary community, this nomadic mentality the camps were initially built by the refugees persists in the form of opportunism, from mud-bricks made using locally sourced flexibility, social solidarity and resisting materials. In some cases, the refugees resisted single points of economic failure – which building with more permanent materials are largely the values that Sahrawi refugees for ideological reasons, preferring to remain ascribe to their own nomadic heritage. Any perpetually ready to return to Western climate resilience strategy implemented Sahara and a future independent State. in the Tindouf camps, then, will have to Flooding, previously very rare in the region, bridge the refugee and nomad categories. has become an almost annual occurrence. It is perhaps unsurprising that the In 2015, for instance, many of the mud-brick most promising strategy comes from the houses dissolved in the heavy rains, leaving population itself. In 2016, a Sahrawi refugee hundreds of refugees homeless. Building named Taleb Brahim, who had previously with water-resistant materials, like cement, trained as an engineer in Syria, began partially mitigates the problem, though experimenting with hydroponic agriculture. the production of mud-bricks in the camps Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants provides employment for many refugees. without soil, typically by immersing the roots Another problem exacerbated by climate in nutrient-enhanced water. Hydroponic change is the depletion of groundwater. The agriculture is vastly more water-efficient Tindouf camps were deliberately built near than most other methods, and is therefore a a large aquifer, and nomadic movement promising strategy for intensive agriculture throughout the Liberated Territories is in arid climates. Brahim’s earliest hydroponic Climate crisis and local communities 9 FMR 64 June 2020 www.fmreview.org/issue64 crop was barley, a very simple crop to grow. Using his first home-built hydroponic system, Brahim was able to feed his own goats, reducing his need to move in search of pasture while also increasing the quality and quantity of the milk and meat produced (goats in the camps often eat plastic refuse, contaminating their products). Expensive, complicated, high- tech units are not a scalable solution by themselves. In 2017, Brahim demonstrated the success of his initial system to the Innovation Accelerator initiative of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Munich. Brahim’s system was selected for Innovation Accelerator funding and a WFP programme called H2Grow was subsequently established, under which Brahim – working with WFP and Oxfam staff – developed a range of hydroponic units derived from his first model, reducing the unit cost while retaining productivity. These new units were cheaper, relied on locally available materials, and were easier to use and repair. Crucially, they could also be adapted to specific local requirements. With assistance from WFP, Oxfam and Polisario, Brahim began running hydroponic workshops Brahim © Taleb in the camps, eventually training over a thousand Sahrawi refugees Taleb Brahim tends plants grown using a hydroponic system. in the use of the low-tech systems. positive results. In cases where refugees have Under the H2Grow programme, Brahim’s a history of nomadic movement, that heritage hydroponic systems were tested in refugee presents specific opportunities (involvement camps in Chad, Jordan, Sudan and Kenya; in regional economies, pastoralist autonomy) in each case, the units could be modified and challenges (discomfort with sedentary and optimised for local requirements. life, reliance on modes of production that may This, Brahim argued in a speech in 2019, not be possible in a
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