Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability Tamer Afifi l Jill Ja¨ ger Editors Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability 13 Editors Dr. Tamer Afifi Dr. Jill Ja¨ ger United Nations University Independent Scholar Inst. Environment Arbeiterstrandstrasse 61 Human Security (UNU-EHS) 1210 Vienna Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10 Austria 53113 Bonn [email protected] Germany [email protected] ISBN 978-3-642-12415-0 e-ISBN 978-3-642-12416-7 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-12416-7 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2010930718 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: deblik, Berlin Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword This book is one of the outputs of the conference on ‘Environmental Change, Forced Migration, and Social Vulnerability’ (EFMSV) held in Bonn in October 2008. Migration is one of the oldest adaptation measures of humanity. Indeed, without migration the multitude of civilizations and interactions between them – peaceful and otherwise – would be hard to imagine. The United Nations (UN)-led global dialogue on migration is a clear sign that governments and the specialized UN agencies and bodies have recognized the need to view, govern, manage, and facilitate migration; to mitigate its negative effects; and to capitalize on the positive ones. It is a common expectation among experts that environmentally induced migration will further increase in the decades to come. Hence, next to the political, economic, ethnic, social, financial, humanitarian, and security aspects of migration, the environmental component should urgently be considered in the ongoing international dialogue on migration. This need is also a challenge. Without appropriate scientific knowledge, assessment, definitions, and classifications, the intergovernmental frameworks would not be able to deal with these complex phenomena. The Five-Pronged-Approach as formulated by the United Nations University (UNU) may serve as a framework to identify the additional dimensions of this challenge next to – and actually simultaneously with – the scientific one. The five complementary measures – awareness raising, legal framework of recognition, empowering the humanitarian organizations to assist those on the move, institutional capacity development to drain the criminal component of the often illegal migration flows, and more scientific investigation – should be addressed together. The EFMSV Conference is therefore part of a process in this multi-faceted approach. The goal of the conference was to reach a better understanding of the process of internal displacements, rural–rural and rural–urban migration, resettlements, and trans-boundary and transcontinental migration. The study of environmentally induced migration, while having a ‘history’ of about three decades, experiences a recent renaissance. The International Organization for Migration (IOM)–United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) International Dialogue on Migration in Bangkok, February 2007, v vi Foreword could be mentioned in this regard as a benchmark event. UNU’s publication Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face Environmental Migration? (Spring 2007) summarizes the state of the art at that time. To further specify the research agenda, a process started in April 2008 with the UNU–IOM–United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Research Workshop on Migration and the Environment supported by the Munich Re Foundation (MRF) and the Rockefeller Foundation. This was continued by the enthusiastic work of 25 PhD candidates formulating the ‘Hohenkammer Challenge’ in July 2008 during the third MRF–UNU-EHS (United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security) Summer Academy on Social Vulnerability. The process towards the establishment of the Climate Change, Environment and Migration Alliance (CCEMA) by these and other partners continued at the EFMSV Conference in Bonn. EFMSV was both an open conference and also an element of the European Commission funded Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR) Project, implemented by 7 institutional members of the project consortium and receiving substantial assistance from IOM, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and many NGOs and universities in 23 case study countries. EACH-FOR was a unique project where common principles and methodologies were used to trace the ‘environmental signal’ in ongoing migration and potential decisions to move. The EFMSV Conference provided an opportunity to showcase the results of this ground-breaking project (see Part V). I wish to thank all of the authors for their contributions to this book, as well as acknowledging the work of the Scientific Committee in reviewing the papers submitted to the conference and thus participating in the selection process for the book. Furthermore, I would like to thank the many organizations that helped to make the EMFSV Conference possible through their support, including the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Foundation for International Dialogue of the Savings Bank in Bonn, the German Research Foundation, the City of Bonn, the German foreign language broadcasting corporation (Deutsche Welle), the Deutsche Post, and the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research. We appreciate the fruitful collaboration with our EACH-FOR partners and partner organizations IOM, the Munich Re Foundation, OSCE, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), UNEP, and a broad network of academic and policy professionals. The strong, growing community is a clear sign that migration, and within it the environmentally induced migration, is seen by many as one of the key challenges of the years to come. Bonn, Germany Janos J.Bogardi Preface In recent decades much research has been done about environment and migration by separate communities of scholars. Over the past 5 years, however, there has been increasing collaboration between the experts, so that a more integrated view of the linkages between environmental change and migration is becoming available. This book, consisting of a set of papers presented at the Environmental Change, Forced Migration, and Social Vulnerability (EFMSV) Conference, held in Bonn in October 2008, illustrates some of the results of recent research. The chapters in this book were selected on the basis of a peer-review process carried out by the Scientific Committee of the conference. A further selection of papers will be published in a special edition of the peer-reviewed journal International Migration focusing on migration and the environment. We have divided the chapters of the book into five parts, although the reader will quickly note that most papers would be relevant for more than one of the topics. Overall, the chapters demonstrate the current state of the art in the study of the complex relationships between environmental change and migration, the implications of some of the issues of definitions, and the policy responses that are called for. We would like to thank all of the authors for their prompt and uncomplicated responses to our requests for input. It has taken longer to get this book published than we originally anticipated, so we also thank them for their patience. Bonn, Germany Tamer Afifi Vienna, Austria Jill Ja¨ ger vii Contents Part I Defining the Terms: Introduction 1 Environmentally Induced Displacement and the 1951 Refugee Convention: Pathways to Recognition ........................ 3 Bruce Burson 2 Institutional Barriers to the Recognition and Assistance of Environmentally Forced Migrants ......................... 17 Chloe Anne Vlassopoulos 3 What’s in a Name: Social Vulnerabilities and the Refugee Controversy in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina ................. 29 Franc¸ois Gemenne Part II Approaches for the Study of Forced Migration 4 Forced Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa: The Conflict–Environment Link ............................. 43 Wim Naude 5 Solastalgia: Environmentally Induced Distress and Migration Among Africa’s Poor Due to Climate Change .................. 57 Petra Tschakert and Raymond Tutu Part III Climate Change and Migration 6 Climate and Migration: A Synthesis.......................... 73 Etienne Piguet 7 Forced Migration of Alaskan Indigenous Communities Due to Climate Change ....................................... 87 Robin Bronen ix x Contents 8 ‘Buscando la vida’ – How Do Perceptions of Increasingly Dry Weather Affect Migratory Behaviour in Zacatecas, Mexico? ............................................... 99 Kerstin Schmidt-Verkerk Part IV Migration and Other Forms of Environmental Degradation 9 Environmental Migration from