Ecology and Politics : Environmental Stress and Security in Africa

\ ~ 1] ') jr TIrr"'J(~ ~.,L ~ 'I lrJ)OIl _' A L~ i) Environmental Stress and Security in Africa Edited by Anders Hjort af Ornäs Glid M. A, Mohamed Salih JEC01UOGY AND lP01LITliCS Environmental Stress and Security in Africa Edited by Anders Hjort af Ornäs and M.A. Mohamed Salih Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989 Cover: Details from a decorated gourd. From Nigeria's Traditional Crafts by Alison Hodge. Typesetting: Susanne Ljung ISBN 91-7106-295-5 © Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989 Printed in Sweden by Motala Grafiska, Motala, 1989 Contents FORWORD 7 ThITRODUCTION 9 ECOLOGY AND POLITICS Anders Hjort af Ornäs and MA. Mohamed Salih THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARMED CONFLICTS AND 25 ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATlON IN AFRICA Zdenek Cervenka ECOLOGICAL STRESS AND POLITICAL CONFLICT IN AFRICA: 37 THE CASE OF ETHIOPIA Bekure W. Semait ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATlON AS A CONSEQUENCE OF 51 SOCIO-POLITCAL CONFLICTS IN EASTERN MARA REGION Carl Christiansson and Eva Tobisson ENVIRONMENT AND THE SECURITY OF DRYLAND HERDERS 67 IN EASTERN AFRICA Anders Hjort af Ornäs ECOLOGICAL DEGRADATION IN THE SAHEL: 89 THE POLITICAL DIMENSION Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed POLITICAL COERCION AND THE LIMITS OF STATE ThITERVENTION; 101 SUDAN M.A. Mohamed Salih LAND DEGRADATlON AND CLASS STRUGGLE IN RURAL LESHOTO 117 Kwesi K. Prah POLITICAL INSTABILITY AND ECOLOGICAL STRESS 131 IN EASTERN AFRICA w.P. Ezaza and Haroub Othman RWANDESE REFUGEES IN UGANDA 145 Byarugaba Emansueto Foster THE ISHAQ--OGADEN DISPUTE 157 John Markakis DESERTIFICATION, REFUGEES AND REGIONAL CONFLICTS 169 IN WEST AFRICA Okwudiba Nnoli ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND POLITITCAL 181 CONSTRAINTS IN ETHIOPIA MichaelStåhl POPULATION AND LAND DEGRADATION 197 Christer Krokfors POPULATION GROWTH, ENVIRONMENTAL DECLINE 211 AND SECURITY ISSUES INSUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Norman Myers ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND POLITICAL SECURITY 233 IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Adolfo Mascarenhas Foreword The essays in this volume are elaborated from papers presented at a working group meeting arranged by the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies for the conference on "Environmental Stress and Secmity", December 13-15, 1988. The conference was organized by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. Om inter pretation of the theme was such that we focussed the working group activities on the theme "Environmental stress and political conflict in Africa". The contribution to the conference was that we reached be yond the issue of environmental degradation and political ways to deal with it, through development policy. The group sought to address the more precise issue of how environment and politics interrelate. Most contributions in the present volume follow this theme also. We wish to express om gratitude to the Swedish Ministry for Energy and Environment for financing the early preparations for the work shop. Om sincerest thanks are due to The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for meeting travel costs for the participants of this particular working group. Anders Hjort af Ornäs M. A. Mohamed Salih 7 Introduction Ecology and Politics Environmental Stress and Security in Africa Anders Hjort af Ornäs and M.A. Mohamed Salih BACKGROUND Recent African history has demonstrated how natural disasters such as drought may lead to starvation and disaster, sometimes fueled by an obvious conflict over land or access to food. A natural disaster may then have the effect to accentuate an inherent conflict over resource availability. One aspect of the correlation between ecological stress and political conflict is the issue of controI over food. The quest for food security motors political conflicts to the extent that scarcity prevails, and causes ecological degradation in areas where pressure on land does not really perrnit increased food production without structural changes in the production systems. This study is not a call for another penetration of conflicting man agement systems or the like. Rather, it concerns the twofold process where ecological stress leads to political conflict and vice versa. This way of relating environmental and political problems could enlighten us about issues which influence security both for nations and individ uals. The aim of the current collection of essays is in general terms to look into situations in Africa with a particular eye on how environ mental and political issues interrelate. The assumption is, of course, that both these issues are of highest relevance for a comprehension of the total security situation. But what we have sought to achieve is a search for relationships between environment and politics. Thus, we have not been satisfied with just noting for instance a case of land degradation, and then search for the policy measures to counter such a situation. We have intended to go one step further: What kinds of en vironmental problems lead to political imbalance or conflict? And vice versa: Political conflicts which cause ecological degradation. Africa is a continent, and naturally the contributions will not be able to produce a comprehensive map over the current situation vis-a-vis ecological stress and political conflict. Our approach when inviting 9 Anders Hjort af Orni:is & M.A. Mohamed Salih participants has been firstly, to seek contributions on a few key issues with a continental or regional focus. Secondly, we have invited contri butions from a number of country cases which we have felt could be significant for the topic at hand. At the onset of the preparations of this volume we highlighted that person to whom food is not redistributed. He or she is the one who be comes obliged to wear on the land; hence man-made degradation. He or she is also the one causing political uncertainty, leading a dissatisfy ing life with a dose margin to being forced to leave his rural context. Peoples' or groups' absence of involvement in food redistribution systems is an indicator of a situation of potential conflict. Obviously an urban population, often the main concern in connection with political conflict, fits this picture; if food supplies from rural areas or abroad ceases, then unrest is at hand. But also that part of the rural population becomes directly concerned which is not involved in reliable food dis tribution; farm hands, peasants with part-time farming and occasional wage earning, small-scale traders, etc. This category makes up as much as 20-30% of the rural population in parts of Africa. The threat to them is starvation and/or migration to an urban slum. People in this situa tion become the carriers of both ecological and political problems, gen erated through food shortages. Their situation is in focus when we wish to comprehend linkages between ecological stress and political conflict. Problems pertaining to the failure of appropriate development ef forts in the arid lands are largely attributed to the lack of long-term policy formulations. Political effects of resource reaIlocation as a con sequence of development efforts after ecological stress have been particularly overlooked. Consider for example the problems resulting from population concentration around newly constructed reservoirs, boreholes and settlement schemes. Another example is the mass migration of impoverished peasants and pastoralists to towns and centres of employment. Yet an example is the movement of some ethnic groups outside their territories to richer ecological zones already occupied by other groups. Any inc1ination towards short-term policy regulations in such situa tions precipitate latent conflicts in the unforeseeable future. The same applies to internai refugees (those who inhabit the squatter settlements in the outskirts of large urban centres) or international refugees (those who crossed the borders to other countries for political or ecological reasons). The general scope of a comprehensive approach to the problem of the association between ecological stress and political conflicts is wide ranging. The fact that political conflict easily leads to degradation is weIl established. The extent to which the reverse is true, however, is 10 Introduction more difficult to establish. In order to formulate the qualities in the interlinkeages between ecological degradation and political conflict an interdisciplinary effort is required. We have intended to approach the problematique departing from a series of cases along with raising spe cHic problems from local, national and regionalleveis. The project has drawn on regional and country research experiences from Eastern, Western and Southern Africa with a number of specific country papers. These provide cases of serious ecological and political problems as well as situations where people or groups are on the verge of experiencing increased vulnerability from ecological stress. We might hypothesize that the security of the individual and that of the state at times do not coincide. The basic aim is to formulate viable solutions for man to maintain a sustainable livelihood without en dangering national securities. Conventional politically and ideologically motivated models are not sufficient to redress the problems of the vulnerable sectors of the population. The concepts of entitlement and sustainability enter the picture since the issues of deprivation, impoverishment and the need for viable solutions are closely interrelated. The linkage between political instability and ecological stress is found also at the grand level of Africa's regional and subregional conflicts which have been precipitated by ecological degradation. We

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