Showing posts from category environmental security.
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UN Environment Programme to Conduct Post-Conflict Assessment in Rwanda
›August 27, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiAlthough it has been 14 years since violence devastated Rwanda, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is now preparing to conduct a Post-Conflict Assessment (PCA) of the country. As Rwanda Project Coordinator Hassan Partow explained, “UNEP does not initiate environmental assessment in any country, it only comes in when invited,” and Rwanda only recently requested that a PCA be conducted (see full list of PCAs here).
In a May 2004 presentation at the Wilson Center, Pekka Haavisto, former chairman of UNEP’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit (PCAU)—now called the Disasters and Conflicts Programme and headed by David Jensen—remarked that “the post-conflict situation is a unique opportunity to create something new.” Just as environmental issues can lead to conflicts, they can also hamper efforts to create lasting peace following conflict, making PCAs invaluable tools in rebuilding nations following conflict. Common post-conflict environmental challenges include hazardous waste, radioactive materials, deforestation, chemical fires, overcrowded refugee camps, and contaminated water supplies. PCAs assess these challenges and offer recommendations for addressing them.
The environment can also provide a platform for dialogue and cooperation, said Haavisto, citing the case of the Palestinian Territories, where water has long been a nexus of tension and where PCAU has worked since 2001. Israeli and Palestinian officials both support PCAU’s operations in the region, where it brokered an agreement on future environmental cooperation and is working toward reestablishing the Joint Environmental Expert Committee to coordinate sustainable development in the area. Haavisto also noted that UNEP’s PCA work in Iraq following the Gulf War resulted in the first official meeting between Iraq and Iran in nearly 30 years.
The 2007 Sudan PCA cautions that “Sudan is unlikely to see a lasting peace unless widespread and rapidly accelerating environmental degradation is urgently addressed.” The PCA underscored how environmental stresses—including desertification, land degradation, and decreasing rainfall—have contributed to economic desperation, which has been a key instigator of the violence plaguing the region. “It is clear,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, that “central to keeping the peace will be the way in which Sudan’s environment is rehabilitated and managed.” Sudan’s tragedy, he said, highlights “how issues such as uncontrolled depletion of natural resources like soils and forests allied to impacts like climate change can destabilize communities, even entire nations.” Yet promisingly, Sudan’s government recently established an environmental ministry, demonstrating how PCAs can spur governments to devote resources to environmental concerns by showing that they are integrally related to economic, health, and security issues.
Though PCAU has completed 18 PCAs since 1995 and has aided in the reconstruction of many countries, Haavisto acknowledged continuing difficulties in persuading governments to prioritize the environment. It has been an ongoing challenge, he said, to “convince different stakeholders that the environment is an important issue that needs to be dealt with immediately.” Yet as the above examples demonstrate, UNEP has achieved considerable accomplishments despite these difficulties. -
Senegal’s Burgeoning Cashew Industry Linked to Rebel Movement
›August 13, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiSenegal’s southernmost region, Casamance, has been the site of outright or latent conflict for some 40 years. Even before Senegal gained independence, there were calls for independence from the region. Separatist agitation in the region was inflamed during the 1970s by an influx of unemployed migrants from Senegal’s drought-stricken northern regions, seeking a part of “the greatest [economic] potential in all of Senegal.” Beginning in 1983, calls for independence soon led to armed conflict between southern separatist groups and the Senegalese government.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Senegal worked to support a peaceful resolution to the conflict by bolstering infrastructure and providing jobs. One USAID-funded program, undertaken in partnership with EnterpriseWorks Worldwide in 2001, aimed to modernize Casamance’s cashew-processing industry to strengthen the region’s war-torn economy. While cashew exports can bring in significant revenue, the region lacked the infrastructure to produce high-quality nuts for export. Processed cashews can bring in seven to 10 times the price of raw nuts. Today, 90 percent of the 15,000 metric tons of cashews Senegal produces each year come from Casamance.
Sadly, violence in the Casamance region has welled up again in earnest. The peaceful conclusion that many had hoped for following the peace accord of 2004 failed to materialize, and instead, the Senegalese army and Movement for Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) rebels both maintain a large presence in the region.
The USAID-funded expansion of cashew production in Casamance may be having an unintended, and profoundly negative, consequence, reports IRIN News: Skyrocketing cashew prices are “lining the pockets of armed rebels.” Cashews remain a central feature of this conflict in other ways, as well. Earlier this year, more than a dozen villagers attempting to harvest nuts were rewarded by having their ears cut off with machetes by rebels patrolling the area.
MFDC member Damien Manga disputes claims that rebel groups are financed by revenue from cashew exports. He says that while rebels do sell the nuts, the profits finance living expenses only, not weapons purchases. “We collect cashew nuts to sell like everyone else…Some say [selling] cashews…enables us to buy weapons. This is false…it is only our leaders who buy our weapons.” Instead, Manga places blame for violence around the cashew orchards squarely on the shoulders of the Senegalese military. Senegalese military spokesman Lieutenant Malamine Camare refutes this claim, saying that the army’s mission is “to ensure the safety of people and goods in this region. We never engage in profit-making activities, and we execute our mission by the rules.”
Because certain resources and activities are so frequently linked to conflict – diamonds and oil, for example – the role of agriculture is often ignored. As authors Alec Crawford and Oli Brown argue in a new publication discussed in this New Security Beat post, any resource can be exploited to further conflict. Earlier this year, ECSP hosted the “New Horizons at the Nexus of Conflict, Natural Resources, and Health” event series exploring the interaction between human health, natural resources, and conflict.
Photo: A cashew seller in the Gambia. Courtesy of Flickr user Javier D.
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Al Jazeera Films the Evaporating Way of Life of Niger’s Tuareg Rebels
›July 29, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiThe land of Niger’s Tuareg Bedouin tribes—and thus the Tuareg way of life—is drying up. The steadily advancing Sahara desert is swallowing northern Niger at a rate of six kilometers per year, part of a centuries-old process recently accelerated by climate change and groundwater withdrawals by the nation’s booming uranium mining industry.
French nuclear giant Areva flies in workers rather than hiring locals to man the mines, and as a result, the Tuareg and other tribal groups have little or no opportunity to find employment. Cut out of the revenue stream, rebel fighters, made up of Tuaregs as well as members of other Bedouin tribes, are demanding a percentage (20-30 percent, by most accounts) of the revenue generated by the uranium mined on their land.
Defying a government ban on reporting on the conflict, Al Jazeera television reporter May Welsh interview the rebels in a five-part video series on the Tuareg. “They’re fighting a state that’s ignoring their problems,” she says. For example, a family suffering from a new and mysterious ailment claim they have been denied care by Areva’s medical offices. Welsh suggests their illness could be attributed to the radioactive water around Areva’s facilities.
Areva, for its part, rejects the notion that it is poisoning the people of northern Niger. In a document released in August 2007, the company reports that 60-70 percent of its private hospital patients are members of surrounding communities. Areva also states it gives preference to local sub-contractors in its exploration and procurement activities. But the yawning gulf between Areva’s position and the reality in northern Niger belies the company’s claims.
Conflict between rebel groups and the Nigerien army has separated families, displaced people, destroyed schools—and interfered with humanitarian missions. The government ordered the French NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to suspend its activity in Niger based on unsubstantiated suspicions that members of the organization were colluding with rebels. Welsh’s daring reports illuminate these and other dangers of life in Niger’s desert, a life that may soon become impossible. -
Environment, Population Key Security Concerns in Africa’s Central Albertine Rift
›July 28, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiIn the Central Albertine Rift, which runs from the northern end of Lake Albert to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, “environmental factors are increasingly an underlying cause of instability, conflict and unrest,” says a new report from the Institute for Environmental Security, Charcoal in the Mist, which outlines environmental security issues and initiatives in the Albertine Rift region.
Part of the larger Great Rift Valley, the Central Albertine Rift encompasses portions of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The area is one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots, but is also a geopolitical hotspot, producing critical natural resources for a number of nations recently emerging from devastating civil wars. Lake Victoria, the birthplace of the Nile River, sits in this region, which means that the watchful eyes of its riparian states are trained at all times on the politics of the area. The Albertine Rift is also home to Africa’s Great Lakes, each of which straddles multiple nations and provides significant income to surrounding communities. Questions of access to these waters only heighten existing geopolitical tensions.
Charcoal in the Mist cites armed rebels, illegal mining, and a growing population’s increasing demands for food and energy as threats to regional environmental security. Virunga National Park, an internationally prized wilderness preserve in the DRC, has fallen victim to these pressures. Rampant poaching and illegal mining, as well as conflicts in the DRC and Rwanda, have left park authorities unable to protect the 7,800 square kilometer park. A timeline from National Geographic dramatically illustrates how violent conflict has disrupted conservation efforts in Virunga.
The “interconnectedness between natural resources, development and security” in the Central Albertine Rift region reinforces the need for innovative approaches to address these issues. For example, according to the report, population density around protected areas in this region is far higher than in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and the continually growing population already exceeds the capacity of local resources. The area’s population swelled with thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war in Rwanda in the 1990s, and simmering tensions continue to push people away from conflict zones and toward the relative calm of the Albertine Rift. Similarly, conflict stemming from the civil war in DRC, which lasted from 1998 until 2003, has beset North Kivu province. Rebel armies continue to clash in the region, restricting the ability of development organizations to work there and limiting the livelihoods of the local population.
The authors of Charcoal in the Mist call for more comprehensive mapping and monitoring of the Central Albertine Rift ecosystem in order to promote effective policies to address the region’s challenges. They also advocate for enhancing property rights to address fundamental conflicts over land, strengthening environmental law, dampening the illegal natural resource trade, and more aggressively protecting Virunga National Park. They believe that transboundary environmental cooperation has the potential to preserve both the ecological integrity and political stability of this important region.
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Not Enough Water? Not Enough Governance, Says Report
›July 22, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski“Corruption in the water sector puts the lives and livelihoods of billions of people at risk,” says the Global Corruption Report 2008, a new report from the Institute for Security Studies and Transparency International, warning that pervasive corruption in the water sector could have devastating consequences for economic and social development, as well as the health of ecosystems worldwide. The report urges policymakers and scholars to address the issue of corruption in the water sector in the context of broader climate change and development discussions.
News coverage of the global water crisis focuses on the familiar circumstance of too many people and not enough water. This report takes a slightly different stance, suggesting that the water crisis is actually a water governance crisis, of which corruption is a major component.
According to the report, 80 percent of health problems in the developing world can be attributed to inadequate access to clean water and sanitation. The report cites China as a particularly egregious example, noting that 90 percent of Chinese cities pull from polluted aquifers and that 75 percent of river water in urban areas is too contaminated for drinking or fishing. This situation violates Chinese environmental standards, but corruption allows polluters to circumvent legal enforcement.
International water governance is increasingly critical. Forty percent of the world’s population draws on water from international water basins. Numerous countries depend on the Nile River, from its origin in the Rift Valley to its mouth on the Mediterranean. The report finds, “where corruption disrupts the equitable sharing of water between countries and communities, it also threatens political stability and regional security.” Ken Conca’s Governing Waterdelves more deeply into the links between poor water governance and new forms of social conflict, which are summarized in a Navigating Peace research brief.
But sharing water resources can also build confidence and increase dialogue. For example, Israel and Palestine discuss the Dead Sea and the Jordan River more frequently, and more productively, than they do political rapprochement.
Water’s global nature demands a comprehensive response involving governments, inter- and nongovernmental organizations, and local institutions. The report puts forth four recommendations:ECSP has long been involved in the discussion of water’s place in the international political dialogue. In “Water Wars: Obscuring Opportunities,” published in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, Geoff Dabelko and Karin Bencala explain how transboundary water use can facilitate cooperation as readily as conflict. It would be a boon to the global community if that cooperation could be harnessed to promote stronger, more transparent water governance.- Improve measurements of existing corruption;
- Strengthen regulatory oversight;
- Develop a more transparent public procurement process; and
- Implement transparency and participation as guiding principles for all water governance.
Graphic used courtesy Transparency International. All rights reserved. ©Transparency International 2008.
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Weekly Reading
›“The geopolitics of the twenty-first century may well be the geopolitics of scarcity—of land, of food, of water, of energy,” write the authors of Environmental Change and the New Security Agenda: Implications for Canada’s security and environment, a new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The report says current approaches to environmental issues are “short-sighted” and calls for international acknowledgement that the environment is not a “soft” security issue.
“Climate change is today one of the main drivers of forced displacement,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told The Guardian in an interview. He warned that the number of people displaced is rising dramatically and will continue to do so, and that global funding has failed to keep pace with the growing challenge. He also noted that existing legal structures to manage refugee flows are out of touch with the increasing influence of climate change.
“The world’s poorest of the poor live in the toughest areas of the planet—the drylands,” says recent ECSP speaker Masego Madzwamuse in the BBC’s latest Green Room feature. She argues that “humanitarian and food relief follow the TV headlines,” and that only sustained and concerted efforts respecting indigenous experience and wisdom will be able to ease the plight of the world’s “dryland dwellers.”
The 2008 EPD WaterAid Madagascar team at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs presented its findings in WaterAid Madagascar: Valuating Economic and Social Impacts of Improved Water and Sanitation Services. The team found that “Madagascar’s development goals could be significantly advanced by adequate water and sanitation services” and encouraged increased public awareness of the links between access to safe water and sanitation services and economic development.
The Population Council has released a new working paper, “Fertility transitions in developing countries: Progress or stagnation?” While recent declines in fertility levels in developing countries have led many to assume that the trend will continue, the paper finds that fertility rates in many countries have in fact stalled, a trend that could have long-term security implications worldwide. -
MEND Makes Headlines With Most Ambitious Oil Attack Yet
›June 19, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiThe Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND (seen in a photo by Dulue Mbachu, courtesy of ISN Security Watch and Flickr), has attacked Nigeria’s oil infrastructure again, this time significantly enough to cause Royal Dutch Shell to suspend its production at the damaged facility. Worldwide crude price levels rose in the wake of the attack, as well as amidst concerns that a Nigerian oil worker strike could be imminent.
The attack, which took place today in the Bonga oil field some 75 miles off Nigeria’s coast, is being described as unusually ambitious for a group that has focused mainly on the creeks and swamps of the Niger Delta. In a statement released to the media, the group explained that “the location for today’s attack was deliberately chosen to remove any notion that off-shore oil exploration is far from our reach.” Shell spokeswoman Eurwen Thomas said that the attack marked the first time MEND has managed to achieve the sophisticated planning and acquire the advanced equipment required to successfully target such a remote rig.
Though Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and a member of OPEC, most areas remain mired in poverty and plagued by pollution. Widespread resentment over inequitable revenue disbursement has spawned numerous groups agitating for a greater share of the country’s vast oil wealth. MEND is only the latest of these groups, but it has made a name for itself through attention-grabbing attacks like this one. The group’s claim to have captured an American worker was substantiated by private security officials, who said that two other workers were injured. Since the upswing in violence that began in early 2006, Nigerian rebel groups have taken more than 200 hostages.
Eleven percent of U.S. oil imports—46 percent of Nigeria’s total production—come from Nigeria, making this escalating series of attacks particularly relevant to American officials, and perhaps providing incentives to mediate talks between Nigeria’s government and Niger Delta militants, which have thus far been unsuccessful. Yet negotiations will be difficult between such polarized players. Said MEND, “the oil companies and their collaborators do not have any place to hide in conducting their nefarious activities.”
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New International Peace Institute Paper Examines Resource Scarcity, Insecurity
›June 18, 2008 // By Daniel Gleick“Often, those who are already vulnerable to threats because they are poor, illiterate, lack political power, or face gender or ethnic discrimination are the ones who find themselves in the front lines of the negative dimensions of environmental change,” writes Richard Matthew of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs at the University of California, Irvine, in “Resource Scarcity: Responding to the Security Challenge,” a new paper from the International Peace Institute. Vulnerable populations “face water and land scarcity, are displaced into marginal ecosystems where they encounter unfamiliar parasites, experience severe weather events, lose everything to floods and mudslides, and daily eke out an existence in peri-urban areas awash with human waste.”
Researchers continue to debate the security implications of various kinds of resource scarcity, but according to Matthew, there are at least four areas of general agreement:
• Resource scarcity is never the sole cause of conflict, but is often a contributing factor;
• Migration is frequently the link between resource scarcity and conflict;
• Rapid changes in access to resources are more likely to cause conflict than gradual changes; and
• Climate change will lead to resource scarcity in many areas that are experiencing or vulnerable to conflict.
Despite these dire circumstances, Matthew believes key actions and policies could significantly reduce the likelihood that resource scarcity will lead to conflict and insecurity. He offers 14 specific recommendations for NGOs, governments, and international organizations, which include supporting “the effort in UNEP to integrate the environment into post-conflict assessment, disaster management, and peacebuilding” and mobilizing “the enormous capacity of the private sector and NGO communities…around sustainable development, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding.”