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Searching for a place under the sun
By Stefania Milan
Rieti, Italy, June 19 (IPS)— A new mass of wandering people
is escaping their homeland in search of a better life. They are not
driven by political persecution, but by deforestation, global warming,
natural catastrophes, and nuclear and industrial disasters.
These are the environmental refugees.
“There are about 30 million such refugees,” Essam El-Hinnawi
of the Natural Resources and Environment Institute in Cairo told IPS
in an e-mailed interview. “This number will increase with deteriorating
environmental and economic conditions in parts of the developing world.”
The World Disasters Report published annually by the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says there are 5,000 new environmental
refugees every day.
Director of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Klaus Toepfer
goes further in estimating that by 2010 the number of environmental
refugees will reach 50 million. That means 8,500 more every day.
El-Hinnawi was the first to identify environmental refugees in 1985
when working for UNEP. But they are not recognized as refugees under
international law and cannot request protection or asylum.
The Geneva Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1951 does not
cover environmental refugees. Under that Convention a refugee is someone
who suffers persecution “for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership or particular social group or political opinion.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) distinguishes
between political and social refugees, said to number about 20 million
people, and those it considers merely displaced persons.
“The Convention is not enough,” Federico Longo, who works
with asylum seekers in Venice, told IPS. “It is too linked to the
post-war situation which originated it.”
Longo was among activists and experts from 22 countries who attended
the second International Meeting on Refugees and Asylum Seekers here
on the eve of the International Day of Refugees. The meeting was organized
by A.R.I. Onlus (Association Rieti Imigrant), a local non-governmental
organization with the support of the local municipality.
Delegates sought a review of the Geneva Convention. “The definition
of right of asylum and humanitarian protection has to be differently
conceptualized to embody the historical, political and environmental
changes of the last 50 years,” Longo said.
“Only local national laws apply to them,” said El-Hinnawi.
“A new classification of refugees should be adopted by the UN.”
Disasters caused by human activity have increased, and forced the displacement
of millions of people, El-Hinnawi said. “Emergency aid applies
only to specific situations, but it is not a solution.”
The number of environmental refugees is expected to grow dramatically
as a result of climatic factors leading to soil erosion, global warming,
and water pollution.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations
scientific body responsible for reviewing the causes and impact of climate
change, forecasts 150 million environmental refugees by 2050.
In China around 4,000 villages are threatened by desertification, according
to the Asian Development Bank. The Gobi desert is expanding 10,400 square
kilometers every year.
In Nigeria around 3,500 square kilometers of land becomes desert every
year. In the Iranian provinces of Baluchistan and Sistan inhabitants
have abandoned around 124 villages over the last few years due to growing
desertification.
Small Pacific island states like Tuvalu are threatened by rising sea
levels. The Netherlands and Denmark are also in danger.
“The IPCC foresees that in the next 100 years the sea level will
rise at least one meter due to the temperature increase,” Roberto
della Seta from the Italian environmental association Legambiente told
IPS. “In Bangladesh alone this phenomenon will create between 20
and 40 million refugees.”
Water shortage is expected to become a massive problem. The water-bearing
stratum under Yemeni capital Sana’a will disappear by 2010, according
to the World Bank.
Many environmental refugees do not cross borders; they are internally
displaced. That was the case with the nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl
in 1985 and the gas leak in Bhopal in India in 1984.
The poor in the developing world are the most vulnerable to climate
change. “The poorest people do not contribute to the problem of
climate change to a substantial degree, nor do they benefit financially
from it, but they pay the highest price and are more vulnerable to its
effects,” says the group Rising Tide Climate Justice Network.
Amazon: struggle for the environment
continues
By Thomas Kohnstamm
Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, Brazil, June 15— The United
Nations reported June 14 that the world is turning to dust. Every
year an area the size of Rhode Island becomes a desert wasteland. According
to the new report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification,
one-third of the Earth’s surface is at risk, driving people into
cities and destroying agriculture in vast swaths of Africa, China, South
America, even Europe.
Last year 9,169 square miles of the Amazon Forest disappeared —
the second-greatest amount on record. For some perspective, that is
an area approximately the same size as the state of New Hampshire.
This news is doubly upsetting as environmentalists had placed their
hopes in the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected
president some 16 months ago. Lula, a former shoeshine boy and metal
worker, is Brazil’s first working class president and his Environment
Minister Marina Silva is a former maid and protégé of
slain rubber tapper/environmental activist Chico Mendes.
It was hoped that they would be an honest, more humble alternative to
the traditional fat cats who were so quick to sell Brazil’s natural
resources for a quick profit. However, little has changed.
Lula and his administration have largely failed, thus far, for two simple
reasons.
First, the administration has little sway over congress, provincial
governments and local bureaucracy. A presidential decree may be stonewalled
at every turn. The election of one outsider and his cabinet can hardly
change an entire entrenched (and corrupt) political culture.
Secondly, Lula has been hit with the harsh reality of keeping the Brazilian
economy buoyant. With a burgeoning population of over 182 million people,
22 percent of whom live below the poverty line, Brazil is in a desperate
situation. The administration is stuck between the interests of the
environment, Amazonian communities and national development plans, such
as the $6.6 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric project, which will flood
around 150 square miles of one of the Amazon’s most diverse ecosystems.
Rather than getting into the complicated business of trying to strike
a balance between conservation and development needs, Lula has simply
tried to do a better job of enforcing the environmental laws already
on the books.
There have been some successes: in late 2003 and early 2004, the government
made several seizures of illegally harvested timber. In September 2003,
17 people were arrested for cutting 25,000 acres of Amazonian hardwoods.
After more than a decade of construction, the SIVAM (Integrated Service
for Amazonian Vigilance) radar surveillance system is becoming operational
and has good potential for monitoring illegal deforestation and mining.
Although it was sold to the public as an environmental tool, this network
(built by American military contractor Raytheon) seems to be more of
an instrument for the “war on drugs” and Brazilian border
defense.
Regardless of law enforcement, soy crops, cattle ranching and legal
logging continue to fell many more trees than any poachers. A long-term
solution must consider a more sustainable and conservation-minded path
for Brazil’s national economic development — and only with
significant support from the international community will that be possible.
There are already a few bright spots, including sustainable forestry
and sustainable tourism projects. The Fernando de Noronha archipelago,
some 325 miles off the coast of Recife in the Atlantic Ocean, receives
60,000 ecotourists per year who readily pay a steep “preservation
tax” to enjoy the pristine, natural sights. The islands are so
well regulated that visitors are even forbidden from swimming at certain
beaches while wearing sunscreen. However, Fernando de Noronha has unrivaled
natural beauty, making it a major tourist draw and a unique example.
If Lula can hold on to power long enough to draw more support into the
government and gain more support from the world community, he can start
to make some of the important structural changes necessary to rechart
the course away from the impending destruction of the rainforest. Prospects
are dim, but not hopeless.
Source: guerrillanews.com
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