Migration is an important strategy for coping with environmental variability and change, but it can also place additional stress on ecosystems. Policymakers and practitioners are not always fully aware of these threats, nor fully prepared to manage them through appropriate interventions. Conservation professionals in the field therefore have a key role to play in reducing the harmful impacts that migration can have on the environment, and in mitigating any tensions that may emerge between migrant and host communities.

Based on lessons learned from three extensive case studies in the Great Lakes region of Africa, the International Institute for Sustainable Development has developed a toolkit on migration and conservation for practitioners from government, civil society, and international organizations, as well as local authorities, who work in critical ecosystems and see human migration as having a negative impact.

The toolkit is designed to guide conservation actors through a process of analyzing their operating context, assessing migration impacts, and designing response strategies. It presents a series of tools that can be used to accomplish this goal and describes ways the user can ensure an inclusive, conflict- and gender-sensitive response to migration that benefits both communities and their ecosystems.

Migration in the Great Lakes Region

Traditionally, migration in the Great Lakes region was primarily practiced by pastoralists moving across countries and borders in search of pasture. However, in recent decades, political instability, economic pressures, growing populations, and environmental change have produced new drivers of migration, greatly increasing the number of people on the move.

Environmental degradation can occur in communities left behind when people move – where the loss of human capital can influence natural resource management capacities – and along heavily trafficked routes. But changing migration patterns are also leading to negative impacts on biodiversity in recipient areas. Land and rich natural resources can be strong pulls for those trying to escape poverty, insecurity, and hardship, resulting in some areas seeing major increases in migrant populations, like the Great Lakes region.

These dynamics increase the challenge faced by conservationists. The critical ecosystems of the Great Lakes are already experiencing myriad forms of natural resource and climate stress, and the growing socio-environmental impacts of migration could exacerbate or reinforce existing social tensions and institutional failures, further threatening critical ecosystems and the livelihoods they support.

With the support of the MacArthur Foundation, IISD had an opportunity to examine these impacts and think about new approaches to migration-sensitive conservation in the Great Lakes. The report looks at migration and conservation dynamics in three ecosystems: the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia, the Misotshi-Kabogo ecosystem in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Lake Albert in northwestern Uganda.

Lake Albert’s Disappearing Fish

Buliisa district in Uganda is distinctive in that a significant portion of the district is protected for conservation. It has seen a recent influx of migrants from neighboring DRC and smaller groups from Sudan, Rwanda, and other parts of Uganda. Many of the migrants are escaping armed conflict, political instability, and high unemployment. They are drawn to the district’s rich fishery, which holds the promise of employment on fishing boats and within the surrounding economy.

Unfortunately, the population boom has led to overfishing that could, in the long term, lead to the collapse of the Lake Albert fishery. The lake is home to at least 55 species of fish, at least 10 of which are endemic, including the endangered Nile perch. The size of fish caught has steadily decreased over the last five years, and declining stocks have led fishers to encroach on breeding grounds to harvest immature fish, use illegal fishing methods and equipment (including monofilament nets), and target smaller and less desirable species.

To prevent overfishing, stricter regulations that limit the number of fishing boats and reduce illegal fishing are urgently needed. While some regulations do exist, enforcement is weak, and fish stocks continue to fall.

In a process outlined in the report, an early step in the Buliisa case was to develop a stakeholder map to analyze the relationships between key fishery actors. The map helped clarify where the power to influence fishery management decisions lay and how relationships among key stakeholders could help or hinder the development of sustainable solutions.

The stakeholder map showed strong informal ties and shared concerns for the short-term viability of fishery livelihoods among the leaders of the community fisheries management institutions, the so-called Beach Management Units (BMUs) and the elected District Council. The map also showed that the District Fisheries Office has virtually no allies at the local level to collaborate with on developing and enforcing more sustainable regulations.

The map also showed that migrants are underrepresented in the BMUs, with ethnicity playing a major role in BMU Committee elections. Greater migrant representative at this local level would help involve them in the conservation process and could lead to improved conservation results. There is also a need to enhance protection of fish breeding grounds by building greater capacity in the BMUs, fostering improved technical expertise, and investing in equipment, including boats and petrol.

Finally, there is a need to diversify the Lake Albert economy. Fish farming was an income-generation strategy suggested by a number of key stakeholders during the research. Breeding commercial fish, in particular larger and more economically valuable species such as Nile perch, in fish farms could provide a stable income to fishers without depleting existing wild stocks.

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As the Lake Albert case shows, population growth resulting from migration can place new stresses on the host area environment and exacerbate other tensions, creating a need for better conservation strategies.

However, addressing the drivers of migration is typically beyond the mandate of conservation organizations. Efforts should therefore be put to understanding the conservation and livelihood contexts of new populations and addressing their effect on ecosystems. To do this, responses must be carefully designed with extensive consultation with local stakeholders. Conservation practitioners should take an inclusive approach, in which migrants are made partners in the dialogue and given the opportunity to participate in natural resource governance structures, systems, and enforcement. Without such measures, even the best efforts may go to waste in areas where populations are changing so quickly.