Showing posts from category Africa.
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UN Highlights Climate Change-Security Link in Sudan
›June 26, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarUN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently named climate change as one of the primary causes of the current humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Although most commentators focus on the political and ethnic dimensions of the conflict, Ban reminds us that herders (primarily Arabs) and farmers (primarily black Africans) coexisted peacefully until the mid-1980s, when drought struck the region.
Ban believes that peacekeeping is an important first step in alleviating the crisis, and he expressed hope that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will stand by his recent agreement to allow a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force into Darfur. However, Ban maintains that a more permanent solution to this conflict must address its underlying environmental factors. As he starkly stated, any lasting solution will have to tackle “the fact that there’s no longer enough good land to go around.” Ban’s piece draws on an Atlantic Monthly article (available to subscribers only) by Stephen Faris. In March, The New Security Beat’s Karin Bencala weighed in on Faris’ article.
Also, a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) states that environmental degradation—particularly desertification, deforestation, and overgrazing—has helped contribute to decades of conflict in Sudan. The report predicts that environmental stresses will precipitate future conflicts—particularly in Africa’s Sahel region and in east Asia, as UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in an interview. The report also echoes Ban’s long-term environmental perspective on restoring peace to Sudan. “Investment in environmental management, financed by the international community and from the country’s emerging boom in oil and gas exports, will be a vital part of the peace building effort,” says UNEP’s press release.
Economic development is a necessary part of any solution in Darfur, but in order to achieve stability, this development must preserve, not deplete, Sudan’s already-overtaxed natural resources. Sudan cannot solve its environmental and resource problems without the help of those countries that likely helped cause them: unless countries with the highest levels of carbon dioxide emissions—the United States and China, among others—do not reduce their carbon footprint, even the most far-sighted Sudanese development strategy will be hard-pressed to succeed. -
Newfound Migration in Southern Sudan Poses Old Conservation Questions
›June 22, 2007 // By Karima TawfikIn Southern Sudan, a semi-autonomous region starting to rebound after two decades of devastating civil war, scientists have discovered a surprising zoological phenomenon. More than 1.3 million migratory animals—including white-eared kob, tiang (African antelope), and mongalla gazelle—are currently thriving in the region, according to an aerial survey conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).Encompassing 58,000 square miles, the survey provides the first reliable data on Southern Sudan’s wildlife since civil war broke out in 1983. And the results are heartening: the region’s migratory animal population rivals that of the Serengeti, considered the largest in Africa. Additionally, the survey spotted 8,000 elephants, concentrated primarily in the Sudd, the largest freshwater wetland in Africa. This documentation is even more astonishing in light of the experiences of other war-torn countries. For example, regional conflicts in countries such as Mozambique and Angola led to the collapse of peacetime animal protection laws, triggering widespread poaching that decimated local wildlife populations.
Although Southern Sudan’s abundant wildlife is a valuable ecological asset, scientists wonder how it will fare now that the recovering society is confronting new social, economic, and environmental pressures. In 2005, the U.S.-sponsored peace agreements established Southern Sudan as a semi-autonomous region; and since that time, notes National Geographic, hundreds of thousands of refugees—many of whom are farmers—have returned to the area. As the number of farmers increases, many could be forced to expand onto migratory land.
Oil exploration is further contributing to land scarcity. Director of WCS Southern Sudan Country Program Paul Elkan told the New York Times that the GoSS has already distributed oil permits throughout much of the white-eared kob and tiang’s migratory corridor. WCS has called for the creation of a Sudano-Sahel Initiative that would facilitate natural resource management and cooperation with the GoSS to convert thousands of ex-combatants from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army into wildlife protection officers. Initiatives such as this are a good first step toward balancing conservation and growth. But looking ahead, Southern Sudan faces difficult decisions about how best to protect wildlife in the midst of mass migration and economic development. -
Not So Sweet: Conflict Cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire
›June 15, 2007 // By Karima TawfikRevenues from natural resources have funded and fueled civil conflicts in Africa—including oil in Nigeria, minerals in the DRC, and timber in Liberia. This month, Global Witness added cocoa—the main ingredient in chocolate—to the list of conflict resources, claiming that the cash crop has funded civil conflict in Côte d’Ivoire.
The world’s largest producer of cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire accounted for 40 percent of world production in 2006, and a quarter of the country’s inhabitants work in the cocoa sector. The current civil conflict began decades ago when northern Ivoirians migrated to high cocoa-producing land in the western part of the country. In the late 1990s, bloody clashes and discriminatory policies drove thousands of migrants off the land, and in 2002 the northern rebel group Forces Nouvelles (FN) began a military campaign against the southern-based government.
For the last five years, the rebels and the government have used revenues from the cocoa trade to fund the ongoing conflict. Côte d’Ivoire’s climate of corruption and lack of transparency, coupled with the global economy’s persistent demand for cocoa, has allowed the government to tap into US$38.5 million in cocoa revenues, according to Global Witness. In addition, the report claims that cocoa institutions (with the assent of the biggest multinational exporters’ union) used levies paid by international cocoa exporters to direct US$20.3 million to the government’s war effort in an effort to retain control of land in the war zone.
Currently, a European company, Gambit Investment Ltd, is facing allegations that it traded military helicopters for cocoa, which were possibly used in attacks on civilians. Global Witness reports that government helicopter attacks and executions killed 370 civilians in the principal cocoa-growing region between October 2002 and April 2003.
The rebels in the north control a tenth of Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa exports, using a system of blockades to extract taxes on cocoa moving through their territory. Global Witness alleges that the profits from this trade now serve as an additional incentive for the FN to continue to hold the north and resist reunification.
As in its successful campaigns to bring attention to “blood diamonds” across the continent, the international community must recognize that the cost of cocoa extends beyond its market price. The UN banned the exports of diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire in 2002. Until it, along with international financial institutions and individual governments, puts pressure on the chocolate industry to take concrete steps to promote transparency and reduce its role in the conflict, there will be no end to the civil strife in Côte d’Ivoire. -
Persian Gulf to the “New Gulf”: New Book Takes New Approach to U.S. Energy Relationships
›May 29, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesAs Americans grow increasingly uneasy with our reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, a new region in Africa—the Gulf of Guinea—is emerging as a pivotal oil exporter. An ambitious new book, Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf, written by James J. F. Forest and Matthew V. Sousa, focuses on this region of Africa and highlights the U.S. strategic interest in its oil-producing countries: Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the island nations of Príncipe and São Tomé. This “New Gulf” not only provides the U.S. with a new oil supply, but also affords a chance to reframe our energy relationships.
Oil consumption is on the rise, with the United States leading the pack at nearly 25 percent of aggregate global oil use. Meanwhile, rapid industrialization and economic growth in India and China continues to push demand even higher. The Gulf of Guinea region is vying to meet the demand.
This book asks a critical question: how will the New Gulf cope with growing demand for oil in the face of pervasive poverty, weak governance, and corruption? The crux of the problem: stability in this region is an obstacle. According to the authors, stability is contingent on a calculated foreign policy framework, and the United States’ ability to learn from its mistakes in its quest for Middle East oil:Our continued support for undemocratic regimes, coupled with our willingness to do virtually anything to maintain open and reliable access to the oil resources of the Middle East, has produced increasing animosity throughout the region that will take years of hard work to reverse.
The authors advocate building energy relationships that avoid the Middle East model—a model beset by “shortsighted U.S. interests rather than long-term, fundamental U.S. values.” Instead, they say, America’s energy relationship with the New Gulf should be stable and cooperative, and built off a clear framework that promotes three, integrated priorities:- 1. Human security
- Economic development
- Democratization
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Climate and Security Reaches a Crescendo
›April 20, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe week of April 16th will go down as climate and security week. Monday found us in a fancy hotel ballroom within the shadow of Capitol Hill where eight former three-and four-star U.S. generals and admirals made a plea for more aggressive U.S. action on climate change. It was not a bunch of granola chomping, tree-huggers arrayed across the stage. Instead it was in front of 20 American flags that General Gordon Sullivan USA (Ret.) said in introducing the report National Security and the Threat of Climate Change: “We are not your traditional environmentalists.” Gordon, former Chief of Staff of the Army and chair of the CNA Corp’s Military Advisory Board, ran quickly through the group’s findings and recommendations before each of the seven other senior officers drew on their particular backgrounds and tailored how they viewed climate change as a security threat.
Former Admiral Frank “Skip” Bowman USN (Ret.), the submariner, said not planning for climate change made about as much sense as not planning for a hostile underwater environment.
General Charles Wald (USAF) Ret., who worked extensively in Africa from his deputy commander post in European Command, spoke of the resource pressures and instability he witnessed in West and East Africa – factors likely to become more challenging security threats with sea level rise and prolonged droughts.
Admiral Joseph Prueher USN (Ret.), former Commander of Pacific Command and U.S. Ambassador to China highlighted sea level rise implications for population and business centers like Shanghai and Navy bases like San Diego and Norfolk. He went on to say the U.S. can’t tackle the climate change problem alone, necessitating deeper engagement with key players like China and India.
Many of the officers emphasized that the panel “wanted to move beyond the debate over cause and effect” in climate change. As military men, they stressed they were accustomed to making important decisions with incomplete or uncertain information. They called on policymakers to do the same in the climate realm.
Three other senior officers on the Military Advisory Group weren’t in Washington that day. One of the missing members, General Tony Zinni USMC (Ret.) gave a very dynamic NPR interview that was also generating a buzz among those who follow these issues. Zinni has been making the case for linking environment and security for at least eight years. It was as Commander of Central Command (CENTCOM) in 1999 that Zinni said at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington that he wasn’t doing his job as head of CENTCOM if he was not following environmental and demographic issues as both threats and opportunities in his theaters of operation (North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia).
One day later the spotlight shown on the shore of the East River at the United Nations. The United Kingdom, chair of the Security Council in April, sent Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to oversee the Council’s first consideration of climate change as a security threat. The session was not without its disagreements.
Beckett emphasized that climate change posed threats beyond the “narrow” sense of security to threaten “collective” security of the international community and human well-being. The UK, France, Italy, the Secretary-General, and some developing countries such as Ghana, Panama, and Peru, highlighted the extra stress placed on already vulnerable populations in developing countries where pastorlists and agriculturalists already compete for scarce land and water. They suggested more of these conflicts would likely become (more) violent. Papau New Guinea representative, speaking on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum, stressed that climate change posed a fundamental security threat – to their sovereign territory and their people.
Lining up against the Security Council considering climate change as a security issue were China, Indonesia, South Africa, and Pakistan speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. The countries acknowledged the tremendous challenges posed by climate change but situated them as sustainable development, not security issues. They argued the more representative UN General Assembly and UN Economic and Social Council, the Commission on Sustainable Development, and multilateral treaties in general were the more appropriate forums for debate. China emphasized the “common, but differentiated responsibilities” language found in the Framework Convention on Climate Change – a reminder that the developing world expects the developed countries who have contributed most to the greenhouse gas emissions to go first and move aggressively on mitigation.
The United States seemed unable to make up its mind and fell back on its familiar script of “it is all about goverance and state capacity” that it uses in just about every occasion on environment and development issues. Singapore’s representative shared the G77 and China reservation on the Security Council playing a key role on climate change, but suggested it still should have “some sort of a role, because it seems obvious to all but the wilfully blind that climate change must, if not now, then eventually have some impact on international peace and security.”
On Wednesday April 18 it was back to Washington where General Gordon Sullivan testified before the Select Committee On Energy Independence And Global Warming of the U.S. House Of Representatives. Sullivan laid out concisely the Military Advisory Board’s four findings and five recommendations:
Findings:- First, projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security;
- Second, climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world;
- Third, projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world; and
- Fourth, climate change, national security, and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.
Recommendations- First, the national security consequences of climate change should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies;
- Second, the U.S. should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability;
- Third, the U.S. should commit to global partnerships that help less developed nations build the capacity and resiliency to better manage climate impacts;
- Fourth, the Department of Defense should enhance its operational capability by accelerating the adoption of improved business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved U.S. combat power through energy efficiency; and
- Fifth, DoD should conduct an assessment of the impact on U.S. military installations worldwide of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other possible climate change impacts over the next 30 to 40 years.
What it will add up to is unclear. What is clear is that political space has been created for discussing climate and security’s links as part of the larger momentum for debate on climate change opened up by a tangled mix of factors: the new IPCC report and other scientific findings, An Inconvenient Truth, state action in the US, EU renewable energy targets, Hurricane Katrina, European heat waves and floods, high gas prices, faith-based efforts (What would Jesus drive? He wouldn’t, he’d walk.) Climate and security is now on the agenda – the challenge is now to find practical steps for a variety of actors to take to help break the negative links and grasp opportunities presented. - First, projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security;
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Pop Goes the Environment: Op-Eds Break the P-E Silence
›April 11, 2007 // By Meaghan ParkerThe population-environment connection is riding the climate change bandwagon into the Op-Ed columns—at least overseas. The Observer’s Juliette Jowit lays out four reasons why “No one is willing to address the accelerating growth in the world’s population” including:“[T]he uncomfortable suspicion that environmentalism is a soft cover for more objectionable population agendas to stop or reduce immigration or growth in developing countries. Sometimes it might be. But that doesn’t take away the underlying fact: that more people use more resources and create more pollution.”
But, she concludes, this is no reason to “to ignore one half of the world’s biggest problem: the population effect on climate change.” The lively comment board takes sides on this sometimes-controversial linkage with gusto.
London-based journalist Gwynne Dyer argues in the New Zealand Herald that despite some progress, the “Population bomb [is] still ticking away” in many developing countries. Like Jowitt, he bemoans population’s perceived political incorrectness, which means it “scarcely gets a mention even in discussions on climate change.”
But not talking about population growth is a “failure of government”—especially when the consequences include not only poverty, but war, he says:“Often, however, the growing pressure of people on the land leads indirectly to catastrophic wars: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Angola, and Burundi have all been devastated by chronic, many-sided civil wars, and all seven appear in the top 10 birth-rate list. Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, which have suffered similar ordeals, are just out of the top 10.”
Aside from the rough correlation he draws between fertility rate and civil conflict, Dyer doesn’t cite any reasons or research supporting this indirect link. Experts writing in the ECSP Report’s “Population and Conflict” series provide a more nuanced look at this relationship. -
Seeing is Believing: Environment, Population, and Security in Ethiopia
›March 27, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe vista of Ethiopia’s ancient Rift Valley, speckled with shimmering lakes, stretches before me as our motorized caravan heads south from Lake Langano, part of a study tour on population- health-environment issues organized by the Packard Foundation. Sadly, the country’s unrelenting poverty and insecurity are as breathtaking as the view—Ethiopia currently ranks 170 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index. These numbers become quite personal when child after child sprints alongside the truck, looking for any morsel. Here, I don’t need to read between the lines of endless reports to see the country’s severe population, health, and environment challenges—they are visible in the protruding ribcages of the cattle and the barren eroding terraces in the nation’s rural highlands.
When analyzing environment, conflict, and cooperation, scholars and practitioners most often focus on organized violence where people die at the business end of a gun. We commonly set aside “little c” conflict where the violence is not organized. However, while the Ethiopian troops fighting the Islamic Courts in Somalia garner the most attention, we should not miss the quieter—yet often more lethal—conflicts. For example, Ethiopia, like much of the Horn of Africa, continues to be beset by pastoralist/farmer conflicts over its shrinking resource base—increasingly exacerbated by population growth, environmental degradation, and likely climate change. In today’s globalized world, these local conflicts may also have larger “neighborhood” effects, contributing to wars and humanitarian disasters, as in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Another classic example of local environmental conflict lies in Ethiopia’s national parks, which successive governments carved from inhabited land in the mid-1960s and 1970s. Those disadvantaged by the parks often took their revenge on the state by burning buildings, cutting trees, and hunting wildlife. Some resettled the parks, bringing cattle and cultivating sorghum. This conflict presents a terrible dilemma, but also an opportunity: if the government and its partners can offer residents secure livelihoods tied to sound environmental practices, “parks versus people” might be transformed into “peace parks.”
These intertwined environment-population-security challenges are daunting and sometimes difficult to grasp. Driving past mile after mile of Ethiopia’s treeless “forests” gave me a dramatic snapshot of the scope of the problem. While no weapons were evident, I could see that the lack of sustainable livelihoods produces plenty of casualties without a single shot. Despite these sobering sights, the people I met gave me hope—particularly the energy and imagination of a small farmers’ support group outside Addis Ababa. With some initial technical assistance from the Ethiopian NGO LEM and the Packard Foundation, this 32-member group is undertaking reforestation projects, producing honey as an alternative livelihood strategy, providing health and family planning services, and employing a more sustainable farming strategy. More efforts like these—and better awareness and promotion of them—could help turn deadly environments into safe, sustainable neighborhoods. -
Climate Change Possible Culprit of Darfur Crisis
›March 15, 2007 // By Karen BencalaWhile the crisis in Darfur is often characterized as an ethnically motivated genocide, Stephan Faris argues in April’s Atlantic Monthly (available online to subscribers only) that the true cause may be climate change. Severe land degradation in the region has been blamed on poor land use practices by farmers and herders, but new climate models indicate that warming ocean temperatures are the culprit behind the loss of fertile land.
Faris says:“Given the particular pattern of ocean-temperature changes worldwide, the models strongly predicted a disruption in African monsoons. ‘This was not caused by people cutting trees or overgrazing,’ says Columbia University’s Alessandra Giannini, who led one of the analyses.”
Furthermore, Faris points out that the violence is not necessarily merely between Arabs and blacks, but between farmers (largely black Africans) and herders (largely Arabs). Historically, the two groups shared the fertile land. Now, however, farmers—who once allowed herders to pass through their land and drink from their wells—are constructing fences and fighting to maintain their way of life on the diminished amount of productive land.
If climate change is the real cause of the conflict, Faris concludes, the solution must account for this reality and address the environmental crisis in order to make peace. And he calls on all of us to accept some of the blame for the crisis:“If the region’s collapse was in some part caused by the emissions from our factories, power plants, and automobiles, we bear some responsibility for the dying. ‘This changes us from the position of Good Samaritans—disinterested, uninvolved people who may feel a moral obligation—to a position where we, unconsciously and without malice, created the conditions that led to this crisis,’ says Michael Byers, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia. ‘We cannot stand by and look at it as a situation of discretionary involvement. We are already involved.’”
That said however, researchers at the African Centre for Technology Studies an international policy research organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, say that while environmental changes have decreased agricultural production, these problems must be examined within the wider context of a long history of discrimination and governance problems: “The legacies of colonialism, political discrimination, and lack of adequate governance in Darfur should not be underestimated in favor of an environmental explanation-particularly as it serves the interests of some actors to use environmental change as a non-political scapegoat for conflict.” (forthcoming ECSP Report 12)
