Pressure points : environmental degradation, migration and conflict

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Occasional Paper Series o f the Project on

Environmental Change and Acute Conflict A Joint Project of the University o f Toronto and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Pressure Points: Environm ental Degradation, M igration and Conflict by Astri Suhrke Chr. Michelsen Institute

Bangladesh and Assam: L and Pressures, M igration and Ethnic Conflict by Sanjoy Hazarika The New York Times

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Contents Pressu re P o ira s : E nvironmental Degradation , M igration and C o n fl ic t , by Astri S u h r t e ...................................................................3 Environmental Degradation and M ig ratio n ............................................................................... 4 The Minimalists ......................................................................................................................4 The Maximalists ............................................................................................................. 6 Environmental Degradation and the Development P rocess........................................................ 7 Environmental Migrants and Refugees .................................................................................... 9 Deforestation.......................................................................................................................... 11 Rising Sea Levels ..................................................................................................................11 Desertification and D ro u g h t....................................................................................................12 Land Degradation ..................................................................................................................12 Water and Air Degradation...................................................................................................... 13 Pressure P o in ts....................................................................................................................... 14 Environmental Migration and Social Conflict ....................................................................... 15 The S a h e l................................................................................................................................16 TYibals of In d ia ....................................................................................................................... 19 Thailand’s Northeast...............................................................................................................20 Guatemala ............................................................................................................................ 25 The Migrant, the Refugee and the S ta te ...................................................................................28 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 31 Bangladesh and Assam : L and P ressures , m ig r a tio n AND ETHNIC CONFLICT, by S anjoyH azarika...........................................45 Land Pressures in Bangladesh...................................................................................................46 The TYauraa of Flooding.........................................................................................................49 Migration from B angladesh...................................................................................................... 52 The Scale of Migration............................................... 52 Migrants to Indian Urban A re a s ..............................................................................................54 Government Failure .............................................................................................................. 55 Ethnic Conflict in Assam ......................................................................................................... 56 Historical Background............................................................................................................56 Demographic Change ............................................................................................................57 Massacre in N e llie ................................................................................................................. 59 Ethnic Conflict in Tripura and B an g lad e sh ............................................................................. 60 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 61 ABOUT THE AUTHORS......................................................................................................................66 w orkshop

Pa r t ic ip a n t s ............................................................................................................ 67

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Pressure Points: Environmental Degradation, Migration and Conflict Astri Suhrke Chr. Michelsen Institute he environmental refugee has appeared in the literature on environment and security, and with it the refugee as both a cause and victim of conflict Some fear environmental degradation will produce “waves of environmental refugees that spill across borders with destabilizing effects" on both domestic order and international stability (Homer-Dixon 1991:77). Others focus on Africa, as the presumably most vulnerable area, arguing that deepening desertification already has displaced millions of people and generated acute as well as long-term structural conflict (Hjort af OmSs and Salih 1989, Bennett 1991). This paper attempts to systematize the links between environmental degradation, migration and social conflict that are present in the literature. The starting point is one of skepticism towards the catastrophic notion that environmental degradation will generate massive population displacement which in turn will ignite social conflict. Conflict is obviously not a necessary consequence of migration; nor is it clear that environmental degradation by itself is a major cause of population movements. To determine under what conditions the sequence of degradation-displacement-conflict develops, we must address two central questions: first, is environmental degradation associated with particular migration patterns, i.e., are there environmentally driven migrations? And, second, when do such migrations result in conflict? Common forms of environmental degradation include desertifica­ tion, land degradation, rising sea levels induced by global warming, and deforestation with its many consequences. Recognizing the importance of these processes, preparations for the United Nations Conference on Environ­ ment and Development (UNCED 1992) identified four fragile eco-systems of the world — i.e., regions with severe deforestation or desertification, the low-lying coastal areas and the "vanishing” islands.1 © 1993 by Astri Suhrke. This paper was prepared for the workshop on “Environmental Change, Population Displacement, and Acute Conflict," held at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Ottawa in June 1991 as part o f the “Environmental Change and Acute Conflict" project o f the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. University o f Toronto and the American Academy o f Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Only environmental degradation in the developing world will be discussed in this paper. The consequences of environmental change are particularly severe in poor, agricultural communities whose production system is most dependent on natural cycles and who lack the means to protect themselves through technological innovation.2 Environmental Degradation and Migration While the literature on environmental change and population move­ ments is quite limited, two different and opposing perspectives can be discerned. One — which I will call the minimalist view — sees environ­ mental change as a contextual variable that can contribute to migration, but warns that we lack sufficient knowledge about the process to draw firm conclusions. The other perspective sets out a maximalist view, arguing that environmental degradation has already displaced millions of people, and more displacement is on the way. The Minimalists The minimalists are primarily found in migration studies (e.g., Kritz 1990, National Academy of Sciences 1991, Bilsborrow 1991). In one respect, the minimalists are indisputably correct. While environmental factors are of increasing interest to students of migration — as a recent state-of-the-art survey notes (Kimberly & Kimberly 1991) — little substantial research has been produced on environmental change as a cause of migration. More is known about the environmental impact of migration. Partly because it is readily observable, this dimension has received much attention, one example being the damage inflicted on Brazil’s forests by new settlers.1 Environmental change does not figure as a separate, causal variable in the general migration literature, although older theories did allow for natural disasters under the category of “physical" factors. Now-classic theories emphasize economic factors and rational-choice analysis without noting environmental variables per se (Todaro 1969, Stark 1991 ).4 The same applies to migration theories in the tradition of neo-Marxist international political economy (Adler 1977, Portes and Walton 1981). Among demogra­ phers, the case study literature fares little better. For instance, observing the recent sharp increase in migration in Indonesia — a nation with serious environmental problems and known for its high and complex patterns of population movements — the eminent demographer Graeme Hugo con­ cludes: “Employment-related motives predominate in shaping how many people move, who moves, where they move from and where they move to” (Hugo 1991:28). Yet, common sense as well as catastrophes such as the Sahel drought tell us that environmental change obviously can cause outmigration by affecting structural economic conditions. Environmental change can also be

While environmental factors are of increasing interest to students of migration . . . little substantial research has been produced on environmental change as a cause of migration.

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the proximate cause of population displacement, as the devastating floods in Bangladesh demonstrate. One analytical solution, as Bilsborrow (1991) suggests, is to treat the environment as a contextual factor which manifests itself in the decision calculus of the potential migrant. Land degradation, for instance, can mean reduced income; frequent flooding brought about by upstream deforestation translates into higher risk for families living down­ stream. More systematically, Bilsborrow suggests three categories of mani­ festations. Environmental change may induce outmigration via income effects (by reducing average incomes), by risk effects (by increasing the instability of income, and — one might add — other utilities), or by making the environment less pleasant or healthy, i.e., by social effects (Bilsborrow 1991:9-10). This is a useful elaboration of the classic decision-making models of migration. Environmental degradation finds its place as a contextual variable that affects the economic, risk and social calculus of the migrant. The effect may be felt at the level of the individual, the community or, conceivably, an entire nation. More narrowly, Kritz (1990) focuses on climate change as a cause of migration. Reviewing a series of contemporary case studies from the devel­ oping world, she concludes that it is difficult to demonstrate that climate change is a primary engine of migration. For rural people, migration is one of several coping strategies to deal with poverty which in itself reflects a combination of social, economic and political conditions. Exceptional cases aside (e.g., the Dust Bowl in the United States), the effect of climate on migration cannot be easily isolated. Perhaps the most specific characteristic of climate change as a causal variable, Kritz argues, is that its impact on population movements has been reduced over time due to policy interven­ tion. Since the ability to modify climate impact is conditioned by the distribution of wealth, poor countries are more vulnerable than the rich. This conclusion is echoed in a study Kritz helped to prepare for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS 1991). Like Kritz, Bilsborrow makes only a modest claim for the importance of environmental degradation per se as a cause of outmigration. In two of his three case studies (Indonesia and Guatemala), environmental degradation appears as only one in a cluster of causes, although it is given more weight in the third case (Sudan). As the name suggests, the minimalists focus on the impact of a particular process such as land degradation, deforestation or changing cli­ mate on migration. But since migration, like social processes generally, is not a monocausal phenomenon, the minimalist premise skews the discussion towards a negative answer: environmental degradation by itself is not impor­ tant as a cause of migration. Nor does it lend itself to easy quantification that permits a multiple regression analysis to isolate the relative weight of individual variables.

The minimalists locus on the impact of a particular process such as land degradation. deforestation or changing dim ate on migration.

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The Maximalists The maximalists, by contrast, tend to extract the environmental variable from a cluster of causes and proclaim the associated outmigration as a direct result of environmental degradation. This was evident in the early writings of environmental analysts (El-Hinnawi 1985, Jacobson 1988, Tuchman Mathews 1989, Myers 1991), and was echoed in popularized versions. “Drought in Africa and deforestation in Haiti have resulted in waves of refugees,” as a Time article proclaims.5 The maximalists produced the first generation literature on “environ­ mental refugees.” In a now-classic study prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme in 1985, El-Hinnawi wrote that “all displaced people can be described as environmental refugees, having been forced to leave their original habitat (or having left voluntarily) to protect themselves from harm and/or to seek a better quality of life" (p. 4). El-Hinnawi then recognized three subcategories of environmental refugees: 1) those who temporarily have to leave their traditional habitat due to a natural disaster or similar event; 2) those who have been permanently displaced and re-settled in a new area; and 3) those who migrate on their own. The definition erased the customary distinction between refugee and migrant, i.e., those who moved voluntarily as opposed to those who were compelled to flee (Kunz 1973, Stein 1981) — thereby violating common sense and inflating the numbers. A subsequent paper by Jodi Jacobson on environmental refugees by the Worldwatch Institute dramatized the problem and was given wide pub­ licity (1988). Like El-Hinnawi, Jacobson based her analysis on a very general notion of refugee — “people fleeing from environmental decline” (p. 6) — and made no distinction between internally and internationally displaced persons. Nevertheless, the paper moved the debate forward by identifying major types of “unnatural disasters” and the associated displacement of people, namely floods, droughts, toxification, deforestation and rising sea levels. About the same time, the report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focused international attention on the greenhouse effect and rising sea levels, suggesting that tens of millions of people might be displaced in the future. Since broad categorizations invite large numbers, the estimates of environmental refugees ran into the millions. El-Hinnawi reported that 15 million people were affected by flood annually in the 1970s. Jacobson aggregated quite diverse cases, discussing the victims of Love Canal and Chernobyl alongside the 24 million Egyptians who, under a worst case scenario, might be displaced by rising sea levels by the year 2100. The problem with these initial studies was obvious. Uncritical defi­ nitions and inflated numbers had a short-lived shock-effect on the public debate but were rejected as unserious by scholars. In the U.N. and policy community, it was feared that alarmist thinking would frighten a public already suffering from “compassion fatigue” towards refugees. From a

The maximalists, by contrast, tend to extract the environmental variable from a cluster of causes and proclaim the associated outmigration as a direct result of environmental degradation.

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policy perspective, the categorizations were so broad as to be useless; institutions and relief measures relevant to industrial pollution in the United States were hardly applicable to peasants displaced by floods in Bangladesh, or driven by famine across international borders in Africa. Unable to marshall a critical mass of social scientific interest, the scholarly discourse on environmental refugees nearly died. This was unfor­ tunate as the notion covered important and relatively unexplored issues that were amenable to critical analysis. To revive the debate, I propose a two-step rescue operation: 1) transcend the dichotomy between minimalists and maximalists by anchor­ ing the analysis of causes in the broader development process, and 2) restore the distinction between migrants and refugees, thus infusing some realism in projections of future flows. Environmental Degradation and the Development Process From a broader development perspective, environmental degradation appears as a proximate cause of migration. The underlying causes are found in increasing population pressures on land and the patterns of resource use. Demography and political economy, in other words, are the most salient causal factors. Yet, these obviously interact in critical ways with specific environmental variables. Sometimes the result is stress of a kind that leads to massive outmigration. But to understand why, it is necessary to focus on the broader development process. For instance: In Haiti, deforestation is most fundamentally a result of population growth in a political economy characterized by systematic oppression and gross corruption. Yet, deforestation leads to soil erosion which has an independent and accelerating effect on poverty. The total situation has produced large-scale outmigration for several years (Catanese 1990/91). In the Sahel, expanding commodity production encroached on land traditionally used by pastoralists, forcing them into smaller areas. The weakness of pastoral societies in relation to the emerging African state precluded effective protest. This combined with rapid demographic and livestock growth to produce intense pressure on smaller grazing areas. Given the fragile, semi-arid nature of the environment, the margin for disaster was narrow. Deepening drought, desertification and outmigration followed. In large parts of Brazil’s Northeast, progressive conversion of land use from small scale, subsistence agriculture to cattle ranching meant inter alia reduced ground cover provided by a local xerophytic plant (the coatinga), known for its ability to recover after long, dry spells (Sanders 1990/91). Simultaneously, population increase forced small landholders to shorten the fallow period which traditionally had allowed the plant to come back. As the caatinga disappeared, the land eroded, and the region’s droughtprone conditions grew worse. Local farmers turned increasingly to outmi­ gration.

To revive the debate, I propose a two-step rescue operation: 1) transcend the dichotomy between minimalists and maximalists by anchoring the analysis of causes in the broader development process, and 2) restore the distinction between migrants and refugees.

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In all these cases, degradation took place in environments that at the outset were fragile (semi-arid regions, tropical forests). But the degradation was impelled by population pressures and the result was mediated by patterns of resource use. These patterns are often identified dichotomously, as in the recent World Bank World Development Report on the environment: some forms of environmental degradation are a result of poverty (e.g., air and water pollution), others stem from economic growth (e.g., deforestation and indus­ trial pollution). The relationship appears in three basic models. Certain types of degradation will on average decrease with rising income (e.g., urban waste pollution), others will increase (e.g., carbon dioxide emission), and yet others take a curvilinear form (deforestation) (IBRD 1992:13). Population increase appears as a central, underlying cause of both environmental degradation and migration. For instance, numerous studies have shown a close relationship between population growth and deforesta­ tion (Birdsall 1992); growing desertification in the Sahel has been closely linked to the rapid increase in both people and livestock. In Mauritania, a “spectacular increase in livestock” was cited as a cause of environmental degradation and massive migrations to urban areas well before the onset of the 1969 drought (Tamondong-Helin and Helin 1990-91:4). The same ap­ plies to the oft-cited “environmental refugees” from Bangladesh’s coastal areas. Due to demographic pressures, population concentrations develop in marginal areas where they are vulnerable to even small changes in the environment Once set in motion, environmental degradation may of course acquire a momentum of its own. More needs to be known about the linkages of degradation to patterns of both resource use and migration. But to escape the trap of environmental determinism, it is necessary to focus on the interactive essence of the development process. The distinction between proximate and underlying causes, moreover, is central for both analysis and policy formu­ lation. Otherwise, remedial policies will address symptoms rather than causes, as the recent World Development Report argues.6 For instance, if change in Haiti’s political economy is a prerequisite for reducing the island’s deforestation and related outmigration, this must be recognized. A focus on the broader development process also helps to explain the contradictory impact of environmental degradation on migration patterns. For instance, land degradation in an agricultural economy is often associated with outmigration — in the extreme, creating Sahelian visions of emerging wastelands that mercilessly expel its people. In fact, of course, land degra­ dation can be associated with both in- and outmigration. In the Indian state of Punjab, agricultural modernization since the early 1970s has created such severe salinity problems that the entire region appears as a disaster area on a recently completed soil map (GLASOD 1990). At the same time, Punjab’s rapid economic growth — of which land degradation is but one result — has given the state one of the heaviest inmigrations in all of India, both of a seasonal and permanent nature (Oxford University Press 1978). One can

Population increase appears as a central, underlying cause of both environmental degradation and migration.

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imagine, however, a point where degradation will reduce economic returns so as to stimulate outmigration. Another common sequence appears in traditional slash-and-bum cultivation as practiced under contemporary conditions of demographic pressure. In Indonesia, for instance, poor farmers commonly settle on mar­ ginal land on hillsides, but after a few years of intensive cultivation find that declining yields force them to move on (W R I1989). At the onset of the cycle, the land is still good, attracting an inflow of settlers. As the land becomes exhausted, a saturation point is reached, outmigration commences, and land degradation changes from being a consequence to a cause of migration. The process represents in effect a pure form of unsustainable development (see Brundtland Commission 1987). Environmental Migrants and Refugees Accepting environmental degradation as at least a proximate cause of outmigration, the logic yields two kinds of population movements: the involuntary, sometimes called distress migration, and the more voluntary kind. The distinction between the two types is controversial, yet essential. If it is to have a meaning at all, the concept of environmental refugee must refer to especially vulnerable people who are displaced due to extreme environmental degradation. While all economic change involves an element of degradation, the critical question is whether a renewed equilibrium will develop, as analysts of frontier studies argue (CREDAL 1981). In extreme situations, environmental change can remove the economic foundation of the community altogether (as when indigenous people lose their forests or fishing grounds). To survive at all, they must move. Responding primarily to push-factors, they become refugees in much the sense that current socio­ logical and legal terms define the condition (Zolberg, Suhrke, Aguayo 1989). The environmental refugee thus would include agricultural communities displaced by dams, coastal communities flushed out by floods, and pastoralists displaced by drought Others migrate before the situation becomes so desperate as to yield no choice. Using conventional terms, they would be environmental migrants who respond to a combination of pull-and-push factors. Migration here is part of the solution rather than the problem. For the environmental refuge, by contrast movement itself is fundamentally the problem. The refugee condition denotes sharp im pact but reduced time and few resources to respond; it entails little choice, great vulnerability, and commensurate need for assistance to avoid suffering or social conflict (Harrell Bond 1989). The ideal-typical categories of migrants and refugees correspond to distinctions observed between migrations in time of famine and those in more normal times (Hugo 1989). In his classic study of the Solomon Islands, Raymond Firth depicts the labor migration from outlying islands to the plantations on the main islands as a typical out-and-up mobility. When famine struck, a different kind of migration took place. Unable to resist the

The concept ot environmental refugee must refer to especially vulnerable people who are displaced due to extreme environmental degradation. . . To survive at all, they must move.

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labor-recruiters; all able-bodied men had to go. It was an all-pash and no-pull situation, as expressed in a local islander’s lament: “I who sit here, I look on my children who are starving; I get my canoe and get ready to go” (Firth, cited in Rangasami 1985:1592). Similarly, in her studies of rural migrant communities in Tamil Nadu in Southern India, Amrita Rangasami found famine-related migration to be distinct from more ordinary “modernization migration.”7 This was evident both in the composition of the migrants and the terms of exchange for their labor. During the 1974-75 (local) famine, whole families in the Tanjavur district packed up to seek work, even girls and unmarried women went along. Families separated to find work, and men took women’s jobs. Customary conventions governing migrant or seasonal labor broke down in favor of the employer, both in terms of wages and contract. The forced nature of the migration process was reflected in daily language; the laborers referred to themselves as “slaves of the famine.” In more normal years, migration followed a pattern of seasonal, mainly male migration for better wage and working conditions. Whether a population movement consists essentially of migrants or refugees has great significance for the impact on the receiving areas. Refu­ gees — having moved involuntarily and unprepared — are more likely to be seen as a net burden in the receiving areas and typically require assistance.8 Migrants are more likely to be absorbed in the market, to which their movement at least in part is a response. Refugees tend to be powerless; migrants have greater resources to mobilize and are often feared as competi­ tors. As a result, the implications for social conflict varies between the two. We shall return to this question in the next section. The point here is to note the distinction between migrants and refugees and ask whether there is something about the nature of environmental degradation that tends to produce one rather than the other? It has been argued that most forms of environmental degradation are “slow-onset” processes, often hidden, that suddenly reach a threshold (RPG 1992). The result of a sudden, and by implication absolute and irreversible, environmental degradation would indeed be a forced displacement of people, i.e., a refugee type. The notion, as forcefully articulated by Myers (1992), assumes a steep population growth curve and a discontinuous process of environmental change. A forest, for instance, may be exploited on a given level for centuries and “all is well” until the number of collectors reach a point where the self-renewing capacity of the trees is exhausted. “Quite suddenly... the tree stock starts to decline” (Myers 1992:9). But then what happens? The discontinuity argument itself concedes that the decline is gradual. “Season by season the self-renewing capacity becomes ever-more depleted” (Myers 1992:9). Nor is it a hidden decline which suddenly bursts into view only when well advanced. Deforestation is a visible process that impresses itself upon the local people in very concrete terms. People have to walk further or collect less wood, or both. In economic terms it means diminishing

W hether a population movement consists essentially of migrants or refugees has great significance for the impact on the receiving areas. Refugees. . . are more likely to be seen as a net burden in the receiving areas and typically require assistance.

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returns over a period of time. As this occurs, some individuals may respond by migrating in search of alternate or additional work, i.e., they become indistinguishable from ordinary migrants. Many will probably feed into established migration flows toward urban centers or other rural areas. Only the least resourceful will be unable to get out, compelled to wait for the end of a process in which they have become passive objects. These are the environmental refugees. Depending on the situation, the end may be death, starvation or migration in search of relief. The distinction between environmental migrant and refugee operates with respect to the following discussion of the five most common forms of environmental degradation: deforestation, rising sea levels, desertification and drought, land degradation, and finally, water and air degradation. Deforestation Uphill deforestation, through a process of soil erosion that induces cycles of flood and drought, will cause economic loss downstream. As farmers experience a loss of harvest, they will tend to make less investment in the land, leading to less productivity and less output9 A typical response would be for one or more family member to migrate on a seasonal or permanent basis, thereby inflating existing migration streams. The process is exemplified in the case of Thailand’s rural-to-urban migration (Hurst 1990). Deforestation affects the indigenous inhabitants of the forest differ­ ently. Tribal peoples are bound to the forest in a cultural, social and economic sense and highly vulnerable to change. Whether they are physically displaced or “reintegrated” as laborers in the new economic activity, the result is the destruction of the community and impoverishment of the individual. This has been observed among peoples of the rainforest in Central America and the Amazon basin (Barraclough and Ghimire 1990) and in India (Fernandes, et al. 1988). These are no-choice refugee-like situations.

The five most common forms of environmental degradation [are]: deforestation, rising sea levels, desertification and drought, land degradation, and finally, water and air degradation.

Rising Sea Levels Rising sea levels are expected to affect coastal populations in exposed areas, especially in China, Bangladesh and Egypt, as well as the populations of the South Pacific atolls and the Maldives. By all accounts, rising sea levels is a slow process. According to the International Panel on Climate Change, sea levels might rise by one meter by the year 2100, affecting 360,000 km of coastline (Fairclough 1991:88). The social impact is indicated by estimates that over the next 60 years, 13-15 percent of Bangladesh’s population would be displaced in a worst case scenario (Jacobson 1988:34). If the displacement occurs at a steady rate, the first “installments" would be on the order of 200,000-300,000 persons annually. While a sizable figure, it is less than one quarter of the new arrivals who annually enter Bangladesh’s labor market due to population increase alone. The slow process, moreover, gives coastal

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people time to adjust Many will try to migrate within the country or to neighboring areas. Rising levels can also be expected to inflate existing migration streams from the Pacific Islands to Australia and New Zealand (Connell 1987), and of Egyptian workers to the Gulf states. In addition to the migrant streams, two kinds of refugee situations can be envisaged. The remaining communities will be exposed to more frequent and destructive floods and tropical storms. The process is already under way (Islam 1991). In the aftermath of disaster, the survivors will turn to national and international relief until the water subsides, then return to their homes. For some, however, their home has disappeared for good. Shifting sandbanks along the coast and riverside, the char, cultivated by marginal Bengali peasants, may be permanently submerged. Displaced by floodwater, coastal farmers constitute an irreversible flow of refugees. Desertification and Drought Desertification is typically a cumulative process, stemming from overgrazing, deforestation or overuse of common land over an extended period of time. The impact is gradual, manifesting itself in declining produc­ tivity, smaller pasture areas, and worsening droughts that gradually deplete the reserves of people and livestock. A range of coping strategies exists, including migration to new grazing land or towns. Thus, massive pastoralist migrations in the Sahel developed gradually as the deepening effect of drought and desertification were felt (El-Hinnawi 1985). Studies of re­ sponses to desertification show that households resort to multiple survival strategies, each carefully tailored to the gravity of the situation (Watts 1983, Bilsborrow and DeLargy 1991). Peasants cultivate other crops and nomads shift to new grazing land; both send family members out to look for work. As conditions on the land get worse, herds are killed, the seeds consumed and the land abandoned. The remaining population migrates to relief camps or urban squatter quarters in what is a refugee-type situation.

Desertification is typically a cumulative process, stemming from overgrazing, deforestation or overuse of common land over an extended period of time.

Land Degradation Land degradation is associated with both deforestation and certain agricultural practices. In the latter case, irrigation problems are commonly cited: over time, salinization and waterlogging of irrigated land will sharply reduce productivity.10Improper drainage can also cause debilitating diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis. In extreme cases, the rising incidence of schistosomiasis has been known to put over 80 percent of the population at risk (notably the Gezira in the Sudan); more often the risk factor is 5-10 percent (Barghouti and Le Moigne 1991). The gradual nature of land degradation makes coping and survival strategies possible, including migration. Although no one has tried to esti­ mate how much of the contemporary rural-to-urban migration in the devel­ oping world is specifically due to land degradation in sending areas, there is

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rich case study material that documents the dynamic. In Latin America, for instance, population pressure and overuse of ecologically vulnerable land in hill areas feed a permanent rural to urban migration (IBRD 1990:30). Water and Air Degradation A dualism also operates with water and air degradation. Worsening air and water pollution can reduce economic productivity (e.g., through polluted fishing grounds and vegetation destroyed by acid rain). This would contribute to outmigration of a steady kind. Pollution may also take the form of a local calamity that destroys existing economic patterns. The Aral Lake in the former Soviet Union is drying out; commercial fishing and shrimp farming in South India and the Philippines have devastated the grounds of traditional fishermen (Porter 1988, Broad, etal. 1990-91). In these situations, refugee-type conditions would prevail. The above analysis suggests that common forms of environmental degradation will give rise to two kinds of population outflows: environmental migrants and refugees. The latter have little or no resources to cope with deepening degradation; in other words, they constitute those who arc already the most marginalized and impoverished in their own society. It follows that relative to the population as a whole, they would not be very numerous. The category of environmental migrants might be expected to be much larger, equivalent to “the poor” in relation to “the very poor.” Many forms of environmental degradation can be remedied, more­ over, to increase the range of survival strategies and reduce the number of people who find themselves in refugee-type situations. While only macro­ level policies can deal with the underlying causes, remedial policies include a number of strategies, including: flood control by building of embankments and improving drainage (e.g., in Bangladesh, IBRD 1990a: 18); soil erosion control through terracing, closing areas for regeneration, tree planting and water harvesting (e.g., in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, Stihl in UNRISD 1990); regenerating an entire ecological system (e.g., the Loess plateau of China, IBRD 1990:72); and drought relief through work-for-food pro­ grams (e.g., Botswana, IBRD 1990:97). Only in some instances would the flows of environmental refugees be dramatically large. This happens, first, when entire social segments are marginalized by the development process and made vulnerable to even small changes in the environment In these cases, large flows of a refugee kind may emerge, as has happened to the pastoralists of the Sahel." Secondly, when a society is unprepared for periodic droughts, large-scale famine migrations may occur, as presently is feared in large parts of southern Africa. Thirdly, protracted warfare in poor societies and a fragile environment typically create massive, long-term, and self-perpetuating refugee problems. Environment can make repatriation difficult even when peace formally returns, as in the Horn of Africa (Lake 1990).

Common forms of environmental degradation will give rise to two kinds of population outflows: environmental migrants and refugees.

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Pressure Points Having sketched the sociological profile of environmental migrants and refugees and assessed their relative numbers, it remains to be asked: where are they most likely to appear? The environmental pressure points of the contemporary world are indicated by the recently completed global soil assessment maps (GLASOD 1990). Prepared by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre in the Netherlands in cooperation with the UNEP, the maps use a color code to plot human-induced soil degradation. A few crisis areas stand out In Africa, the Horn has the dark color code of crisis. Wind and water damage associated with loss of vegetative cover and overgrazing has caused “extreme” loss of topsoil. Large areas of badly degraded soil appear also in all of eastern Iran (due to wind erosion and salinization), and large patches of Iraq around the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (salinization due to intense agrarian cultivation). Moving eastward into Asia proper, the northwestern and northeastern comers of the Indian subcontinent are equally badly de­ graded for different reasons, and a broad strip of extreme deforestation runs between them along the Himalayan foothills. In the rest of Asia, China has several large, dark splotches. A sizable triangle extends from Shanghai to Szech’uan and northwards towards Beijing, showing heavy loss of topsoil and terrain deformation caused by water erosion. In addition, two big pockets north and northeast of Beijing, with one extending well into Mongolia, show extreme wind erosion due to overgrazing. In South America, the heavily deforested areas of Central America and the Amazon basin stand out. In aggregate terms, Africa is the most severely affected region. Of the damaged area plotted, 1 percent has extreme and probably irreversible degradation; another 25 percent suffers from “strong” degradation. The most common causes are wind and water damage associated with overgrazing. In Asia, 1 percent of the plotted area is listed as extremely degraded, but “only” 14 percent falls in the next category of strong degradation. South America is comparatively better off. No area is yet deemed to be extremely damaged; 10 percent of the total falls in the “strongly degraded” category. Water erosion, due to deforestation and grazing, accounts for most of the damage. Intensive agriculture has also caused considerable chemical deterioration and loss of nutrients. The maps confirm what recurring famine in the Sahel already has demonstrated. In a semi-arid region with a growing agricultural population dependent on highly variable rainfall, there is a narrow margin for disaster. Yet, the outcome is variable. Similar pressure points elsewhere have produced little migration due to governmental restrictions (Mongolia and China), or steady movement of a migration kind. Also, Northeast Brazil and Northeast Thailand are poor, semi-arid areas with difficult soil and climate conditions. Agricultural practices combined with increases in population or livestock have intensified pressure on the land and induced severe degrada­ tion, as the GLASOD maps show. It is no coincidence that the northeastern

In a semi-arid region with a growing agricultural population dependent on highly variable rainfall, there is a narrow margin for disaster.

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regions of both countries have large outmigration. However, these are not refugee-type movements of the Sahelian kind. Many migrants find a place in a growing economy or an expanding frontier. The social consequences of environmental pressure points, in other words, are highly variable. Whether a given population ends up as destitute refugees or can transform themselves into successful migrants will in the first instance depend on conditions of social peace and the resources available for policy intervention. In this respect, the Sahel (and the Horn in particular) seems uniquely situated near the disaster point. Environmental Migration and Social Conflict Returning to the question posed at the outset — will environmental degradation produce waves of refugees that will cause conflict or instability. — it is now clear why the distinction between migrant and refugee is critical. If environmental refugees are destitute but few in numbers, they would hardly be a cause of conflict in the receiving areas. Too weak to make demands, and too few to be an agent of destabilization, they are more likely to become passive victims than a source of conflict Famine victims die quietly. Migrants, by contrast possess more resources to make demands, but may also be more readily absorbed in the market to which they are respond­ ing. Cumulatively, however, large population flows may be destabilizing by overwhelming the administrative apparatus of the state or the absorptive capacity of urban areas. In this case, receiving areas may become centers of endemic tension that periodically erupt in violence. Given their projected rapid growth to the end of the century, urban areas in the developing world are particularly exposed. Historically, migration has certainly been associated with violent conflict Ancient migrations and colonial expansion involved conquest of territory and peoples; later, spontaneous or colonially induced migrations in Africa and Asia contributed to ethnic conflict that has persisted in the post-colonial states. Current conflict in the Indian subcontinent alone sug­ gests the range: native peoples and new settlers fight over land (the Northeast hill areas), old and new arrivals clash over political power in urban areas (the Mohajir and the Sindhi in Karachi), nativist movements tum violent to exclude newcomers (from Assam to Bombay), and industrial workers fight with displaced tribals overemployment (e.g., in Bihar). (See following paper by Sanjoy Hazarika.) International migration has an additional conflict potential as it involves two distinct sovereignties. Particularly difficult are illegal movements and those which follow international adversarial lines, as Myron Weiner demonstrates (1991). But the history of migration is also a history of new forms of co-existence, of integration and assimilation, and of non-violent relations. Migrants — including refugees — have historically brought valuable new labor and skills to the receiving area. There seems to be no reason why

The social consequences of environmental pressure points. . . are highly variable. W hether a given population ends up as destitute refugees or can transform themselves into successful migrants will in the first instance depend on conditions of social peace and the resources available.

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environmentally induced migrations should be — on balance — less bene­ ficial. To sort out the conflict potential of environmentally related popula­ tion movements, we shall look at a number of cases that show both environ­ mental degradation and population outflows, but have different social consequences. The case studies will also help to clarify the causality question posed earlier concerning the relationship between environmental degrada­ tion and the broader development process. The Sahel

To sort out the conflict potential of environmentally related population movements, we shall look at a number of cases that show both environmental degradation and population outflows, but have different social consequences.

Half a century ago, the colonial government of Sudan warned against degradation of the environment, pointing to pressures from expanding crop cultivation in rainfed areas, increasing wood-cutting, and a proliferation of new boreholes for water (Ahmed 1989:91). Since then, pressures on a fragile environment mounted rapidly. In some areas, new export markets for cattle encouraged boring of numerous water holes which, coupled with improved management of livestock and veterinary services, led to a dramatic increase in grazing. In the lush Haud plateau of the Ogaden, for instance, livestock started to graze year round as pastoralists dug new waterholes in response to the burgeoning meat demand of the oil-rich Gulf states. Previously protected by scarce rainfall which limited grazing to the rainy season, the ecological equilibrium of the Haud quickly disintegrated (Markakis 1989:162). In other places, steady expansion of cultivated land for export markets took place, requiring large-scale clearing of vegetation. This was most marked in Sudan. In slightly over ten years (1956-1968), mechanized farming increased four­ fold to eight million hectares. In the process, large areas of the Upper Nile province were cleared of brush cover (Salih 1989:107). The rapid expansion of mechanized farming put pressure on both pastoralists and smaller farmers. With less land available, existing areas were exploited more intensively and marginal land was brought into use. The process repeated itself throughout the Sahel— the belt separating the desert of North Africa from the tropics and usually taken to include Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. The result was soon evident. A fragile environment was pushed to the limit, or beyond. Rain had long been highly variable in the Sahel, but increased vulnerability to drought magnified the consequences. Failed rains could spell disaster as denuded and exhausted soil failed to retain water. At the same time, the population in the area increased rapidly to a total of 115 million in 1988. The nine countries of the Sahel had an average population growth of 2.5 percent annually, with the Horn of Africa and Sudan at the high end (over 2.7) and the less populous interior states of Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso at the lower end. While the average was actually a decimal point below the average for low income countries (excluding China and India), it was a rising curve which reached the higher average of 2.8 percent for the 1980s (IBRD 1990). In the Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Somalia, protracted warfare

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also took its toll on the environment, particularly in areas where large concentrations of refugees congregated. The combined pressures were reflected in severe droughts in the 1970s, and again in mid-1985, as exhaustively documented in the literature.12 Less is known about the social impact of resource scarcity, but a dual pattern of conflict and submission seems evident (Hjort and Salih 1989; Bennett 1991; Bilsborrow 1991). Among the most vulnerable were the pastoralists. Traditionally based on extensive use of land, pastoralism in the Sahel came into sharp conflict with land-hungry, foreign-exchange earning commodity production during the late colonial period and increasingly after World War II. The nomadic mode of production also clashed with the modem African state which regarded the nomads as a pre-modem, anarchic element, elusive to bureau­ cratic control. But these same characteristics enabled many pastoralists to resist initial pressures on their land and ecological space. With small arms readily available in the continent, the nomads fought back. Initially, pastoralists fought each other or equally vulnerable groups. Faced with the loss of customary grazing land, nomads intruded onto the land of other nomads. Territorial competition was of course not new, but the increased pressure on resources made the stakes higher; and the proliferation of small arms — facilitated by the intrusive large power competition of the Cold War — made the outcome deadlier.13 Pastoralists also came into increasing conflict with small, sedentary farmers. As both became more numerous and competed for a smaller share of national resources, the traditional symbiosis between the two groups broke down. The small farmer needed to cultivate every available piece of land, even fallow areas or passages traditionally used by visiting nomads for grazing their livestock. In Senegal, conflicts of this kind, reinforced by long-standing ethnic rivalry, led to violent clashes between the Fulani and the Wolof peoples in the wake of the 1973 drought Unable to arrest the underlying forces that threatened them, many pastoralists struck back at proximate and vulnerable targets or dissolved their anger in anomic violence. The old tradition of desert raiding was revived, and banditry became widespread. When accelerated by other conflicts, this posed a serious threat to the existing state. In the Sudan-Ethiopian border region, banditry developed into warlordism as a way of life. In the border region between Mali and Niger, disenchanted Touareq raided government posts as well as settlements. By early 1991, the Malian government had recognized them as “rebels” and agreed to a cease-fire along with limited regional autonomy. As this suggests, pastoralists were in some cases able to strike back at the state itself, as opposed to weaker targets. The dynamic is illustrated by the more complex case of Chad. Here, nomads of the desert zone formed bands of suwaar — revolutionaries — that preyed on everyone in an escalating spiral of violence (Zolberg, Suhrke, Aguayo 1989:56-62). Tradi­ tionally pastoralists-cum-slave raiders, the nomadic Muslims of the desert

Unable to arrest the underlying forces that threatened them, many pastoralists struck back at proximate and vulnerable targets or dissolved their anger in anomic violence.

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zone had been ruled with benign neglect by the French until 1965. The successor Chad regime, constituted by black Africans, sought to incorporate the zone into the Chadian state, demanding that the nomads convert to sedentary agriculturalists. Conscious of their history as a rich and aristocratic people where only slaves toiled in the fields, tribal leaders responded angrily. With old weapons obtained from neighboring Libya in 1966, they attacked government troops. Given the weakness of the Chadian state, this was sufficient to precipitate a long cycle of civil war. The nomads of the Chadian desert were hardly environmental refu­ gees. They struck before being displaced or concentrated in enclaves of sedentary farming, while still possessing the means to resist The point can be formulated more generally. Confronted with socio-economic forces of modernization that are fundamentally hostile to traditional nomads, tradi­ tional nomads can resist on the upswing of the conflict cycle, before they are displaced, disempowered or maiginalized; in effect, before they become refugees. The result is a range of manifest conflict, including civil war. However, given the strength of the forces of modernization, including the state itself, resistance more commonly takes the form of violence against other weak groups, or banditry. When rural communities are actually displaced by drought and famine, the condition of powerlessness makes resistance difficult. Even requests for services or the formulation of political demands require re­ sources which refugees typically lack. The result will be suffering rather than manifest conflict. This apparently happened to the uncounted hundreds of thousands of Sahel’s pastoralists and farmers who, following the drought of the 1970s and the 1980s, became what today would be considered environ­ mental refugees. A large number ended up in the shantytowns of their own or neigh­ boring countries. Some became agricultural labor in labor-importing states like the Ivory Coast. The striking aspect of this movement is that it did not create widespread, manifest conflict. In receiving areas, hospitality traditions and cross-border kinship generated considerable tolerance and even support (Nnoli 1989). Elsewhere, the migrants moved into shantytowns and made a new living of sorts. Faced with imposed poverty and general powerlessness, the migrants themselves had little choice but to submissively accept their fate. Powerlessness, moreover, was enhanced as traditional social organiza­ tion was fragmented by flight. Studies of the Beja tribals displaced to the shantytown of Khartoum, for instance, show progressive disintegration of social bonds and customs, and hence the necessary organization to mobilize politically (Bennett 1991, ch. 7).14 Similar social disintegration was observed among southern Sudanese refugees who had fled from the war to the slums of Khartoum (Baddal 1992). Yet, large, uprooted and destitute populations represent a source of long-term tension that can be exploited for political purposes and erupt in discontinuous social violence. When concentrated in urban areas, squatters constitute a ready clientele for intra-elite rivalry. In Sudan, for instance, rapid

Traditional nomads can resist on the upswing of the conflict cycle, before they are displaced, disempowered or marginalized; in effect, before they become refugees. The result is a range of manifest conflict

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and uncontrolled urbanization — fed in large part by a stream of refugees and migrants fleeing war and drought in the countryside — exploded in food riots, anomic violence, and probably contributed to the downfall of president Nimeiri in 1985. Fears that political rivals would mobilize the squatter population of Khartoum impelled the Sudanese authorities in 1992 to forcibly return some of them to the countryside. Tribals of India Contemporary forces of modernization have increasingly marginal­ ized indigenous peoples, often physically displacing them as dams, roads and settlements encroach on their traditional habitat While no longer very numerous, they are the quintessential victims of “development." Prominent contemporary cases are the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforests, the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, and the tribal communities in the Indian subcontinent. India’s many scheduled tribes have suffered as deforestation and commercial exploitation of forests have restricted their own access. While not always physically displaced from the forests, the result is often the same. In areas studied in Orissa (Fernandes 1988), a receding forest meant that tribals had to walk much longer to carry on their customary forest-based economic activities. For some, the distance was prohibitive. In other cases, both the area and the usage of the forest were heavily restricted. With limited access to a smaller area, tribals were forced into damaging patterns of shifting cultivation, such as shorter fallow periods and burning even small plants to obtain ashes for the exhausted soil. Often, firewood was cut indiscriminately. The tribals’ ecologically functional system of beliefs in relation to the forests also eroded. As Fernandes argues, the tribals had to change from a construc­ tive to a destructive dependence in order to survive. “Instead of living from forests as earlier, they now live on forests” (1988:82). Industrial interest groups saw it differently, arguing that tribals had become part of the problem and needed to be restricted further from using the forest. The Orissa case study shows that population increase among tribal groups was not a factor in the increasing pressure on the forest. Modem health care had barely reached the forest peoples; mortality rates were still high and women practiced traditional methods of birth control. Indian census records indicate that population growth among scheduled tribals was lower than for other groups in the post-independence period. It was outside demand on the forest and its products that had grown rapidly. Most Orissa tribals passively accepted the impoverishment and social marginalization which occurred as the forests receded. A few tried to stop industrial incursions by brandishing bows and arrows in a futile gesture of protest. Some migrated in search of work, often as part of a bonded labor system that reflected and simultaneously deepened their fundamental pow­ erlessness. A self-perpetuating indebtedness bonded children of the workers as well, laboring under excruciating conditions. The scale of the oppression

Contemporary forces of modernization have increasingly marginalized indigenous peoples, often physically displacing them as dams, roads and settlements encroach on their traditional habitat.

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is indicated by the finding that 10,000 of the workers on a big construction project in New Delhi in 1992 were bonded tribals from Orissa (Fernandes 1988:232). A similar dynamic was observed in Gujarat where drought, defores­ tation and irrigation projects physically displaced a large number of tribals (EPW 1988). Many became workers on sugar cane plantations that were established in former tribal areas. The terms of their “reintegration” in the new economy, however, were dismal. As chronicled by a special Supreme Court Committee, the laborers were bonded and received wages that did not even cover the reproduction of labor. Living “worse than dogs,” as the workers themselves said, they had no resources for social mobilization or political resistance. Studies of communities displaced by dam-building in India suggest similar outcomes. While the state in principle accepts an obligation to provide compensation, in practice payments are often deferred, do not materialize and when disbursed, are rarely adequate to prevent the communities con­ cerned from sinking into greater poverty (Maloney 1990-91, Raju and Maloney 1992). Similar problems of economic compensation and reintegra­ tion have been observed more generally in development projects (Cemea 1985, Cemea 1990). In general, then, displacement of numerically small and socially marginal peoples typically causes oppression rather than manifest conflict. Given the small numbers of tribals in India (only 7.7 percent of the total population according to the 1981 census), these groups can in fact be oppressed almost silently, without generating much notice or destabilizing effects in society as a whole. It is precisely to prevent this oppression that an increasing number of non-governmental organizations have engaged them­ selves on behalf of the tribals, using social and political struggle methods to resist displacement.

Displacement of numerically small and socially marginal peoples typically causes oppression rather than manifest conflict.

Thailand's Northeast The Northeast region of Thailand — called Isan in the local Thai-Lao dialect — has long been considered naturally poor. When the Thai kings in the late 1800s started to modernize the country, Isan was one of the most backward regions; a century later it remains so. The Northeast provided Bangkok with a steady stream of migrants in search of work, and for almost two decades was the scene of a protracted insurgency as impoverished peasants turned to armed rebellion. Isan’s turbulent history has been closely studied. By approaching it from an environmental perspective, a new interpretation of an old story emerges. Deforestation in the Northeast has probably proceeded more rapidly than in the country as a whole. Plausible estimates suggest forest cover in the region was cut in half from 1973 to 1982, leaving only 21 percent of the total area forested (NESDB 1977, Hurst 1990:220). Villagers in Isan today

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can still remember when “there were forests everywhere” (ODO 1990). This resembles farang (foreigner) descriptions half a century ago of the region as one of gently undulating country, with vast expanses of infertile soil unsuit­ able for agriculture but covered with slow-growing forests of hardwood, and with paddy cultivation on lower valley slopes (Pendleton 1943:21, cited in Keyes 1967:2). There was little irrigation and sparse rainfall. Peasants cultivated sticky-rice, extracting a small surplus from the sandy soil. Despite its “natural poverty”, the region was increasingly pulled into the cash-crop economy which provided the mainstay of Thailand’s modern­ ization in the 20th century. Sparked by world demand for rice, paddy production spread from the Central Plains and outward, decisively reaching the Northeast when railroads started to connect the region to national and international markets in 1920. Lsan’s peasants changed from cultivation of sticky-rice for home consumption to wet-rice for export But natural conditions in the Northeast were poorly suited to wet-rice cultivation. Over time, yields declined, and a laiger amount of land was put under cultivation to compensate. As the land was of progressively poorer quality, this did not halt the decline. Over a thirty year period ending in 1950, the total area under paddy cultivation increased about three times, but the total yield was almost cut in half (Ingram 1971:50). To survive, a family needed to clear more land for cultivation. The Northeast became “an area of large farms and low yields,” as well as diminishing forests (Wijewardene 1967:79). Clearly, it was a case of unsustainable development driven by exter­ nal demand. Neither soil nor water conditions were suitable for paddy. Deforestation destroyed watersheds and intensified the cycles of flood and drought A major World Bank study in 1959 sounded the alarm. Noting that the fragile environment in the Northeast makes it “the most difficult area in Thailand to establish a satisfactory relationship between water resources and crop patterns,” the report warned against further deforestation (IBRD 1959:43). If it is not controlled, tbe drought in the Northeast will gradually increase and m ore areas will be turned into semi-desert. This is not a problem for some future dale; it is of immediate urgency if the steady destruction o f the natural resources o f the Northeast is to be slopped (p. 47).

The fragile environment in the Northeast makes it The most difficult area in Thailand to establish a satisfactory relationship between water resources and crop patterns.*

Only two years earlier, in 1957, an exceptionally severe drought had hit the region. Hordes of desperate people descended on Bangkok and invited comparison with the locusts which came to finish off in Isan whatever the drought had left. Most migrants came by railroad and created chaos at the railway station. Monks and students set up emergency stations to help the refugees who poured in daily (Chaloemtiarana 1979:111). The government was less impressed. That Northeastemers eat frogs and lizards and migrate to the capital is nothing new, said the Minister of Agriculture.

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The drought underscored the poverty of the Northeast and its political ramifications. Worried about long-standing leftist movements in Isan, and fearing that dissident leaders might link up with Chinese communists to generate a local revolutionary struggle, the government was prepared for a new policy initiative. So was the United States, a close ally of Thailand and worried about threats to stability in the area. The opening came in the form of the 1959 World Bank Report which had warned against environmental deterioration. In its conclusion, the Bank mission outlined the framework for an economic “take-off” policy for Thailand. An unprecedented growth period followed. During the 1960s and the 1970s, agricultural growth changed the face of the Thai peasantry, the economy and the landscape. In the Northeast, new upland cash-crops were introduced, especially kenaf (a jute-like product), cassava and sugar cane. These crops were better suited to local climate and soil conditions, and were supposed to move the backward, insurgency-prone area towards greater prosperity and stability. It became the success story of the time. Assisted liberally by U.S. funding, the government expanded the infrastructure and promoted the new crops. Local farmers and a favorable external market did the rest Largely thanks to vigorous expansion of cultivation in Isan, Thai agricultural exports diversified beyond rice. By the end of the 1970s, and certainly in the early 1980s, the expansion came to a halt. The area under cultivation had more than doubled, or well above the national average, according to conservative estimates (NESDB 1977, Feeny 1988). It had been an essentially expansive growth, and as the limit of idle, arable land was reached, the costs were revealed. In essence, the expansion of cultivated area had meant deforestation to the point that sustainability of development in the future was questioned. While the concept was not yet in vogue, the problem was obvious. A 1979 report of the U.S Agency for International Development underlined the problems of environmental degradation. Noting increasing salinity of the soil and the “extreme importance" of protecting watersheds in the area, the report con­ tinued:

During the 1960s and the 1970s, agricultural growth changed the face of the Thai peasantry, the economy and the landscape.

W ater timing and quantity is already problematic due to natural clim atic conditions and the lack of high mountain watershed. Thus the maintenance o f existing upland watershed is important in helping to prevent wet season flooding, excess siltation, and dry season drought. This upland watershed has been signifi­

cantly reduced over the past decade by massive cash-crop en­ croachment (USAID 1979:20, emphasis added).

For the population of the Northeast, the economic results were mixed. Poverty was reduced from almost 50 percent to include only 38 percent of the rural population, and less in urban areas. But inequalities had increased. From the early 1960s, when the growth period commenced, to its near-conclusion in the mid-1970s, Lsan fell behind the rest of the nation in terms of income and social welfare measures such as education, infant mortality and

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drinking water (Meesook 1978). When a minimum wage was introduced in 1975, it was 16 baht in the Northeast and the North, but 25 baht in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces of the Central Plain (Girling 1981:89). And Isan’s share of the country’s 11 million that were classified as “absolutely poor” had actually increased 5 percentage points from 1975 to reach exactly 50 percent. The growth period also led to greater inequality within the region. Farmers who adopted the new crops prospered, with some increasing their income by 70 percent The approximately half of the farming population who continued to grow rainfed rice remained poor. By the end of the boom period, the lower 40 percent on the income scale found that their relative share of income actually had fallen from 23 percent in 1962-63 to 15.2 percent (Adulavidhaya and Onchan 1985:431). In short the expansive growth period reinforced long-term problems of erosion and the flood-drought cycle in the Northeast. The regional incidence of poverty decreased, but five to six million people remained under the official poverty line and inequalities widened. One result was increased outmigration. Poverty at home and opportunities elsewhere had long produced seasonal outmigration from Isan. When the Thai government in 1949 limited the intake of Chinese labor to 200 persons per year, it encouraged a pattern of local labor migration that would persist for decades. Between 1947 and 1954, at least 37,800 persons arrived annually in Bangkok from the country­ side; a large but undetermined number were Northeastemers (Keyes 1967:37). The early migrants, as described by Keyes (1967) and Textor (1961), were primarily men in their twenties and upwards who sought temporary work in the capital region during the slack agricultural season, typically for a three month period. Later, numerous young women came for long-term work in what euphemistically was called the service sector. Migration also increased during the boom period of the 1960s and the 1970s. In a review of migration patterns from 1955 to 1980, the Gold­ steins found that migration from the Northeast had steadily increased, and noted that regional inequalities and some indicators of rural poverty had worsened in the same period as well (cited in Richter, et al. 1991:3). Another study using data from the 1960 and 1970 census found that the rate of five-year migration streams into Bangkok had almost doubled, with the Isan people constituting about half of all those who had migrated within the last five years (Tirasawat 1985:412-413). Most of the migration from the North­ east continued to be temporary labor migration to Bangkok and the Central region (Manusphaibool, 1991). All studies point to local poverty, both in absolute terms and relative to the Central region, as the principal explanation for outmigration from Isan. Underlying demographic pressures arc also significant. Until well into the mid-20th century, Thailand was considered a land with ample resources relative to people. Isan covers one third of the territory and has about one third of the national population. When massive land-clearing started in 1960, the population density was only 50 persons per

The expansive growth period reinforced long-term problems of erosion and the flood-drought cycle in the Northeast [of Thailand].

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square kilometer. In 1980, density had doubled to 100 persons per square km. And at a time when population growth was reduced in Thailand as a whole, the rate in Isan did not (USAID 1979:10). Already in 1967, a close observer had concluded that while Isan’s population density was low compared to areas like Java and Bengal, it was rather high “for the character of the country” (Silcock 1967:2). For the migrants, and to some extent for the economy as a whole, the move to the city represented a solution rather than a problem. Several studies show that most migrants successfully found work and housing in the city (Richter 1991:4). A government survey of over 85,000 who had migrated to Bangkok in a two year-period between 1979 and 1981 showed that an entire 97 percent of those in the labor force had found work (Manusphaibool 1991).15 Rapid growth and diversification of the Thai economy had created a demand for local labor and made it possible to absorb most migrants. Except for a down-period in the early 1980s, Thailand became one of Southeast Asia’s successful newly industrialized countries. The migrants from Isan provided cheap labor for a growing city, especially in construction and service work; for the migrants it meant added income and little opportunity cost during the agricultural off-season. The main problems were related to the excessive growth rate of the capital city. Bangkok became a worst-case scenario for urban growth in the developing world — literally sinking under its own weight and suffering from severe traffic congestion and pollution. Only a small part of this was due to migration from Isan, however. By the late 1970s, migration was estimated to account for one third of the city’s annual population increase; seasonal migration would be even less (WRI 1989:39). Nevertheless, several national five-year plans called for urgent measures to stem the rate of Bangkok’s growth by developing secondary cities and promoting rural development (NESDB 1977, Richter, etal. 1991). Environmentally related migration from Isan has not led to observ­ able social conflict in the urban areas largely because the flows have been seasonal and absorbed in a growing economy. In the home region, however, migration helped to shape a conflict that fed on diverse and deep grievances. Based on anthropological research, Keyes argues convincingly that the typical Northeastern migrant returned to his arid home-region embittered, with greater awareness of economic and social inequalities: The returned m igrant carried hom e with him feelings o f class and ethnic discrimination directed towards him as a Northcasicm cr by Central Thai inhabitants o f Bangkok and an enhanced aware­ ness o f the comm on culture and problems which all Nortbcastcm crs share. In brief, the pattern of increasing temporary migration of Northeastern villagers to Bangkok beginning in the postw ar period greatly spurred the developing (sic] o f “ we-they” attitudes among Nortbcastemers (Keyes, 1967:39).

Environmentally related migration from Isan has not led to observable social conflict in the urban areas . . . In the home region, however, migration helped to shape a conflict that fed on diverse and deep grievances.

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The radicalizing impact of migration sharpened an older conflict between the Isan people and the authorities in Bangkok. Since the turn of the century, tension had gradually mounted as Thailand’s modernizing kings tried to establish a firmer grip on the outlying areas. Bangkok’s assertive rule met with resentment in Isan, where a sense of separate regional identity was rooted in a distinctive Lao — as opposed to central Thai — culture. The resentment took hold immediately after World War II when the central government systematically repressed regional political opposition. Leading Northeastern politicians were killed on charges of being alternately commu­ nists and separatist. Regional economic disparities made matters worse. When the conflict in neighboring Vietnam developed into the Second Indo­ china War in the early 1960s, Thailand was also pulled in, and a full-scale insurgency developed in the Northeast. The Isan case demonstrates the complexities of the relationship between environmental degradation and “downstream” social conflict. First of all, environmental degradation itself followed the integration of the regional economy into the national and international market. In a later phase, this was accelerated by an economic growth policy that in turn was driven by political fears of insurgency in a sensitive region. The environmental costs showed up in terms of rapid deforestation and destruction of watersheds. Outmigration from the Northeast increased during the boom period. A common explanation is the parallel increase in income inequalities, both within the region and inter-regionally. It is also reasonable to assume — but difficult to demonstrate from available data — that environmental degrada­ tion indirectly contributed to outmigration by penalizing the poorer farmers who were least able to protect themselves against problems of drought and flood brought on by the progressive destruction of watersheds in the area. As for the conflict variable, to the extent it showed up at all it was in the sending rather than the receiving area. By and large, the migrants were absorbed in a growing economy; hence, migration was fundamentally a solution rather than a problem. Migration did have a radicalizing effect by sharpening political consciousness about regional problems, but this oc­ curred mainly in a period when such problems already were magnified by a major international war in the area.

The Isan case demonstrates the complexities of the relationship between environmental degradation and ■downstream’ social conflict.

Guatemala As in Thailand’s Northeast, economic development in Guatemala’s altiplano and northern forests took an increasingly unsustainable path when the economy entered a phase of rapid growth after World War II. Growing pressure on the land compelled poor, largely Indian peasants to migrate in larger numbers to work on lowland plantations and in towns. As in Thailand, migration at one point had a radicalizing impact as demonstrated by the social activism of campesino migrants in the late 1970s. The most fundamental aspect of Guatemala’s economy is a skewed pattern of land ownership. This factor conditions the nature of poverty.

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environmental degradation and migration alike. In 1964, 44 percent of the farmers controlled only 3.4 percent of total farmland, while 2 percent held two-thirds of the land. Fifteen years later, this minifunda-latifimda pattern was even more pronounced: 60 percent of the farmers owned only 3.7 percent of the total farm area (Bilsborrow 1991:22). The figures point to the central contradiction in Guatemala’s political economy — a large, impoverished peasantry was concentrated on a progressively smaller land area, locked in a classical spiral of agricultural involution. Most of the country’s productive land was used for agro-export that did not absorb the vast numbers of unand underemployed. Low salaries kept those employed in poverty (Manz 1988). Environmental degradation combined with landholding patterns give the downward spiral of poverty extra force. Over time, the ratio of land to people in traditional Indian areas had steadily worsened. There is disagree­ ment about whether land loss or demographic expansion is most important, but it is beyond doubt that both trends operated.16 The process of land alienation among Indians followed the introduction of cash crops. In order to liberate land for coffee plantations, the government in 1877 abolished communal holdings. By law and poverty, Indians were forced to become seasonal plantation workers. The migration cycle also made it necessary to adjust cropping patterns at home. Gradually, Indians came to practice a monoculture of beans and com, leaving out the more renumerative onion, garlic and cucumber crops (Swetnam 1989). A new phase in the steady onslaught on Indian land occurred one hundred years later. Starting in the late 1960s, the military in cooperation with the commercial sectors promoted a massive development plan in the so-called Northern Transversal Strip, the northern entrance to the low-lying Pet£n area. The scheme became a vehicle to develop the infrastructure for the mining and oil industry, and for the elites to acquire large parcels of land for cattle ranching. Land claimed ancestrally by Indians was taken by force and terror as the military displaced entire communities. Particularly badly affected were the northern areas of the departments of El Quiche and Alta Verapaz (Aguilera 1983, Manz 1988, Jonas 1991, Stanley, 1991). The secular trend of less land for more people put great pressure on the land itself. Poverty limited the possibility for technological upgrading through fertilizers, terracing, etc. Under these conditions, intensified culti­ vation meant land degradation and declining yields. Productivity of some staple crops fell in the late 1980s; for beans the yield actually fell below the 1973 level, reflecting reduced fallow time and the lack of needed inputs (Bilsborrow 1991:23). Pressed by deepening poverty, small landholders also turned to extensive agriculture by clearing new land on forested hillsides. In many cases, this included land unsuitable for farming, leading to a familiar cycle of erosion, soil exhaustion and abandonment. In the large-scale land coloni­ zation of Pet6n, north of the Transversal Strip, small farmers again lost out. Promoted officially to benefit Guatemala’s land-hungry peasantry, the state

Environmental degradation combined with landholding patterns [in Guatemala] give the downward spiral of poverty extra force.

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sponsored clearing of forests paved the way for another minifunda-latifunda pattern. In 1980, about twenty years after the scheme was established, half of the settlers held 22 percent of the land; only three years later their proportion had shrunk to a mere 13 percent At the same time, the top 5 percent of the large landowners and cattle ranchers held 56 percent of the land. Even skeptics admitted it was an alarming trend (Schwartz 1987:169). Guatemala’s high population growth rate (3 percent in the 1950s and 1960s and only tapering off to 2.8 percent in the 1985-90 period) was cited as a reason for opening up the North. Yet, in retrospect the demographic pressures seem secondary. The agro-industry in cooperation with the military ensured that relatively few people actually occupied the new land. Seasonal migration from the altiplano to the coastal plantations had long been a necessity for hundreds of thousands of landless or impoverished Indians. For the contemporary period, some estimate 600,000 people migrate (Stanley 1991:15); others suggest 260,000-400,000 (Manz 1988:51). Work and living conditions on the plantations were harsh. Although many stayed only for a few months, disease took its toll on people accustomed to the climate and altitude of the highlands. Compared to the Northeastern Thai’s three month trek to Bangkok, these resembled distress migrations. As in Thailand, migration had a radicalizing effect by sharpening political awareness of deep-seated problems. The process came to a head in the late 1970s, after a decade of rapid economic expansion when the manufacturing and plantation sector grew rapidly, and with it the labor force. Simultaneously, the demand for land increased sharply. So did social conflict, and activist movements that had been suppressed since Guatemala’s anti-re­ formist coup of 1954 were revived. A series of urban strikes in 1976-77 marked the return of trade unionism (Fried, et al. 1983). Simultaneously, forceful land acquisition by the military in the Northern Transversal Strip provoked Indian leaders to assert their rights.17 Their struggle was carried institutionally by the new peasant organization CUC (Committee for Campesino Unity) and a guerilla movement (EGP) that worked on a different level in the northern mountains. The backbone of both organizations was hundreds of thousands of campesino workers from the highlands. Support from migrant labor made the CUC “the most formidable peasant organization in Guatemala’s history” and transformed social protest into a serious political force (Manz 1988:14). Their greatest achievement was the first successful strike on the sugar cane plantations. Demonstrating the power and visibility of labor, the strike also accentuated the link between workers and peasants that the seasonal migrants actually embodied. Campes­ ino labor also helped the guerilla movement to become, for the first time, more than a remote nuisance for the military regime. The social movement could not sustain itself when the repression came. In what was later known as “la violencia”, the military launched a suppression campaign that lasted from 1981 to 1983. Approximately 2 million people were internally or internationally displaced. Maybe 70,000

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were killed, primarily Indians. For the time being, social activism and protest was finished. The term environmental refugee hardly captures the essence of the process which compelled Guatemala’s Indians to migrate seasonally in search of work. Environmental degradation did play a pan by contributing to their crushing poverty. While data is limited, the general picture seems clear forced into progressively smaller areas, the smallholders over-ex­ ploited the land or moved into hill areas that could not sustain cultivation. The deterioration of the environment was reflected in declining yields. More fundamentally, population growth combined with a highly skewed landhold­ ing pattern to generate a condition of poverty that in itself was an integral element of a political economy based on agro-industry and cheap labor. In a given period, migration contributed to social conflict in the sense that it had a radicalizing effect. By fighting back, the migrants helped to transform structural oppression into manifest conflict From this perspective, of course, social conflict had a progressive function. The Migrant, the Refugee and the State So far, various social outcomes of displacement have been consid­ ered. Some groups resist before being fully marginalized, while others are too weak to protest. Delayed tension from displacement may erupt into anomic violence or be mobilized by political entrepreneurs; the act of moving may also be radicalizing, enabling the subjects to assert their demands. In yet other situations, conventional notions of mutually beneficial migration flows apply. The potential for acute conflict in these situations seems most likely if the displaced groups obtain support to organize and make demands, and thus overcome the weakness inherent in the condition of displacement This happens when state power aligns itself with the displaced, or the state becomes adversarially engaged in illegal migration. The state may have several reasons to do so, perhaps most commonly on grounds of ethnic politics or economics which makes it useful to support a displaced group. One version of this dynamic is found in the Northeastern comer of the Indian subcontinent Here two contemporary population movements have caused great strife: Bengali migration into the Indian states of Assam and Tripura, and Bengali settlements in the Chittagong Hill tracts of Bang­ ladesh (Weiner 1978, Phadnis 1989, Hazarika 1991, Islam 1991). With 109 million people and a GNP per capita equivalent to 170 dollars, Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated and impoverished states. It is also a delta-state without a hinterland. Successive partitions of Bengal left the present nation in a small delta area prone to flood and cyclones. The non-agricultural sector is much too small to absorb surplus labor, leading to long-standing, but since 1951 illegal, outmigration to neighboring Indian states. How much and what kind is disputed.

The potential for acute conflict in these situations seems most likely if the displaced groups obtain support to organize and make demands, and thus overcome the weakness inherent in the condition of displacement.

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The Bangladesh government consistently denies that illegal migra­ tion to India occurs at all. Many Bengali-speakers in Assam are descendants of labor migrants who came there to work in the tea gardens or the civil service during the colonial period, it is argued. Later Bengali migration comes from India’s West Bengal, not Bangladesh. Analysts arguing the other side use demographic data to make a strong case. The exceptionally high population growth rates of Assam is due to inmigration. Assam’s population of 18 million people, according to the 1991 census, is considerably greater than what all-Indian rates of population growth would suggest Nativist movements claim that four million of them are illegal migrants who mostly arrived in the 1961 -81 period. They concede, however, that the movement has tapered off in the last decade due to increased restrictions and anti-Bengali violence on the Indian side. This migration is not primarily a result of specific environmental calamities such as floods, tropical storms and drought that regularly affect Bangladesh. These events do cause distress migrations, but the victims typically “rush to the city for survival” (Islam 1991:19). Here, their margi­ nalization is compounded by the loss of property and often they lack the resources to migrate into neighboring states. Whatever the origin, the migrations into Indian hill states has caused considerable and acute social conflict. The Bengalis became the target of Assamese nativist movements which feared the immigrants were taking both land and middle class positions from the indigenous population. Since India has free internal migration, it was politically difficult to demand restrictions on migration from one Indian state to another. Migration from Bangladesh, however, was formally illegal and rapidly became the main issue. In formu­ lating its strategy, nativist agitation primarily focused on the political access of immigrants and tried to prevent them from voting. While generally a peaceful agitation, an undercurrent of violence rose to the surface, erupted in riots and, most starkly, a massacre of 3,000-5,000 immigrants in the Brahamaputra valley in 1983. Subsequently the nativist movement split. A radical faction went undei^round and launched an insurgency fight for independence. A moderate faction compromised with the central govern­ ment to institute reforms that would restrict immigrant voting rights, but would not permit large-scale expulsions as the nativists initially had de­ manded. The focus on voting rights points to a critical aspect of the problem. It was widely assumed that local politicians in Assam, who were members of the all-Indian Congress Party, in fact facilitated illegal inmigration because it enabled them to build up “vote-banks” of clients. By registering the migrants as voters, a stable supply of votes could be had. The structure of political competition in Assam rendered the migrants particularly useful to the nationally dominant but locally weak Congress Party. This also explains why it might have been possible for millions of illegal migrants to take up residence in a rather short period. For illegal migrants it opened a formal entry to civil society and associated benefits such as ration cards, the right

W hatever the origin, the migrations into Indian hill states has caused considerable and acute social conflict. The Bengalis became the target of Assamese nativist movements.

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to squat or purchase land and to exist without some form of regular bribes. While Indian society in some respects has large informal sectors, it is also a highly structured society where weak groups such as illegal migrants need protection in order to survive. A more classic case of conflictual and state-sponsored settlement took place in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). As elsewhere in the Northeast of the subcontinent, British colonial rule had served to protect tribal highlanders against pressure from lowland settlers. After inde­ pendence, the tribals faced a postcolonial state intent on greater administra­ tive penetration in the name of integration and modernization. The tribal zones were opened up for trade, civil servants and settlers. Starting in the late 1950s when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan, the policy changed after secession in 1971 to a more active state sponsorship of settlements. The rhythm is reflected in census data: in 1951 more than nine-tenths of CHT’s population was tribal, mainly the Chakma; in 1974 the non-tribals — i.e., Bengalis — represented 12 percent of the population, and in 1980 they had grown to 35 percent. Subsequent data is limited, but the inflow rose further when the Zia-govemment ordered a massive resettlement. Tens of thousands of families were moved into the region. Many of these were environmental refugees from the coastal area, victims of floods and tropical storms. By resettling them in the hills, the government eased the pressure on urban slums and simultaneously served a long-standing objective of weakening a poten­ tially rebellious tribal population in a sensitive border area. Faced with conquest-by-settlement, the tribal people countered with guerilla warfare. A campaign of violence started in the mid-1970s and the Bangladesh army responded with brutal suppression. As Chakma refugees fled into India and regrouped, the conflict escalated into an international dispute between India and Bangladesh. The protracted violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts reflected the fact that the migrations juxtaposed two organized forms of power — new settlements backed by the central state, versus tribal society fighting for its territorial and social existence. This case resembles other migrations that have led to confrontation between institutionalized forms of power.18 A similar dynamic unfolded in the Senegal River Valley in 1989-90 (Wilkinson 1991, Bennett 1991). Long troubled by progressive desertifica­ tion, large areas of Mauritania were devastated by the Sahel-wide droughts in the 1970s. Thousands of nomadic herders pushed southward, giving an entirely new dimension to an older southward drive by the country’s pastoralists. But unlike most other pastoralists in the Sahel, Mauritanian nomads were backed by the state in their search for new land. The main reason lies in ethnic politics. Already in the 1960s, the Mauritanian government had instituted an Arabization policy designed to redress the imbalance between the country’s main ethnic groups. The African tribes, who constituted 40 percent of the population and had been relatively privileged during French colonial rule, were to give way to an ascendant Arab majority. Faced with restricted opportunities, the African minority responded by launching both a

The protracted violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts reflected the fact that the migrations juxtaposed two organized forms of power — new settlements backed by the central state, versus tribal society fighting for its territorial and social existence.

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civil rights movement and an armed struggle against the military, Arab-domi­ nated government. As desertification pushed more Arab nomads southward into African farming areas in the Senegal River Valley, tension across the main ethnic divide rose markedly. At the same time, damming of the Senegal River Valley had made extensive irrigation possible and increased the value of land, thus raising the stakes further. Since some of the land was in dispute between Mauritania and Senegal, the conflict also acquired an international dimension that involved both inter-ethnic riots and armed clashes across the border. In this manifold .struggle, the Mauritanian state placed itself unambi­ guously behind its Arab pastoralists and kept large armed forces in the south. A campaign to deny land rights to African Mauritanians “of Senegalese origin” and expel them to Senegal, led to border incidents in the Senegal River Valley in 1989. The conflict escalated into violent attacks on the minority communities in both Senegal and Mauritania. An estimated 150-200 Senegalese were killed by mobs in Mauritania, while 50-60 Mauritanians were killed by mobs in Senegal. After 50,000 people belonging to the minority population on both sides were “exchanged", mediation by the Organization of African Unity temporarily calmed the situation. But border incidents continued, and Mauritania saw a new wave of repression against black Africans. Citing Senegalese backing for coup plans prepared by Mauritania’s African community, President Taya purged the army, arrested hundreds and killed an estimated 200 black Mauritanians. It was the same General Ould Taya who in the 1960s had instituted the Arabization policy. Conclusion The two questions posed at the outset — does environmental degra­ dation cause population displacement, and if so, under what conditions does this lead to acute social conflict — do not have easy answers. There is obviously a need for more research on how environmental degradation is related to the development process, and how it figures in the causes of migration and the patterns of social conflict which may result. Yet, the cases examined here suggest some useful categories and points of departure for future study. The most relevant forms of environmental degradation can be cate­ gorized in terms of general processes (air and water pollution, land degrada­ tion and deforestation), degradation of specific ecological areas (low-lying coastal areas, islands in danger of being submerged, and semi-arid areas threatened by desertification), and impacts of specific development projects (dam-building, irrigation schemes, etc.). The case studies examined one case of desertification in a general manner (in the Sahel), one case of deforestation (in India), and two cases of land degradation (in Thailand’s Northeast and Guatemala’s altiplano). In all cases, environmental degradation reflected the specific forms which the local

There is obviously a need for more research on how environmental degradation is related to the development process, and how it figures in the causes of migration and the patterns of social conflict which may result.

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development process took. In the Sahel, desertification was related to com­ plex patterns of population growth, resource use and political power. In India, commercial use of forests (in Orissa), or conversion of forests to plantation land (Gujarat), reduced the forest or restricted the access of indigenous people to their traditional habitat. In Thailand, poverty and instability in the Northeast region encouraged the government to launch a policy of expansive agricultural growth. This involved large-scale deforestation and put intense pressure on a region long vulnerable to the cycle of flood and droughts associated with natural soil and climate conditions. In Guatemala, poverty forced Indians into a classic pattern of cultural involution where a progres­ sively smaller area was cultivated more intensely. Demographic pressures were a significant factor as well. In Thailand and Guatemala, land degrada­ tion reflected patterns of land ownership and cultivation which in turn were conditioned by structures of political economy. In all the cases studied, environmental degradation appeared as a proximate cause of outmigration. That is, particular constellations of eco­ nomic growth with poverty, alongside demographic growth, created pres­ sures on the environment which translated into degradation of various kinds. From an analytical as well as policy perspective, the significance of these underlying factors must be recognized. It is, of course, not a simple one-way relationship. Environmental degradation in turn affects patterns of resource use, and can have the effect of “locking” poverty into a downward spiral. As soil becomes exhausted, yields decline, forcing poor cultivators to exploit the land more intensively, etc., as noted in the Guatemalan case. It may be most useful analytically to consider environmental degra­ dation as one factor in a complex of causes that leads to outmigration. One should also figure into this complex the opportunities available elsewhere. The “pulT’-factor will affect the magnitude and direction of outflows, espe­ cially in the period before conditions become so desperate as to resemble a refugee situation. A distinction between types of outflows was evident. Some environ­ mentally-related migrations were indistinguishable from economically mo­ tivated migrations in aclassic pull-push model. In other cases, the individuals did not move until the situation reached a point of no return: immediate migration was necessary in order to survive. The typical cases entailed flight from flood or famine that essentially resembled refugee flows. In other words, the common distinction between migrants and refugees which ap­ pears in the literature is also relevant in environmentally-related situations. As with other kinds of population flows, those related to environmental change also divided into reversible and irreversible movements. So far, then, it is difficult to argue that environmental degradation produces particular forms of outmigration except in one respect: the appear­ ance of distress migrations occasioned by sudden or extreme environmental degradation. Driven by flood, famine or the loss of traditional conditions for economic survival, these individuals became in effect environmental refu­ gees. Their fate varied, from dependence on national or international relief

It may be most useful analytically to consider environmental degradation as one factor in a complex of causes that leads to outmigration.

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(some victims of the Sahel drought), to bonded labor (tribals in India), or improvised residence in urban slums (West-Sudanese tribals in Khartoum). The magnitude of environmentally related migrations is difficult to estimate, and in some situations impossible. When displacement is closely related to a concrete environmental change, the numbers can be assessed (e.g., displacement due to dam-building or rising sea levels). Where environ­ mental degradation appears as one among several prominent causes of poverty and related migration, the environmental factor can be viewed as having a magnifying effect. To characterize general poverty migration as “environmental” migration seems misleading. It is possible to identify particularly vulnerable ecological and geo­ graphic areas where environmental degradation indeed is a prominent and proximate cause of migration. These include areas prone to desertification, the threatened islands, the low-lying coastal areas, and forests with indige­ nous populations. These become in effect environmental pressure points. Unless remedial measures are taken, outmigration becomes necessary — the only question is the time and form of the outflow. Several of these pressure points also have very small populations. The low-lying South Pacific islands are inhabited by tens, not hundreds of thousands of people, the indigenous tribes of receding forests have long since been sharply reduced; and large parts of the Sahel are quite thinly populated. The number of people displaced from these areas will therefore be fairly low — a point which is important with respect to an examination of the social consequences of migration. Another factor which serves to limit the number of so-called envi­ ronmental refugees is the gradual nature of environmental change which gives the relatively more resourceful individuals in the affected populations time to move out and merge in established migration streams. The truly problematic areas are those where fragile environments are inhabited by large and poor populations which engage in civil strife. This combination leaves a very small margin for disaster, as demonstrated repeat­ edly in the Indian subcontinent, the Horn of Africa, Southern Africa, and the Northeastern wing of the Indian subcontinent By comparison, a single-phe­ nomenon development such as rising sea levels in China seem manageable. It will certainly create problems for the coastal population, but the country’s vast territorial expanse, economic growth, and functioning political system suggest considerable capacity to deal with the situation even in the absence of international assistance. The consequences of migration in terms of social or international conflict will also be most severe in these environmental pressure points. If few resources are available to deal with distress migrations, the result can be disorder and social conflict Tension in the Sudan, and recent evictions from the capital Khartoum, point to one possible sequence: in-migration inflates urban slum populations, overwhelms the capacity of existing social services, and generates a population of deracinee that is a potential element of urban violence — either as frustration explodes in anomic violence or is mobilized

It is possible to identify particularly vulnerable ecological and geographic areas where environmental degradation indeed is a prominent and proximate cause of migration.

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in inter-elite struggles.19 Similar scenarios can be envisaged for a number of cities in Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Yet, it should be recognized that the cities in some respects have the capacity to deal with inmigration, especially in comparison to rural areas. An urban, elastic economy can accommodate inmigration more easily than a subsistence-based landed economy. In the latter case, competition over fixed land resources may explode in violence, as the Bengali-Assamese conflict demonstrates. One can also envisage a scenario borrowed from political refugee situations: international distress migrations overwhelm local services and, by their very existence, generate resentment and violence in the receiving areas. In fact, however, this scenario belongs more in the realm of local fears than in social reality. Whether the flight is sparked by political violence or environmental degradation, whenever a substantial group appears across the border, two developments typically occur. Relief and protection is not delivered, as a result of which the refugees die or are pushed back across the border. Or, precisely to prevent social conflict and disorder in the receiving areas, national or international relief is brought in. The condition of weak­ ness, which is inherent in the refugee condition, makes it difficult for the refugees themselves to organize to make demands. While numbers are important here, refugees generally are too weak to be a threat, not to mention an active party to a conflict. A combination of these factors help to explain why large-scale distress migrations generated by drought and desertification in the Sahel did not visibly destabilize the receiving areas, nor generate acute social conflict When environmental degradation displaces populations that are po­ litically weak and numerically small, the result is most likely to be structural conflict — silent misery, exploitation and death. As the fate of Indian tribals indicates, entire communities can be pushed into bondage without causing overt social conflict or even having “destabilizing effects.” On the contrary, such displacement may generate cheap labor that is useful in the prevailing structure of political economy (as in Guatemala). Insofar as the environ­ mental pressure points involve areas inhabited by socially marginal and numerically few people, misery rather than conflict will be the typical result. As the case studies demonstrated, the most destitute and marginalized peoples did not even have the capacity to trigger a conflict, but became the passive object of relief or exploitation. Some groups with a territorial base or strong social structure did resist violently. Once uprooted, however, environmental refugees like most other refugees found that displacement meant dependency and marginalization. At this point, the role of the state was crucial. Displaced groups that obtained backing from the state were able to assert themselves more strongly. In all cases violence followed. As shown in the case studies, the state had several reasons unrelated to humanitarian concerns for backing a displaced group. And while the support helped the displaced community out of its predica­ ment, this help was typically at the expense of another community, resulting in acute conflict Thus, the Mauritanian state rescued black Arab pastoralists.

When environmental degradation displaces populations that are politically weak and numerically small, the result is most likely to be structural conflict — silent misery, exploitation and death.

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but only at the expense of African farmers. The Indian state facilitated the registration of illegal immigrants on the voter rolls in Assam, thereby provoking both a nativist movement and an ethnic massacre. The Salva­ dorean state engaged itself ostensibly on behalf of its displaced peasants, whose only solution to poverty and oppression in El Salvador itself had been to settle illegally in neighboring Honduras. The immediate policy challenge is to transform such situations into a non-zero sum game. From a longer-term perspective, attention to root causes and remedies for environmental degradation is essential. From this vantage point, it is important to assess the long-term structural tension related to large-scale migration, and the social costs of large scale rural-to-urban migration. While it is difficult to demonstrate that acute conflict results, rapid urbanization and the growth of megacities pose enormous problems all over the developing world. It will constitute an increasingly serious challenge to development in years to come. A major conclusion of this study is that environmental degradation, insofar as it causes displacement of people, is more likely to generate exploitation rather than acute conflict The main reason is that those who are most victimized by environmental change are also likely to be weak and numerically few. Aid to these populations, therefore, must primarily be seen as a humanitarian obligation rather than a policy based on security consid­ erations.

A major conclusion of this study is that environmental degradation, insofar as it causes displacement of people, is more likely to generate exploitation rather than acute conflict.

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Notes 1.

Niun Dcsai, UNCED Secretariat, Speech, Geneva, 19 January 1992.

2.

Commenting on the narrow margins in the developing world, Ted Gurr writes: “W hen natural or man-made dis­ asters disrupt the delicate balance between agricultural productivity and survival needs, the results are famine, disease and death." (1985:56)

3.

This is one reason why the 1992 World Bank's World Development Report, which focuses oo the environment, notes the impact o f migration on the environment, but does not discuss the reverse (IBRD 1992).

4.

For instance, in a recent, m ajor work Oded Stark claims to model afresh the processes of labor migration, but m akes no reference to environmental variables (1991).

5.

Cited in Hoagland and Conbere, (1991:31).

6.

Along these lines, the report advocates among other things that education o f women is an essential environ­ mental policy, as it helps to reduce population and associated pressures on the environm ent

7.

1 am indebted to Dr. Amrita Rangasami o f New Delhi for this information (Washington, M ay 1991).

8.

By international legal conventions, political refugees are victims o f persecution in their homeland, and must therefore be aided outside the reach o f their own state. This condition constitutes the premise for the interna­ tional obligation to aid refugees (Goodwin-Gill 1983).

9.

I am indebted to Ashok Gulati for discussion o f this point.

10. Environmental costs o f large-scale irrigation projects, especially in those without proper safeguards, have in­ creasingly come to light. The “twin m enace" o f water logging and salinity, caused largely by lack of drainage and poor water management, lead to the progressive deterioration o f soil and lower productivity. The World Bank estimates that about 7 percent o f the w orld's irrigated land is “seriously affected" by these problems. Ar­ eas badly affected are found in China, Egypt, India, M exico, Pakistan, the USSR and the western United States (Bargbouti and Le Moigne 1991). The Bank study also found that “waterlogging and salinity have reduced yields o f m ajor crops by 30 percent on 15 million hectares o f irrigated land in Pakistan and 3.5 m illion in Egypt. In India, about 20 percent o f the 40 m illion hectares o f irrigated agriculture is reported to suffer from this prob­ lem.” (Ibid, p. 32). 11. Indigenous peoples o f the forests and mountains in the developing world have been subjected to a sim ilar m argi­ nalization process, but have not constituted numerically large communities. 12. See bibliography in Hjort and Salih (1989:101). 13. Even relatively early conflicts could lead to protracted violence, such as in the case o f the Hargaga conflict in Somalia. When drought struck, northern based tribes drove their cattle south, armed with the argument that the clouds which dropped rain on the rich, southern Nugal valley had formed in the north, thus giving them grazing rights. Unconvinced, the southern tribes resisted, and violence continued intermittently for years until peace was concluded in 1957 (Bennett 1991:33). 14. This point recalls what Owen Lattimorc once observed in relation to traditional nomadic peoples o f Asia. Scar­ city o f people relative to land makes clan and kinship the dom inant principle o f social organization (Laoimore, 1951). Transformed into shantytown dwellers, nom ads lose their basis for traditional social organization. 15. The high figure is astounding and was questioned by another, government-sponsored study (Kosit and Somchai, cited in Adulavidhaya and Onchan 1985:451). 16. In later decades, demographic pressures in the largely Indian area of the altiplano was probably lower than na­ tional levels, held down by poor health care, high mortality, and a consequent life span that at 41 years was con­ siderably below the national average o f 59 years (Manz 1988:48). A similar point has been documented in the case o f the South Asian Indian tribes, as discussed above.

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Bibliography Adler, Stephen. International Migration and Dependence. Westmead: Saxon House, 1977. Adulavidhaya, Kamphol and Tongroj Onchan. “Migration and Agricultural Development of Thai­ land: Past and Future,” in Philip M. Hauser, et al. Urbanization and Migration in ASEAN Development. Tokyo: National Institute for Research Advancement, 1985. Aguilera Peralta, Gabriel. “The Militarization of the Guatemalan State,” in Jonathan L. Fried, et al. Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished Story. New York: Grove Press, 1983. Ahmed, Abdel Ghaffar M. “Ecological Degradation in the Sahel: The Political Dimension,” in Anders Hjort af Omas and M.A. Mohamed Salih (eds). Ecology and Politics: Environ­ mental Stress and Security in Africa. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989. Baddal, Raphael K. “Impact of War Upon Displaced Southern Sudanese Communities in Khar­ toum.” Paper presented to the conference on Consequences of War in Africa. Bergen, Norway, 6-9 April 1992. Barraclough, Solon and Krishna Ghimire. The Social Dynamics o f Deforestation in Developing Countries: Principal Issues and Research Priorities. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, No. 16,1990. Barghouti, Shawki and Guy Le Moigne. "Irrigation and the Environmental Challenge.” Finance and Development, June 1991. Bennett, Olivia (ed.). Greenwar: Environment and Conflict. London: The Panos Institute, 1991. Bilsborrow, Richard. “Rural Poverty, Migration and the Environment in Developing Countries: Three Case Studies.” Background paper prepared for the World Development Report, Chapel Hill, NC, 1991. Bilsborrow, Richard and Pamela D. DeLargy. “Land Use, Migration, and Natural Resource Dete­ rioration: The Experience of Guatemala and the Sudan.” Carolina Population Center, The University of North Carolina, 1991. Birdsall, Nancy. “Population and Global Warming: Another Look,” IESA\P\AC.34\4. U.N. Ex­ pert Group Meeting, New York, 20-24 January 1992. Broad, Robin, Walden Bello and John Cavanagh. “Development: The Market is Not Enough,” Foreign Policy, no. 81, 1990/91. Brundtland Commission. Our Common Future. World Commission on Environment and Devel­ opment New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Catanese, Anthony V. H aiti’s Refugees: Political, Economic, Environmental. Natural Heritage Institute/Universities Field Staff International. Field Staff Report, no.17,1990-91. Cemea, Michael (ed). Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development. Ox­ ford University Press for the World Bank, 1985. ________ . Poverty Risks From Population Displacement in Water Resources Development. Har­ vard Institute for International Development, Discussion Paper no. 355,1990. Chaloemtiarana, Tak. The Politics o f Despotic Paternalism. Bangkok: Thai Khadi Institute, Thammasat University, 1979.

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CREDAL. Les Phtnom tnes de "frontiire " dans les pays tropicaux. Paris: Centre de recherche et de documentation sur l’Aradrique Latine, 1981. Connell, John. “Paradise Left? Pacific Island Voyagers in the Modem World,” in James T. Faw­ cett and Benjamin V. Carino (eds.), Pacific Bridges: The New Immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands. New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1987. Durham, William H. Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins o f the Soccer War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979. El-Hinnawi, Ess am. Environmental Refugees. New York: United Nations Development Program, 1985. Economic and Political Weekly. “Migrant Workers, Super-Exploitation and Identity: Case of Sug­ arcane Cutters of Gujarat,” by DN (pseudonym). June 4,1988. Fairclough, A.J. “Global Environment and Natural Resource Problems — Their Economic, Po­ litical and Security Implications,” The Washington Quarterly, 14, 1, 1991. Feeny, David. “Agricultural Expansion and Forest Depletion in Thailand,” in John F. Richards and Richard P. Tucker (eds.). World Deforestation in the Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press, 1988. Fernandes, Walter, et al. Forests, Environment and Tribal Economy. New Delhi: Indian Social In­ stitute, 1988. Fried, Jonathan L., et al. Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished Story. New York: Grove Press, 1983. Girling, John L.S. Thailand: Society and Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981. Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD). World Map o f the Status o f Human-Induced Soil Degradation, Global Assessment of Soil Degradation, International Soil Reference and Information Centre and United Nations Environment Programme, Wageningen and New York, 1990. Goldstone, Jack A. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early M odem World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Goldstone, Jack A., Ted Robert Gurr and Farrokh Moshiri (eds.). Revolutions o f the Late Twenti­ eth Century. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. The Refugee in International Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Gurr, Ted Robert. “On the Political Consequences of Scarcity and Economic Decline,” Interna­ tional Studies Quarterly, 29. 1985. Hazarika, Sanjoy. “Bangladesh and Northeast India: Migration, Land Pressure and Ethnic Con­ flict.” Paper prepared for American Academy of Arts and Sciences and University of Toronto conference on Environmental Change and Acute Conflict, Ottawa, June 18-19, 1991. Harrell Bond, Barbara. Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Hoagland, Sara and Susan Conbere. Environmental Stress and National Security. College Park, MD: Center for Global Change, 1991.

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Hjort, Anders af OmSs and M.A. Mohamed Salih (eds.). Ecology and Politics. Uppsala: Scandi­ navian Institute of African Studies, 1989. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Con­ flict,” International Security, 16:2. 1991. Hugo, Graeme. “Changing Famine Coping Strategies Under the Impact of Population Pressures and Urbanisation: The Case of Population Mobility.” Paper presented at the workshop on Famine Research and Food Production Systems, Freiburg University, Freiburg, 10-14 No­ vember 1989. ________ . “Population Movements in Indonesia.” Paper presented at the International Confer­ ence on Migration, National University of Singapore, 1991. Hurst, Phillip. Rainforest Politics. London: Zed Books, 1990. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). A Public Development Pro­ gram fo r Thailand. Report of a 1959 Mission organized by the International Bank for Re­ construction and Development. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959. ________ . World Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. ________ . The World Bank and the Environment. First Annual Report. Jeremy J. Warford and Zeinab Partow. (eds.) Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1990. ________ . World Development Report 1192. Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 1992. Ingram, James C. Economic Change in Thailand: 1850-1970. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971. Islam, Muinul. “Ecological Catastrophes and Refugees in Bangladesh.” Paper presented at the Conference on Worldwide Refugee Movements, The New School for Social Research, New York, 8-9 November 1991. Jacobson, Jodi. Environmental Refugees: Yardstick o f Habitability. Worldwatch Paper no. 86, 1988. Jonas, Susanne. The Battle fo r Guatemala. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. Keyes, Charles F. Isan: Regionalism in Northeastern Thailand. Data Paper, No. 65. Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. 1967. Kimberly, A. Hamilton and Kate Holder Kimberly. “International Migration and Foreign Policy: A Survey of the Literature,” The Washington Quarterly, 14:2. 1991. Kritz, Mary M. “Climate Change and Migration Adaptations,” 1190 Working Paper Series, 2.16. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1990. Kunz, E.F. ‘T he Refugee in Flight: Kinetic Models and Forms of Displacement,” International Migration Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1973. Lake, Anthony, et al. After the Wars. Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 1990. Lattimore, Owen. Inner Asian Frontiers o f China, 2nd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1951. Manz, Beatrice. Refugees o f a Hidden War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. Maloney, Clarence. Environmental and Project Displacement o f Population in India, Pt. I, II. Natural Heritage Institute/Universities Field Staff International, Field Staff Report, no. 14,1990-91.

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Manusphaibool, Chuta. “Rural-Urban Migration Trend and Employment Status: A Case Study in the Bangkok Metropolis.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Migration. National University of Singapore, 1991. Markakis, John. “ The Ishaq-Ogaden Dispute” in Anders Hjort af Om&s and M. A. Mohamed Salih (eds). Ecology and Politics: Environmental Stress and Security in Africa. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 157-168, 1989. Meesook, Oey Astra. “A Study of Disparities in Income and Social Services Across Provinces in Thailand,” unpublished paper. Washington, DC, 1978. Myers, Norman. “Environment and Security,” Foreign Policy, No. 81. 1991. ________ . “Population\Environment Linkages: Discontinuities Ahead?” IESA\F\AC.34\3UN. Expert Group Meeting, New York, 20-24 January 1992. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). “Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming,” Report of the Adaptation Panel, prepublication manuscript. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1991. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB). The Fourth National Economic and Social Development Plan, 1977-1981. Bangkok: National Economic and Social De­ velopment Board, 1977. Nnoli, Okwudiba. “Desertification, Refugees and Regional Conflicts in West Africa,” in Anders Hjort af Om&s and M.A. Mohamed Salih (eds). Ecology and Politics: Environmental Stress and Security in Africa. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989. Organizing for Development: An International Institute (ODII). “Women’s Organizing Ability: A Case Study of Northeastern Villages in Thailand,” report prepared for the ODII, Washing­ ton, DC, by the Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation, 1991. Oxford University Press. A Social and Economic Atlas o f India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978. Peckenham, Nancy. “Fruits of Progress: The Panzs and the Spanish Embassy Massacres,” in Fried, et al., 1983. Phadnis, Urmila. Ethnicity and Nation-Building in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage, 1989. Porter, Gareth, with Delfin J. Ganapin, Jr. Resources, Population and the Philippines' Future. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1988. Portes, Alejandro and John Walton. Labor, Class and the International System. New York: Aca­ demic Press, 1981. Raju, K.V. and C. Maloney. “Environmental Refugees in India.” Paper presented at a conference on environmental refugees. Nyon, Switzerland, 19-21 January 1992. Rangasami, Amrita. “Failure of Exchange Entitlements’ Theory of Famine,” Economic and Po­ litical Weekly, VoL XX. No. 42. 19 October 1985. Refugee Policy Group (RPG). Migration and the Environment. Briefing Paper prepared for con­ ference on Migration and the Environment, 19-22 January 1992. Richter, Kerry. “Migration Policy in Thailand: Needed Data.” Paper presented at the Interna­ tional Conference on Migration, National University of Singapore, 1991.

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Salih, M.A. Mohamed, “Political Coercion and the Limits of State Intervention: Sudan,” in An­ ders Hjort af Omas and M.A. Mohamed Salih (eds.). Ecology and Politics: Environ­ mental Stress and Security in Africa. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989. Sanders, Thomas. Northeast Brazilian Environmental Refugees: Why They Leave. Field Staff Re­ ports, No. 20, 1990/1. Schwartz, Norman B. “Colonization of Northern Guatemala: The Petdn,” Journal o f Anthropo­ logical Research, Vol. 43, 1987. Silcock, T.H. (ed.). Thailand: Social and Economic Studies in Development. Canberra: Austra­ lian National University Press, 1967. StAhl, Michael. Constraints to Environmental Rehabilitation through People’s Participation in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands. United Nations Research Institute for Social Develop­ ment (UNR1SD), Geneva, No. 13. 1990. Stanley, William. “State Responses to Central American Migration: The Role of Ideology, Do­ mestic Politics, and Foreign Relations.” Paper presented at the conference on the Impact of Migration, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 5-6 December 1991. Stark, Oded. The Migration o f Labor. Oxford, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Stein, Barry N. and Sylvano M. Tomasi, (eds.). “Refugees Today,” International Migration Re­ view, Spec. Ed. 15. 1981. Suhrke, Astri. “Ecological Crisis and Population Displacement.” Paper presented at the confer­ ence on Worldwide Refugee Movements, New School for Social Research, New York, 89 November 1991. Swetnam, John. “What Else Did Indians Have to Do with Their Time? Alternative Labor Migra­ tion in Prerevolutionary Guatemala," Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 38. 1989. Tamondong-Helin, Susan and William Helin. Migration and the Environment: Interrelationships in Sub-Sahara Africa. The Natural Heritage Institute/Universities Field Staff Interna­ tional. Field Staff Report, No. 22, 1990-91. Textor, Robert B. From Peasant to Pedicab Driver. Southeast Asia Cultural Report Series, No. 9. New Haven: Yale University, 1961. Timberlake, Lloyd. Africa in Crisis. London: Earthscan, 1985. Tirasawat, Penpom. “Migration in Thailand: Past and Future”, in Philip M. Hauser, et al. Urbani­ zation and Migration in ASEAN Development. Tokyo: National Institute for Research Ad­ vancement, 1985. Todaro, Michael P. “A Model of Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries,” American Economic Review, 59:1. 1969. Tuchman, Jessica Mathews.“Redefining Security,” Foreign Affairs, 68:2. 1989. United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Country Development Strategy Statement. F Y 1981. Thailand. U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, 1979. Watts, M. Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria. Berkeley: U niver­ sity of California Press, 1983.

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Bangladesh and Assam: Land Pressures, Migration and Ethnic Conflict Sanjoy Hazarika The N ew York Times

n many parts of the world, land scarcity contributes to illegal migration and ethnic conflict But in few regions are these connections so vivid, painful, and divisive as they are in Bangladesh and the northeast Indian state of Assam. A flow of races, languages, cultures, religions and subnationalities meet in the Northeast of India in a melting pot that has spawned guerrilla wars and agitations for the protection of these identities. Yet, the region that comprises the combined basins of several great rivers — the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Barak — is home to one-tenth of humankind. B.G. Verghese, a senior Indian journalist, remarked that one of the hopes of improving the condition of hundreds of millions who live here lies in a “well-conceived integrated programme designed to uplift the marginal man [sic] in what remains the largest concentration of global impoverishment despite being blessed with great gifts of nature.” 1 The contribution of land and resource scarcity to the outbreak of ethnic conflict is readily apparent on the Indian subcontinent. The January 1993 riots in Bombay, which took a toll of more than 660 lives and devastated large parts of India’s most important commercial center, go beyond HinduMuslim clashes. The riots involved issues such as illegal tenants, new migrants from the countryside and powerful lobbies of slumlords and build­ ers seeking to evict these tenants and squatters to sfell properties and buildings at a premium. The problems of social tension and sectarian suspicion are fuelled by other questions, including the burgeoning population and the strain on common resources and facilities such as drinking water, power and sanita­ tion. Both Bangladesh and India have failed to curb their population growth, despite high mortality rates. This factor, as much as the lack of political will and official zeal to curb population growth, has put greater pressure on renewable resources.

I

© 1993 by Sanjoy Hazanka. This paper was prepared for the workshop oo “Environmental Change, Population Displacement, and Acute Conflict,” held at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Ottaw a in June 1991 as part o f the “Environmental Change and Acute Conflict" project o f the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, University o f Toronto and the American Academy o f Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Funding is inadequate to meet birth control targets but more impor­ tantly, the initiative and drive at the grassroots level are missing. Religion and tradition are important cultural factors which inhibit population control in societies where a son is still favored over a daughter and children are seen — although this view is changing too — as insurance and providers for people in their old age. Women face discrimination too, especially in the northern and central states of India where they are largely illiterate and have no income of their own; this lack of status contributes to their lack of control over the number of children they produce. Land Pressures in Bangladesh Bangladesh represents one of the most brutal and hopeless statements of the human condition. The vast population that resides in the fertile basin of the Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers reaps few rewards for its great labor. The benefits of development funding reach only a small minority: large amounts are appropriated by corrupt officials, village power-brokers, politi­ cians, and military personnel. There are a few successful innovative schemes like the Gramin Bank, a rural bank that has developed branches nationwide and lends money only to the poorest, but these successes are rare. “The economic viability of Bangladesh has long been in question because of its over-population, poor natural resource base, vulnerability to natural disasters and undiversified economy dependent on the production of two crops, rice and jute,” says Dr. Mahabab Hossein, one of Bangladesh’s most prominent development economists who heads the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in the captial, Dhaka.2 In numerous respects, Bangladesh represents the Malthusian night­ mare: too many mouths to feed and too little food, or too many people on too little land. The population of 115 million continues to grow at an estimated pace of between 2.2 and 3 percent per year. It has doubled in the past thirty years. The country’s population density of 785 per square kilome­ ter is the world’s highest3 Bangladesh is one of the poorest nations in the world, with a per capita income of less than 170 dollars per year, half that of India. The country has struggled to increase its per capita income, but in 1986, half of the population still had inadequate energy intakes and 58 percent of rural children and 44 percent of urban children suffered from chronic malnutrition. The infant mortality rate was about 110 per thousand, one of the highest in the world. Less than one-third of the adults were literate, and although three-quarters of the children enrolled in primary school, two-thirds of them dropped out before secondary school.4 Nearly 80 percent of the agricultural land is already covered by rice, and nearly 60 percent of the country’s investments are financed by foreign aid. The growth in population has led to a situation where the average farm holding is less than one hectare (or less than 2 acres). Despite their lower costs, high-yielding modem varieties of food grains have not been introduced

T h e economic viability of Bangladesh has long been in question because of its over-population, poor natural resource base, vulnerability to natural disasters and undiversrfied econom y. . . “

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to all areas where they would increase productivity. By one estimate, such varieties now cover 40 percent of the cereal-growing areas, but their potential remains largely unexploited because of flooding. Estimates indicate that if irrigation were extended to 62 percent of the cultivated area, food-grain production would reach the level of 30.7 million tons, a vast leap over the current level of 18 to 19 million tons. This output could feed an estimated 185 million people at current levels of food intake.5 The story of Mugha ul-Khand, a former village headman, is a clear example of the trauma that accompanies the growing scarcity of cropland and the lack of new land frontiers. A bearded old patriarch, ul-Khand lives in the village of Modhupur, 90 miles north of Dhaka, the capital of Bangla­ desh. When I visited him in February, 1991, his small enclave was surrounded by parched Fields. In normal times, these fields would have been abuzz with the hum of diesel pumps pouring water across the wheat fields. But now they were quiet because of a diesel shortage caused by the Gulf war. The family land usually grows barely enough wheat, rice, and vegetables to satisfy household needs. A small surplus of cereal is sold in the village market or to traders from the city who visit during harvest time. Mugha ul-Khand said his family had lived on this land for at least three or four generations. He asked: “What will we have left one or two generations from now? Perhaps something, perhaps nothing. For us, it is a question of survival. We will go anywhere because every year our land holding is shrinking, our families are growing. My father had twenty-four bighas of land; now my four sons have two bighas each. [One bigha equals approximately 0.35 acres or 0.15 hectares.] What can you grow on two bighas? In the future, we may have nothing. Yes, we will be prepared to go anywhere. To Assam, if necessary, if we can get land and live with dignity. But will the Assamese have us? There are man-made frontiers and preju­ dices."6 The younger ul-Khand said “we live by our wits in this country, for the land, despite its richness, cannot feed us any longer.” Debts grow, families grow, but incomes from land holdings and the buying power of the Bangla­ deshi currency shrink. One of the other sons remarked that many young women from the village, especially unmarried ones, have left to seek a better life in the larger towns and cities. Every year, he says, the number who leave is increasing. Some are reported to have turned to prostitution to survive. The flight goes beyond the country’s boundaries. Many maid servants in Calcutta and other towns and cities of the Indian state of West Bengal are from neighboring Bangladesh: so are many male construction workers and farm laborers. B.G. Verghese, the Indian writer, contends that:

Debts grow, families grow, but incomes from land holdings and the buying power of the Bangladeshi currency shrink.

The Ganga-Brahmaputra-Barak basin has all it takes to be a granary. Its agricultural record has however been disappointing. M alnutrition continues to affect morbidity and productivity within national boundaries and the m ovement o f refugees across international borders. This erosion o f human resources, often of able-bodied men or the most venturesome among the populace.

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Those who migrate are not interested, says Verghese, in agriculture, but in jobs that give them an income, a basis for survival* The attractions of more lightly populated lands across the borders are immense. Bangladesh has a population density estimated at 785 per square kilometer.9 The density of population in India’s northeast is far less. Assam’s is 284 per square kilometer; the figures are 78 for Meghalaya, 262 for Tripura, and 33 for Mizoram. West Bengal, however, has a reported density almost on par with Bangladesh; 766 per square kilometer, the highest among all major states of India." Bangladesh maintains officially that its nationals prefer to go to the Gulf where there are opportunities, rather than to India which can offer little. Yet, most do go to India because as unskilled laborers, they find a ready market in the subcontinent for maids, building workers, and porters. Bang­ ladeshi journalists and officials privately acknowledge the fact of continuing out-migration. While economic conditions in the bordering Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya may not be ideal, they are better than conditions in Bangladesh. Land and work are available. Bangladeshi intel­ lectuals sometimes justify the outflow by saying that the world needs a New Demographic Order that enables nations with plentiful, cheap labor to send their workers across international boundaries. There are two basic factors that favor an immigrant moving from Bangladesh to northeastern India. One is that the migrant speaks Bengali, the language of the Indian state of West Bengal and of most of Bangladesh. Bengali is spoken by more than 170 million people in the region, making the Bengalis one of the largest linguistic groups in the world. Language gives access to jobs, property and education. A second factor is that many migrants have relatives on the other side of the border. An example of this cross-border mobility is the case of Rafique Sarkar, an insurance agent who is 36 and lives in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. This is a town of narrow, unkempt lanes, weary-looking buildings dating back to the British era, and crowds of people on the sidewalks. Sarkar and his wife live in a small flat on the first floor of an aging house. They originally came from the town of Hoogly, a part of the sprawling city of Calcutta, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Sarkar came to what was then East Pakistan with his brother-in-law in 1967, who lived in Mymensingh. His mother also chose to live in East Pakistan, preferring an Islamic nation to predominantly Hindu India. But his father stayed on in the Calcutta area. They visit their relatives clandestinely, and no one has ever checked or stopped them. When the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 into India (predomi­ nantly Hindu) and Pakistan (predominantly Muslim), the native Bengalis in East Pakistan (formerly East Bengal) chafed at domination by West Pakistan. A popular uprising in 1970 was crushed by a brutal Pakistani army crack­ down. Backed by India, the Bengalis launched an insurgency movement, and

There are two basic factors that favor an immigrant moving from Bangladesh to northeastern India. One is that the migrant speaks B engali___ A second factor is that many migrants have relatives on the other side of the border.

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then, when more than 10 million East Pakistani refugees had crowded into India, New Delhi launched an offensive that gave birth to the new nation of Bangladesh. Sarkar says that during the Pakistani array crackdown, 60 percent of Mymensingh’s population of about 200,000 left for India. They stayed with relatives or in refugee camps. Sarkar went to his relatives in Hoogly and, like a majority of the refugees, returned home after the war was over and Bangladesh was bom. But there were many who did not return and, according to Sarkar, they were predominantly Hindus. Now, Sarkar says, “the political and economic environment is better in India; we may even go back.” Sarkar’s example illustrates the ease with which a Bengali speaker from Bangladesh can merge into Bengali-speaking areas of West Bengal and northeast India. The task is made easier if the immigrant has relatives in the area who can immediately confer on him a degree of social acceptability. Out-migration has been a perennial feature of East Bengal since before the end of the British Raj; it continued through the years of East Pakistan and post-partition; and it continues today from Bangladesh across the borders of eastern India. More than anything else, the migrants are fleeing the poverty-related degradation of their lives that has given them little choice but to leave their homes for another land. According to one estimate, population growth in Bangladesh will slash in half the amount of cropland available per capita by 2025.12This crisis is worsened by the fact that all of the country’s good farmland has already been heavily exploited. “At about 0.08 hectare per capita, cropland is already desperately scarce,” says the study.13 “Flooding and inadequate national and community institutions for water control exacerbate the lack of land and the brutal poverty and turmoil it engenders.”14 The Trauma of Flooding The poverty of Bangladesh is in no small way attributable to the region’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Bangladesh seems to move through an unending cycle of floods, cyclones, devastation, death, drought and famine. Marauding rivers burst their banks and change course with impunity, and heavy silting raises the level of river beds and increases the size of the flood plains, wiping out entire villages and reducing even the moderately affluent to penury. More than one million people have been killed by floods since 1961. And the 1988 floods, the worst in recent memory, reduced rice production by 1.6 million tons and caused 1.3 billion dollars worth of damage to roads, railroads, houses and industrial machinery.15 Floods, however, are a necessary evil. They renew the land. Bangla­ desh’s intensive cultivation depends on silt deposited on the flood plains by water-gorged rivers in the rainy season. “The floods are essential to maintain the fertility of the soils, to replenish the groundwater and soil moisture for the winter season, to help maintain the extensive fisheries. . . and to provide plentiful water to the monsoon crops. In normal years floods do all these

The poverty of Bangladesh is in no small way attributable to the region's vulnerability to natural disasters. Bangladesh seems to move through an unending cycle of floods, cyclones, devastation, death, drought and famine.

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things without causing havoc.” 16 On the other hand, experts in Bangladesh agree that the single most harmful environmental factor in the country is flooding. It has led to temporary and permanent migrations, not only across districts, but also across international frontiers.17 Verghese describes the scale of the flooding: ‘‘A huge monsoon flood discharge, draining over 1.5 million square miles in five countries straddling both sides of the Himalayas and containing far and away the highest rainfall density zones in the world, funnels into the sea through the Bangladesh nozzle comprising barely 7.5 percent of the total basin. No other country anywhere faces a flood problem of the nature and magnitude that Bangladesh does.” 1* The great flood plains begin at the foothills of the Himalayas in West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh and roll through Assam, the plains of Bengal and Meghalaya and into Bangladesh and the mouths of the Ganges. The Ganges is joined at various times along its long route by the Kosi and the Gandhak from Nepal; the Brahmaputra is fed by the Subansiri, the Dibang, Kameng and Luit in Arunachal and then by the Barak and the mighty Meghna. The human factors in downstream flooding include growing human settlements and encroachments near river banks. In the flat valley areas, the natural drainage systems have been wilfully blocked, embanked or dammed; natural depressions and wetlands have been encroached upon and reclaimed for agriculture. Embankments designed to keep floods out often create a nightmare by trapping flood water within vast areas for months, especially in Northern Bihar state. This makes both cultivation and settlement of the land impossible. Road construction also changes the landscape. Roads are often the only high ground in lowlying areas, and building them involves moving millions of tons of soil and can make low-lying areas more vulner­ able. Landslides upstream, which contribute huge amounts of silt to rivers, are caused by weak soil structures, unstable rock formations and human activities such as the building of roads, bridges, and drainage channels that change a region’s geography. Yet, despite the annual crisis brought on by flooding — and exacer­ bated by human settlement and development — there are ways in which the rivers’ capacity for destruction can be reduced if not stopped. These steps include soil conservation, better agricultural and irrigation planning as well as upstream reforestation in the Himalayan foothills. Water catchment areas in the lower and medium Himalayas on a massive scale is another idea that engineers have been studying for some years. During the annual floods, the country is virtually trisected into three nations, each with the raging waters of an angry river as its natural frontier. The Meghna, Brahmaputra and Ganges divide the eastern, northern and western sectors during the flood season better than any artificial boundary. Roods cover the countryside like a vast sheet, often under a meter or two of water. One estimate says that one-third of Bangladesh is covered by floodwaters every summer. It is impossible to grow even tall rice in such high

The single most harmful environmental factor in the country is flooding. It has led to temporary and permanent migrations, not only across districts, but also across international frontiers.

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water, which forces people and livestock to migrate to higher ground; to neighboring, higher, better-protected villages and towns; to regions inside the national frontiers where land is available; and across the international frontier. Nature’s raw power is seen when rivers deviate from traditional courses, slashing through soft soil and forging a new trail of devastation. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a leading Indian environmental research group, says in a new report that the fragile seismic structure and ecosystem of the Himalayas is one of the biggest factors causing downstream floods and natural disasters. As the youngest mountain range in the world, with occasional earthquakes that kill hundreds of people, destroy property and cause enormous siltation of fast-flowing streams and rivers, the Hima­ layas are “naturally primed for disaster.” 19 The CSE notes;

The fragile seismic structure and ecosystem of the Himalayas is one of the biggest factors causing downstream floods and natural disasters.

The Himalayan mountains (are) the youngest in the world, lashed by intense rainstorms and highly seism ic. . . floods therefore are inherent to the ecology o f the flood plains o f the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra . . . the afforestation o f the Himalayan moun­ tains can reduce the problem o f floods in submontane plains only to a m inor extent . . . there is no evidence to believe that ecological solutions like afforestation will control floods any more than engineering solutions like dam s and embankments ___ People in the plains will have to deal with floods whether the Himalayan ranges are covered with fo re sts____Secondly, ecological changes that have taken place in the lowlands them ­ selves, because o f technological interventions to control floods and encroach upon the flood plains, have exacerbated the prob­ lem far more than the ecological changes in the mountainous uplands 20

Water and silt move out of these mountains in explosive waves. Floods and the shifting of river courses are therefore inevitable. The CSE report explains: “Afforestation wi l l . . . have a limited impact in terms of changing hydrological conditions___ In other words, forests can moderate minor and medium floods. But human society will have to live with major floods.”21 The Brahmaputra of Assam is cited as an example. Its northern tributaries flow through more densely forested areas than its southern ones. Yet it is the northern tributaries that cause more flood havoc. They have steep slopes, shallow and braided water channels, and coarse sandy beds; they carry a heavy silt load and are prone to cause flash floods. Natural factors such as major earthquakes have played a critical role in determining the geography of the region, dwarfing human efforts to control the waters. The great Assam earthquake of 1950 changed the course of major tributaries of the Brahmaputra and raised the bed of the river and its tributaries by several feet The low water levels of the main river at Dibrugarh rose nearly 10 feet and the bed of the Dibang was raised by nearly 20 feet This resulted in acute flooding downstream and severe erosion of the banks.22

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Bangladesh must also contend with tidal waves that sweep the southern coast every year between April and December, rising nearly 20 feet high at times and smashing storm shelters, villages, bridges, and killing tens of thousands of villagers. Some specialists say that global warming could make this much worse in the future. Although experts debate whether or not major climatic change and a rise in the sea-level will occur, most agree that large sections of Bangladesh’s coastline are exceedingly vulnerable to inun­ dation by sea water. A study by Jehangimagar University, Dhaka, says that 18 to 19 million people are affected by flooding in Bangladesh each year.23 “The displacees of the river bank erosion are the most wretched of the landless poor," according to Rahman who describes them as totally dispossessed and is critical of donor nations for failing to develop policies to assist these groups.24 Verghese notes that the continued misery provoked by flooding permanently depresses the economy of flooded areas, and there is thus “little incentive to depart from traditional agricultural practices.”25 The floods of the Gangetic Basin constitute a warning to administra­ tors, farmers, scientists and planners: they mean, in part, that the communities of the lowlands must learn to develop flood plains without merely relying on devices such as embankments. Flood-plains management on much of the subcontinent is weak. Few agencies, either in government or outside, have studied and developed ecologically sound management systems. Of the total area of 8.28 million hectares vulnerable to flooding in Bangladesh, for example, only 32 percent were protected by 1984-85 and 5.7 million hectares were still at risk.26 The government wants to raise the level of protection to more than 40 percent during the 1990s. But managing the flood plains, the CSE report points out, is an extremely difficult task because of population densities and largescale landlessness. Resistance to new management prac­ tices is widespread. The effort must be launched, however, to help the inhabitants of this great, rich and diverse region live in harmony with nature, adopt self sustaining strategies with regard to natural resources and work toward a marriage of big and small technologies, engineering skills and plain common sense.

Eighteen to nineteen million people are affected by flooding in Bangladesh each year.

Migration from Bangladesh The Scale of Migration The migration from East Pakistan/Bangladesh to India has resulted in the creation of a sub-nation the size of Australia within India. This population of between 12 and 17 million has moved illegally, without proper visas, passports or documents, and it has settled in northeast India. The exact extent of out-migration from Bangladesh (formerly. East Pakistan and before that. East Bengal) to India may never be known. Accurate determinations are hindered by many obstacles. Voting rights, ration cards.

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and property deeds are held by illegal migrants. Census methods are flawed, the Indian census asks people to name their place of birth, and while some honestly report their birth place as Bangladesh or Pakistan, most do not, worried they may be ousted or submitted to police questioning. Language also presents a major problem in gathering statistics on migrants. In the 1971 census, Assamese speakers were listed at 8.9 million of Assam’s 14.2 million population. People who spoke Bengali as their “mother tongue” were listed at 2.9 million.27 It is widely accepted that the number of Assamese speakers was exaggerated because many migrants or their descendants gave Assamese as their main language instead of Bengali for fear of being harassed by police and evicted. Religious affiliations, on the other hand, are generally regarded as being more helpful than language in accurately determining the growth of the population of immigrants and their descendants (mostly Muslim), as well as the decline in the native Assamese (mostly Hindu). But figures from the 1991 census will not likely be available for at least one or two years. In spite of these difficulties, rough estimates are available of the numbers of migrants moving over the years out of Bangladesh and into northeast India. A significant study by Sharifa Begum, of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in Dhaka, represents the first semi-official acknowledgement by Dhaka of the size of the migration problem. According to Begum, between 3.15 and 3.5 million people migrated from East Pakistan to India between 1951 and 1961. And between 1961 and 1974, another 1.5 million migrated. A national census was conducted in 1961 and 1974. The 1974 census was the first in independent Bangladesh. The latter figure is based on census figures and incorporates estimates of deaths from the 1970 cyclone and from the Bangladesh liberation war.2* But it appears to be a conservative estimate for it does not take into account the 10 million who fled the repression of the Pakistani Array in 1970 and 1971 before an Indian military victory allowed them to return home. Most of the migrants returned; yet nearly a million (believed to be mostly Hindus) stayed in India, apparently blending into the countryside. All this adds up to an outflow of 6 million in the 23 years between 1951 and 1974. In a more recent paper, Begum states that although statistics for migration are not available after 1974, there is no valid reason to suggest that migration ceased at that time.29 She adds that in fact there are indications that Bangladesh lost a substantial proportion of its population from 1974 to 1981 due to migration and famine. Marcus Franda, the South Asian scholar now with the University of Maryland, suggests that the rate of out-migration from Bangladesh actually increased in the 1970s. Franda noted in 1981 that Indian government sources believed that the number of immigrants into Assam was more than 600,000; to Maghalaya more than 300,000; to Tripura more than 200.000. By early 1979, he found that more than half the total population of 3.000. 000 of the Nadia district in West Bengal were refugees from Bangla­ desh.30 In 1974 and 1975, Bangladesh was devastated by a famine that affected millions of people and sent the destitute to seek shelter wherever

Between 3.15 and 3.5 million people migrated from East Pakistan to India between 1951 and 1961. And between 1961 and 1974, another 1.5 million migrated.

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they could inside their country. Those who had the resources and energy to do so crossed the border into India. Based on the 1951 growth rate, the state of Assam should have a population of about 15 million. It has more than 7 million extra, according to the latest census.51 The extra numbers can be accounted for by either immigrants or their descendants. Provisional data for the 1991 census puts the overall population of Assam at 22.29 million and the growth rate at 2.23 percent per year, a sharp drop from the 1971 figure of around 3.4 percent. The change in growth patterns indicates, first a fall in migration from Bangladesh after the beginning of an anti-alien movement in Assam in 1979, and, second, a swing in out-migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal instead of Assam in the 1960s. Bengali speakers dominate in West Bengal, making movement into the area easier for migrants. Migrants to Indian Urban Areas Though Bangladesh persists in its strong proclamations that it has no illegal aliens in India, Bangladeshi communities have sprung up in New Delhi and Bombay under the shelter of flyovers and in Muslim-dominated neighborhoods. There are Bangladeshi beggars on the streets of the Indian capital. Politicians from the Congress Party and the right-wing, nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have encouraged these Bangladeshi settlers, develop­ ing them as potential vote banks. The settlers benefit from a complex network of advantages, including development aid, education programs, and patron­ age, often at the cost of the original inhabitants. “There is no political will to deal with the situation,” says one security official. While the Government of India declares that there are about 100,000 Bangladeshi migrants in Delhi, intelligence estimates say the figure is actually closer to 200,000. The Economic Times describes a slum neighbor­ hood in East Delhi, populated by three thousand Bangladeshi migrant families. Abdul Kader and his fellow residents arc on the voters’ list, have plots of land and ration cards; and the government has even declared that he, and tens of thousands of other low-income workers, do not need to pay banks back for small loans they have taken. At first, Kader claims that he and his family of fourteen are refugees of the 1971 Bangladesh War, but he later admits that he first migrated from West Pakistan where he was stranded during the 1971 war, to Bangladesh. He returned to Bangladesh because his family was there. "In Pakistan,” he says, “we used to work in factories, mills; there were more jobs, the pay was higher. In Bangladesh we were penniless labor, paid a pittance. Two meals a day was difficult.” Kader and others paid local agents who smuggled them from Bangladesh into India. Those in Delhi, in a manner of speaking, are well-settled. Kader says he and his two brothers together earn an average of 50 to 70 rupees per day (about S2.50 to $3.50) from plying cycle rickshaws. This is a total of nearly $334 dollars each per year, which is double the average Bangladeshi income. “Our children are

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Bangladeshi communities have sprung up in New Delhi and Bom bay___ The settlers benefit from a complex network of advantages, including development aid. education programs, and patronage, often at the cost of the original inhabitants.

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taught in a local school. Then they help out by picking rags. Overall our earnings are adequate, much better than we have ever had.” Sheikh Barah is a tailor who lives in a one-room shack in New Delhi, near the luxury Oberoi Hotel. He came to Delhi in 1971, has never sought citizenship, but has voted twice in general elections. “We used to live in Dhaka," says Barah. “It was very difficult to make ends meet; I had just got married.” So, one day, he and his wife packed their belongings and traveled by bus, train and on foot to the border near Calcutta. After slipping across, they boarded a train to Delhi where they have lived since. “We have not been back and have no plans to go back to Bangladesh,” Barah says. ‘There is nothing for us there. Here we manage quite well: we have our own home, of course it’s small; our children are educated free at the local government school and my wife helps me with my work.” Government Failure Out-migration from Bangladesh over the years has had a severe impact on the ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic and ecological fabric of northeast India and West Bengal, regions that share a common frontier with Bangladesh. The prevailing view in the Government of Bangladesh supports the concept of an International Demographic Order, with migrants free to move where they find work, unhindered by international laws or boundaries. But India views the migrants as a potential security risk, whatever their reasons for migrating. Intelligence reports indicate that illegal migrants are pliable and easy to use in smuggling, in trans-border gangs, and in information-gath­ ering for extremist groups both on the Indo-Bangladesh border and on the frontier with Pakistan. The Border Security Force that patrols the Indian side of the interna­ tional frontier says that it detained more than 56,000 Bangladeshis trying to cross into West Bengal in 1990.32 Detentions and deportations of people held at the border in Assam and Tripura were far less, estimated at several hundred. “The rule of thumb in this game is that for every illegal immigrant caught, at least four get through, especially if they’re Hindu,” says one senior Indian diplomat, who knows the problem well. He states that the issue is raised at virtually every Indo-Bangladesh meeting of officials, diplomats and politi­ cians. “But illegal migration remains the unfinished agenda of every dia­ logue, the unresolved issue. It’s really a dialogue of the deaf: we tell Dhaka these people are coming in, Dhaka says they’re not Bangladeshis, they’re Indian smugglers or citizens returning after illegally visiting relatives or friends in Bangladesh.” Moves to deport aliens have been largely unsuccessful because of inadequate legislation, poor policing, political patronage, and economic compulsions. The Assam Government’s Home Department said in 1991 that while 276,283 complaints against illegal immigrants were filed between

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1985 and 1990, only 6,456 were eventually identified as foreigners. Of this figure, 521 were deported. According to T. V. Rajeshwar, a former Governor of West Bengal and a former Chief of the Intelligence Bureau, not more than 20 percent of the total illegal flow has been checked. He says he knows in detail of Banglade­ shis coming across the border into West Bengal during the harvesting and sowing seasons, of rickshaw pullers visiting towns to work regularly, and students walking across to study in Indian schools. He adds that according to the state government, about 2.8 million Bangladeshi nationals entered West Bengal between 1972 and 1988. If one migrant is held for every five who get through, then illegal visitors to West Bengal over this sixteen year period numbered over 10 million. The Bengal figures are underplayed by politicians for their own convenience. Their parties (the Congress Party and the leftist coalition led by the Communist Party of India) have been in power since 1971, and they gain from migrants’ votes. The political reality of the flight from Bangladesh is that it brings vote banks for cynical politicians of all hues and ideologies. Ethnic Conflict in Assam Historical Background India’s state of Assam is a melting pot of tribes, languages and traditions. It produces a major share of India’s tea, oil, jute and plywood. But Assam is industrially backward with little overall foreign investment or direct investment from other parts of India because of its great distance from major ports and expensive freight charges. The major investments have been in tea in the private sector and in oil and jute in the public sector, which have not benefitted Assam so much as the tea companies in Calcutta and India’s foreign-oil import bill. Gasoline prices in Assam are higher than in New Delhi, and there are only two small refineries in the state, leading to complaints of exploitation by New Delhi. For the most part, Assam has been led by democratically elected governments, chosen by adult franchise. But between 1979 and 1985, a student-led agitation against illegal aliens from Bangladesh paralyzed the administration and the economy of Assam. The students agreed to stop their agitation after the central government gave assurances that post-1971 illegals would be deported and those who came in the 1960s would be disenfranchised for ten years. New Delhi also agreed to a large economic package that included new industrial investments as well as establishing technical institutes. The students formed their own party and came to power in elections in December 1985. In the earlier part of this century, many migrants settled on the fertile riverbanks of Assam, creating distinctive areas where they lived a separate existence. These immigrants were first brought there by the British rulers to work on the railroads. Then, under a Muslim League Government in the

Between 1979 and 1985, a student-led agitation against illegal aSens from Bangladesh paralyzed the administration and the economy of Assam.

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1930s, more were encouraged to come as part of a campaign to convince Britain that, when independence arrived, the province of Assam should be appended to Pakistan. That campaign failed. The 1947 partition of the subcontinent sent millions of Hindu refu­ gees from East Pakistan into Assam, West Bengal, Tripura, and into all parts of northern India. Later, international pacts between India and Pakistan conferred citizenship on those people who had left their properties, busi­ nesses and homes and migrated to either country before January 1, 1951. After that cutoff date, however, any person who entered India without a valid travel document was to be regarded as an illegal settler or visitor. Migrants, however, were generally accepted by the Assamese so long as they were only laborers and peasants. Social tensions began to surface when they acquired more land and began to prosper. They were then seen as a physical, religious and cultural threat to the lifestyles of the Assamese. The migrants developed into a formidable force, holding the balance between victory and defeat in dozens of constituencies. The price for the decades of influx was paid by innocent people, most brutally in 1983 when an estimated 4,000-5,000 persons died in a series of bloody incidents. Events that year brought Indian and world attention to the magnitude of the problem. One of the most bmtal massacres in independent India took place at a little-known village called Nellie in Assam’s Nowgong district These killings were widely viewed as the result of the strategy followed first by the Muslim League government in Assam before inde­ pendence and then by the Congress Party, to encourage immigration from East Bengal, later East Pakistan and Bangladesh. This strategy, which identified the migrants as solid vote bases, encouraged immigration, settle­ ment and listing of the migrants on voters lists and ration cards. The result was the sharp alienation of local indigenous groups which nursed their resentments until an opportunity presented itself in a student-led boycott of statewide elections to avenge their long-held grievances.

Migrants, however, were generally accepted by the Assamese so long as they were only laborers and peasants. Social tensions began to surface when they acquired more land and began to prosper.

Demographic Change The anti-alien agitation that began in 1979 underlined the fact that the Assamese, particularly the middle and upper caste Hindus, were as concerned about the potential loss of political power as they were about their ethnic and cultural identity. An Assamese legislator remarked at the time: “An offshoot of this population explosion has been a sudden change in the composition of the district’s electorate. The immigrants are in an absolute majority in seven of the nineteen Assembly constituencies___In five more constituencies they are numerous enough to be crucial for an electorate victory.” The trouble began when, in preparation for an election to Parliament, ballot officials reported 600,000 names in one constituency. Students and other Assamese filed objections to 70,000 names, alleging these were Bang­ ladeshis with no right to vote. The All Assam Students Union (AASU), one

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of the most influential organizations in the state, launched a movement calling for the deportation of millions of alleged “foreigners.” AASU leaders placed the number of such foreigners or “Bangladeshis” at four million and said that they would swamp the predominantly Hindu-Assamese culture and disrupt the fabric of society, a composite of different ethnic strands ranging from Mongolian to Aryan. Strike after strike paralyzed the administration and government. A series of state governments rose and fell, and this political instability forced New Delhi’s intervention and direct rule. Between 1980 and 1983, the agitation focussed on ways to draw national attention to Assam’s plight. The movement brought men, women and school children onto the roads to defy government curfews and crackdowns. The agitators’ means were largely peaceful in the manner of Mahatma Gandhi; they volunteered arrest in the thousands. The atmosphere was enthusiastic and large numbers of middle and junior government employees in the state administration supported the strikes and other protests. But there was always an undercurrent of violence. The confrontation worsened with agitators picketing oil installations and refineries and block­ ing the transport of oil-tanker trucks out of Assam. Police and paramilitary forces cleared the blockades several times. In the meantime, the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, opened negotiations with the students. They would not budge, accusing political parties of encouraging immigration and thereby causing the current crisis in the state. “We demand our constitutional rights and that foreigners be deported and detected to save Assam and the Assa­ mese,” said Prafulla Mahanta, then president of the student union which spearheaded the campaign, and later, Assam’s controversial Chief Minister. The violence stuttered on and the state administration feebly re­ sponded. Mrs. Gandhi demanded that the students call off their agitation, pledging that the Government would detect and deport aliens who had come since 1971. They should get back to their classes, she said. Angered by their defiance, she decided to force the issue through a poll. She could not have made a worse mistake. It resulted in the worst ethnic rioting in India since independence and the toll in those violent days has not been surpassed yet by any civil strife in the country, including the anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984 in Dehli, the anti-Mus­ lim riots of Bombay in January 1993 or religious rioting in 1990 and 1992 over a disputed shrine at Ayodhya, Northern India. The students called for a boycott and for agitators to resist the balloting. When the vote was held, in some places there were only one or two candidates. In other places, there were only a dozen voters. New Delhi had to fly in balloting officials and transport them with armed guards to polling centers. Many balloting centers were deserted, with frightened junior officials from Delhi manning their posts, doodling on paper with nothing to do, no voters to guide, no ballot papers to arrange, and surrounded by hostile but quiet crowds of villagers.

Strike after strike paralyzed the administration and government [of Assam], A series of state governments rose and fell, and this political instability forced New Delhi's intervention and direct rule.

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The whole exercise was a farce. There was heavy polling in a few districts dominated by Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims, and also in tea-garden labor strongholds, which were traditional bastions of the Congress Party and made up its vote banks. Congress won an easy majority but the cost was frightening, since the exercise seriously damaged Mrs. Gandhi’s political integrity and popularity in the east of the country. Massacre in Nellie The 1983 elections renewed old rivalries. The sectarian and ethnic tension added to the bitterness of tribal groups over land-grabs by immi­ grants, and the scent of violence in the Assamese resistance movement, created an explosive brew. In the flat fields of a sleepy village called Nellie, more than 8,000 villagers, predominantly members of the Lalung tribe, surrounded Bengali Muslim immigrants and systematically set about butchering them. The killing began at about eight o’clock on a February morning and went on for nearly five hours before paramilitary troops heard of the incident from a survivor and rushed to the site. They were misled, they said, by local police, who were accused of complicity in the crime. Nellie and other villages that were the targets of attack are located well off the main road, a good hour’s walk through fields and across canals. Local officials had warned senior administrators in the state capital about possible trouble in this very area and the need for urgent reinforcements. The forces never came. The following morning, the dried rice fields of Nellie resembled a bloody battlefield. Bodies were scattered across acre after acre, but none of the attackers had died. The only victims were Muslim immi­ grants. The toll was more than 1,700 from the five hour rampage. Entire families were wiped out; members of several families were lined up next to each other, from grandfathers to infants not more than a few months old. A study of the reasons behind the riots underlines a common factor between Bangladesh and northeast India: land. Many of the Lalung tribespeople complained of the way they had been “duped” out of their land by successive waves of migrants, many of whom had lived in the area for generations. The migrants bought the rich, fertile paddyfields from the tribals, getting them to sign documents they did not understand, getting around British-made laws which disallowed the purchase of tribal land by non-tribals. “We have pattas (land deeds) to show we have the rights to this place, we did not deserve to die like this,” said a young Muslim man named Motalib Khan. He and others proclaimed they had been bom in Assam along with their fathers and broods of cousins. “We know the attackers," said Motalib, as he surveyed the carnage. "These were people we had grown up with, played together, studied together, talked together, how can they hate us so?” asked Motalib. It was a question that none of his fellow villagers could answer, but the fear and trauma behind that question remains. As Motalib asked, “We are Indians, not Bangladeshis, we were bom here, where can we

A study of the reasons behind the riots underlines a common factor between Bangladesh and northeast India: land.

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go?" The attackers fled to the nearby hills. Only a few were caught, and the cases against them were never followed up. Assamese villagers say new migrants from Bangladesh have been coming stealthily to the area, drawn by their relatives and the possibility of a life of dignity. There were other conflicts elsewhere in the valley during the 1983 election between Assamese Hindus and tribespeople; between Assamese Hindus and Bengali Hindus; and more attacks by Assamese and native tribespeople on Muslim immigrants. In total, some 5,000 people died. In each case, the key issue was land. Ethnic Conflict in Tripura and Bangladesh

There were other conflicts elsewhere in the valley during the 1983 election between Assamese Hindus and tribespeople------In total. some 5,000 people died. In each case, the key issue was land.

Tripura is the only state in India, barring Sikkim, where the original inhabitants have become a minority in their own land. Tripura is a small thumb of land that juts into Bangladesh from Assam’s southeast. An area of about 4,116 square miles, it has a semi-tropical climate and is flanked on three sides by Bangladesh with a land border of more than 480 miles. Unlike Assam and West Bengal, Tripura has been swamped by Hindu refugees who have been coming since the 1950s. The state is a small area that was dominated by nineteen tribes with the characteristics of Southeast Asians. They are Buddhists and Christians, yet the state’s population has been converted to a Bengali majority in a few decades. One estimate says that 600 persons fled to Tripura every day after Hindus were attacked in East Pakistan in 1961. In 1947,93 percent of Tripura’s population of about 600,000 were tribespeople. By 1981. they were reduced to a minority of 28.5 percent of a population of 2.06 million, and they had lost political power.” A bitter insurgency began in 1980 and continued, with hundreds of Bengalis being killed, until leaders of the movement signed a peace pact with Delhi in 1988. The leader of the insurgency. Bijoy Hrangkhawl, said that he was driven to revolt because he believed that the Bengalis would swamp his people. As part of the accord, the government agreed to rehabilitate the insurgency’s fighters, restore old lands to dispossessed Tripuris, and check the illegal influx. But Hrangkhawl says that aliens are still crossing into his state, and he has warned New Delhi that failure to curb this could trigger fresh trouble. Indeed, a small insurgent operation, independent of Hrankhawl, has been attacking officials since mid-1991. Within Bangladesh, in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, south of Tripura, another ethnic conflict rages. The Bangladesh Government has pressed a settlement policy, encouraging Muslim, Bengali-speaking migrants to move to a thinly-populated but thickly-forested region where Buddhist and Chris­ tian tribal groups have lived for centuries. The ensuing clashes have been converted into an insurgency that is still continuing, taking a toll on settlers, the original tribal inhabitants, and the Bangladesh military forces. The insurgency is being actively supported by New Delhi, which sees it as an opportunity to control its impoverished neighbor.

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By the year 2020, there will be 220 million Bangladeshis and one billion Indians competing for land and jobs. Without policies on population, migration, and flood and river control in the next few years, we will see clashing nationalities and ethnic groups on the borders of India and Bangla­ desh, perhaps on a greater scale than in Yugoslavia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Conclusion Bangladesh, with its meager resources and swelling population, is simply not in control of its own destiny. The future of the country lies in a combined attack by Dhaka and its neighbors on the overpopulation and poverty that is sweeping the entire Gangetic-Brahmaputra basin. No nation in this region can operate in isolation. The following proposals deserve further study: First, a regional grouping that was set up in the mid-1950s to help cooperation among the countries of the area — Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives — must muster the political will to ensure that policies are actually pursued. At the moment, cooperation is taking place at a very peripheral level and is limited to resolutions. A problem with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is that mutual suspicions among its members have virtually frozen relations between countries like Pakistan and India. India is regarded as the big power of the area which is constantly hectoring the others and trying to get them to fall in line. This suspicion is not entirely tme although New Delhi does try to pressure the other countries on issues that it regards as important. Without political will, none of the other proposals suggested below can work. Second, governments must take administrative and security measures to stem the illegal flow of migrants. Countries that find it difficult to secure jobs for their own people will not be well-disposed toward other nationalities seeking those very jobs. It has been suggested that India and Bangladesh create a 150-meter “security belt” on either side of the international frontier that would enable better policing. But Bangladesh has rejected this sugges­ tion, given the country’s acute pressures on land and the political implications of such a step. India is in a better position to implement the plan by shifting communities along the border to other areas and by compensating them adequately. Third, soil conservation, better agricultural and irrigation planning, and upstream reforestation can all be used to reduce flooding. These steps will help slow the Brahmaputra and its tributaries in their headlong dash for the plains. Fourth, water catchment areas in the lower and medium Himalayas should be organized on a massive scale to control run-off before the monsoon rains sweep down into the Gangetic and Brahmaputra valleys. Reforestation goes hand-in-hand with such a scheme. An obvious target for development is Nepal, one of the world’s best examples of a devastated forest system, ruined by unscientific and reckless felling that has greatly reduced forest

Soil conservation, better agricultural and irrigation planning, and upstream reforestation can all be used to reduce flooding.

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cover in the past decades. Fifth, according to a 1986 CSE report, there arc many places in the hill regions of India where small hydroelectric power generators ranging from “a few kilowatts to several megawatts” could energize rural communities.54 Citing the example of China, which has more than 88,000 small hydro-power stations, the CSE report advocates small units capable of being built, maintained and operated by rural communities. Sixth and much more ambitiously, the founder of the Mitsubishi Research Institute of Japan, Masaki Nakajima, proposes a $500 billion plan to stimu­ late the world economy with a series of international projects financed through a Global Infrastructure Fund. A preliminary study proposes eleven large dams around the Brahmaputra loop where the TSang-po, as the river is known in Tibet, roars through the Himalayan hills into the Assam valley. These power stations would generate 70,000 megawatts.35 Seventh, Indian river experts say that giant, multipurpose dams on major rivers in Arunachal Pradesh, near Tibet, can store at least six million hectare-meters of water. They say this will reduce the level of floods in Assam and in Bangladesh. The dams there and on the Barak in Cachar would also protect the Cachar Plain and benefit the Meghna basin and Sylhet in Bang­ ladesh. Eighth, the reduction of the flood flow of the Brahmaputra by even a few feet would make all the difference for major displacement and property destruction in Assam and in locations further downstream. Verghese says that this could positively affect as much as one-third of the normally flood-prone areas of Bangladesh, release new areas for cultivation and settlement during the wet seasons, and create opportunities for irrigation in the dry season. Good logging techniques, sound soil conservation and cropping practices, as well as careful watershed management, could all contribute to flood control. The improvement of water conservation in the catchment areas will reduce, not stop, the fierce flooding downstream. But it will raise water tables for drinking and agriculture and contribute to sustainable and productive land use. But arguments in favor of the efficacy of large dams are countered by advocates of sustainable development These groups say that India and other low-income nations cannot afford such mega-projects which may not be able to stand up to the high degree of seismicity and also face the problem of silting. They say that the benefits of such a scheme will reach largely urban populations and industrial belts, benefitting middle class groups, and not rural populations. Cities and industry arc among the largest consumers of power. Those opposed to the construction of the Narmada Dam in central and western India, India’s most controversial development project, say that these and other factors, regarding the rights of the displaced, are not taken into consideration when such projects are conceived. The leaders of the anti-Narmada project say that local villagers and communities should be consulted on such issues and that decisions about their lives should not be taken at state or national capitals. They also say that smaller dams, with lower outlays, and the harnessing of alternative energy sources, such as solar and

The reduction of the (food flow of the Brahmaputra by even a few feet would make all the difference for major displacement and property destruction in Assam and in locations further downstream.

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wind power, are the right path for development for a nation of India’s size with its financial restraints and pressure on natural resources. Despite the obstacles, there is no choice but to cooperate, to pool resources and expertise, and to work for a marriage of great dams, small projects and local conservation. This will help the populations of these regions avoid bitter conflicts arising from the destruction of the commons, increased scarcity of cropland, and diminishing jobs.

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Not68 1.

B.G. Verghese, Waters o f Hope (New Delhi: Oxford and 1BH Publishing Company, 1991), p. 402.

2.

M ahabab Hossein, “Briefing Paper (Bangladesh)" (London: Overseas Development Institute, November 1990), p. 1.

3.

Ibid.

4.

Ibid.

5.

Ibid., p. 3.

6.

Interview with author, Modhupur, February 1991.

7.

Vcrgbesc, p. 32.

8.

Interview with author. New Delhi, April 1991.

9.

Hossein, p. 1.

10. Census o f India: Provisional Results 1991 (New Delhi: Registrar-General. Census Operations).

11. Ibid. 12. Thom as Homer-Dixon, Jeffrey BoutwelL, and George Ralhjens, “Environmental Change and Violent Conflict,” Scientific American, February 1993, p. 40. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Hossein, p. 3. 16. United States Agency for International Development (USAID), “Eastern Waters Report," Executive Summary (Dhaka: United States Agency for International Development. 1989). 17. Atiur Rahman, “ Impact o f Riverbank Erosion: Survival Strategies of Displacees" (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute o f Development Studies, 1985), p. 11. 18. Vcrghesc, p. 122. 19. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), “R oods, Flood Plains and Environmental M yths" (New Delhi: Cen­ tre for Science and Environm ent 1991), p. 23. 20. Ibid., pp. 147-148. 21. Ibid., p. 60. 22. Ibid., p .7 7 . 23. John R. Rogge, “Riverbank Erosion. Flood and Population Displacement in Bangladesh" (Dhaka: Jabangimagar University, October 1990), p. 35. 24. Rahman, pp. 19-20. 25. Vcrghesc, p. 32. 26. Ibid., p. 121. 27. Census o f India: Assam Pari I I C (ii). Language (Gauhati, Assam: Director of Census Operations, 1971), p. 92. The 1991 census report for the states o f India have not yet been released and are unlikely to be published for tw o to three years. 28. Sharifa Begum, “Birthrate and Deathrate in Bangladesh, 1951-74" (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Develop­ ment Studies, August 1979).

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65 29. Sbarifa Begum, “Population, Birth, Death and Growth Rates in Bangladesh: Census Estim ates'' (Dhaka: Bangla­ desh Institute o f Development Studies, 1990), p. 56. 30. Marcus Franda, Bangladesh: The First Decade (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1981), p. 235. 31. C e n su so f India, 1991. 32. Author’s interview with security officials. New Delhi. 1991. 33. Census o f India: Tripura (Agartala: Director of Census Operations, 1981). 34. Centre for Science and Environment, “The State o f India’s Environment, 1984-1985’ (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1986), p. 110. 35. V ergbese.pp. 188-189.

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About the Authors

Astri Suhrke is currently the director of research at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway. She received her Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Denver. She has published widely in the fields of migration and refugee studies, ethnic and minority relations, and South and Southeast Asian international relations. Her most recent book is Escape from Violence: Conflict and Refugees in the Developing World (Oxford University Press, 1989), co-authored with Aristide Zolberg and Sergio Aguayo. Contact: Department of Social Science and Development Chr. Michelsen Institute Fantoftvegen 38 N-5036 Fantoft, Bergen NORWAY Phone: (47-5) 57.40.00 Fax: (47-5) 57.41.66

Sar\joy Hazarika has been a reporter for The New York Times from South Asia since 1981. He is the author of Assam, Crisis o f Identity, and Bhopal: The Lessons o f a Tragedy, and is working on a book on insurgency, migration and ethnic conflicts in eastern India and Bangladesh. He has also written extensively for Indian newspapers and magazines on the problems caused by migration. Contact: The New York Times B/14 Press Enclave Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA Phone: (91-11)332.1965 Fax: (91-11)332.5993

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Workshop on Environmental Change, Population Displacement and International Conflict Institute for Research on Public Policy Ottawa, Canada June 16-19, 1991

Participants Tahir Amin Institute of Policy Studies Islamabad, Turkey Jeffrey Boutwell American Academy of Arts and Sciences Cambridge, MA Janet Welsh Brown World Resources Institute Washington, DC Paul Demeny Population Council New York, NY Sergio Diaz-Briquets Formerly, Commission for Study of International Migration and Cooperative International Development

Thomas Homer-Dixon Peace and Conflict Studies Program University of Toronto Toronto, Canada Bernard Nietschmann University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA David Runnalls Institute for Research on Public Policy Ottawa, Canada AJan Simmons York University Toronto, Canada Astri Suhrke Chr. Michelsen Institute Bergen, Norway

Fen Hampson Carleton University Ottawa, Canada

Emilio Vargas Mena Fundacion Guilombe Costa Rica

Shaukat Hassan Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security Ottawa, Canada

Anne Whyte International Development Research Center Ottawa, Canada

Sanjoy Hazarika The New York Times New Delhi, India

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