Environmental Refugees

Numbers of Environmental Refugees

Environmental change is a broad concept, encompassing short-term disasters such as cyclones, tsunamis, and eruption of volcanoes, as well as progressive phenomena such as land degradation, deforestation, and sea-level rise. It is thus difficult to calculate the numbers of environmental refugees. Norman Myers, however, calculated that in 1995 there were 25 million environmental refugees worldwide, 5 million of whom were in the African Sahel. The same study predicted that some 200 million worldwide would be displaced in the future by climate change impacts. Such estimates are frequently questioned on the basis of a lack of policy or scholarly agreement on what environmental refugee status entails.

Legal Status

Environmental refugees differ legally from political refugees. The latter are defined in the United Nations 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol to the Convention. Refugees are defined there as people outside their state of nationality or former residence who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group or political opinion, are unwilling or unable to return to it. Environmental factors contributing to migration fall outside this definition. Hence, there is no obligation for state signatories to the above-named convention to recognize or protect even the most destitute displaced persons in the absence of persecution. Nevertheless, the legal definition of a refugee does not depend primarily on whether or how migration is forced but on the crossing of an international boundary and the consequent need for protection that is not provided by the country of origin. Thus, in circumstances where a [Page 990]person satisfies the legal criteria for refugee status, the question of environmental degradation as a causal factor is redundant.

Perspectives on Migration and Environmental Change

There are two contrasting perspectives on links between migration and environmental change that are relevant to environmental refugees. Maximalist perspectives posit that environmental degradation is a primary cause of population displacements. Direct causal links between the two are legitimized when the concept of environmental refugees is assumed to possess explanatory power in empirical contexts. For example, Norman Myers defines environmental refugees as people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation, and other environmental problems, together with the associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty.

...