LAST month in the Indian state of Tripura local militants slaughtered over 60 settlers, many of them of Bangladeshi origin. Some believe that environmental problems had more to do with the massacres than religion and politics, India鈥檚 traditional sources of unrest.
During the past 50 years, 10 million Bangladeshis have fled landlessness and poverty in their homeland and moved illegally into India. They are, in effect, environmental refugees and in Tripura, along with other Bengali-speaking people, they now constitute the ethnic majority. Tribal groups concerned about the loss of their land and influence have mounted campaigns of terror against the settlers.
Environmentalists have been claiming for years that environmental problems often lead to conflict. Recently, politicians and military officials have taken up the refrain. 鈥淓nvironmental problems may not be a prima facie cause of conflict,鈥� suggested British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind earlier this year, 鈥渂ut they undoubtedly contribute to disputes and wars.鈥� Last October Germany鈥檚 environment minister, Angela Merkel, argued that the greenhouse effect, desertification and the increasing scarcity of water were likely to cause 鈥渧iolent conflicts and millions of environmental refugees鈥�. Wally N鈥橠ow, the secretary-general of the 1996 UN Habitat II conference, went even further, boldly stating that the next war would be fought over water.
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Meanwhile the Pentagon and the CIA have made major policy statements about 鈥渆nvironmental security鈥�, and dozens of research programmes, some commissioned by NATO, are trying to establish the precise links between environmental problems and conflict. One of the most comprehensive programmes is the Project on Environment, Population and Scarcity at the University of Toronto in Canada, headed by Thomas Homer-Dixon. 鈥淓nvironmental scarcity is never the sole cause of conflict,鈥� says Homer-Dixon, 鈥渂ut it does contribute to chronic strife within countries.鈥�
In more than 10 case studies in developing countries, Homer-Dixon鈥檚 team has identified three principal factors that can increase tension over resources. Sometimes they operate in tandem, as in Gaza. First, there is the degradation and depletion of a key resource, in this case the water aquifer, which reduces supply. Second, population growth increases demand for the resource. Third, one sector of society, in this case the Israeli settlers, takes a disproportionate share, leaving less for the others-the Palestinians. Water scarcity has contributed to violence in Gaza, say the Toronto researchers, although it is not the sole cause of it.
Homer-Dixon鈥檚 studies show that the rich and powerful often monopolise scarce resources. The 1989 eviction of black Mauritanians from the Senegal River valley by the politically powerful Moors, who coveted newly irrigated farmland, is an example of 鈥渞esource capture鈥�. The corollary of this is 鈥渆cological marginalisation鈥�, when the poor are forced to migrate, for example from good to less fertile soils.
It was the migration of poor farmers from El Salvador into Honduras that sparked off the 1969 Soccer War between the two countries, and Homer-Dixon believes that similar factors-lack of land, deforestation and population growth-lay behind the 1994 Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico. But Homer-Dixon distances his team from the environmental determinists who claim that environmental factors lay behind the genocide in Rwanda. At most, he says, they played a 鈥渓imited, aggravating role鈥�.
鈥淥ur aim,鈥� he says, 鈥渨as to establish whether there were important linkages between environmental scarcity and violence, and if there were, to determine how they worked. We believe we have established significant patterns of causation.鈥�
Some researchers remain unconvinced. 鈥淟inking two things doesn鈥檛 mean there鈥檚 a causal relationship,鈥� says Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute, which recently hosted a NATO workshop on conflict and the environment. Gleditsch says that the case study approach is flawed because it fails to look at cases where environmental degradation has failed to lead to conflict.
Hidden conflict
Homer-Dixon says his team has done precisely that. 鈥淲e鈥檝e recently looked at cases, such as in Indonesia, where we thought severe environmental stress didn鈥檛 produce violence. Ironically, we found a lot of evidence of exactly the environment-conflict links that we assumed weren鈥檛 there.鈥�
If there is a predictable pattern in the link between environmental problems and conflict, then one might expect it to influence military policy. Warren Christopher, a former US secretary of state, recently forecast that 鈥渢he nexus between security and the environment will become ever more apparent鈥�.
Gary Vest, NATO鈥檚 principal deputy under-secretary of defence for environmental security and co-chair of a NATO pilot study on environment and conflict, claims there is very little evidence that environmental degradation leads directly to conflict. However, he believes that governments should monitor critical environmental indicators in order 鈥渢o do something on a non-military basis to avoid a move into humanitarian crises or war鈥�.
Among the more critical issues is nuclear risk in the former USSR. The US and Russia are working on a range of previously unthinkable joint ventures, including the dismantling of old Soviet nuclear submarines. Self-interest as well as altruism is at work here. According to a British intelligence source, the risk of radioactive fallout from a nuclear accident in the former Eastern bloc countries is causing greater concern to analysts than localised disputes over water or fish because its effects would be felt far beyond the borders of Eastern Europe. For example, there are serious fears about Kozloduy nuclear power station in Bulgaria. As Vest puts it: 鈥淪ome people believe that Chernobyl-style accidents pose a greater threat to Western Europe than the Soviet military ever did.鈥�
Many environmentalists believe that old notions of national security are outmoded, and that military spending should be diverted away from the acquisition of weaponry towards sustainable development. If environmental stress is a root cause of conflict, argues Homer-Dixon, 鈥渢his makes issues of sustainability, of environmental protection, and of the distribution of wealth and resources unavoidable in discussions of national security鈥�. In the interests of peace, say environmentalists, governments should be investing in such things as sustainable forestry, water conservation and land reform.
The idea of transferring spending from frigates to forests has yet to catch on at the top level of government, but aid agencies like Britain鈥檚 Overseas Development Administration (ODA) wryly point out that they are long-time supporters of projects which seek to improve environmental conditions, and thus defuse tensions arising over the use of resources. The ODA eschews the term environmental security, preferring to talk about better natural resource management.
In the ODA鈥檚 view, aid can reduce conflict by tackling its underlying causes-which may be environmental-and reconciling divided societies. For example, an ODA-funded programme in Somalia has helped restore water supplies that were destroyed during the civil war and has organised a number of shir, traditional councils, where elders from rival clans have settled disputes over water and grazing. Communities which fled the fighting have now returned to their old homes.
But such progress may seem insignificant when compared to potential conflicts over water in regions like Central Asia, where the fledgling republics are paying the price for the environmental follies of the past. Economic growth in Uzbekistan was based on cotton monoculture: demand for water was immense, the Aral Sea shrunk to half its size and the fishing industry collapsed. In Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, pollution is devastating the Caspian fisheries, and pollution and overfishing have led to a decline in caviar-bearing sturgeon.
Committed to peace
There is considerable interstate tension, but does this mean that conflict is inevitable? Not necessarily, says Branko Bosnjakovic, the UN Economic Commission for Europe鈥檚 regional adviser on the environment: 鈥淭he problems are enormous, but there鈥檚 a strong commitment of the five republics round the Aral Sea to cooperate.鈥�
Gleditsch points out that environmentalists who predict water wars-for example, over some of the 214 rivers which pass through more than one country-fail to distinguish between rivers which run through poor, unstable countries riven by ethnic tensions, and rivers running through stable, affluent countries. The former are inherently more likely to become embroiled in conflict. Well-run democracies, in contrast, tend to resolve their differences at the conference table.
At a regional level there have been some notable successes in establishing institutions which have helped resolve water disputes. In Europe, the Rhine Commission is one example; in Southeast Asia, the Mekong Delta River Commission, supported with Australian aid, is another. But at the international level there is a feeling that existing institutions within the UN family are ill-equipped to deal with environmental security issues. The German government, co-chair with Vest of the NATO study on environment and conflict, sees institutional reform as imperative. The Germans also admit that they see their concern for the environment as a lever which might help them attain a long-standing goal: membership of the Security Council.
Over the next few months a host of institutions-ranging from NATO to the OECD鈥檚 development assistance committee and ministries in Europe-will report on their research into conflict and environmental security. Their motives are mixed, reflecting a genuine concern for the environment, a sense of unease at the new insecurities of the post-Cold War era and a good dollop of political opportunism. Whether their findings will help politicians translate sound bites into conflict-defusing policies remains to be seen.
