Summary: Briefing by Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, on Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Humanitarian Effects of Environmental Degradation and Peace and Security, during the Security Council meeting.
Allow me to thank the Council presidency of the Niger for having extended an invitation to me as the Security Council discusses a very critical topic, namely, “Maintenance of international peace and security: the humanitarian impact of environmental degradation and peace and security”.
Today’s threats to international peace and security have shifted from conflicts between States to violence due to non-State actors. An assessment of the root causes of those conflicts shows that a large proportion have a link to the environment. That link is due either to an abundance of natural resources such as oil, minerals or wildlife, or to scarcity of land, water or vegetation.
In arid lands, such as in Africa’s Sahel region, violence often erupts over competition for access to depleted land and scarce water resources. A combination of three factors exacerbates that situation.
The first factor is a heavy reliance on natural resources for the satisfaction of basic needs for farmers, pastoralists and fishermen/women. City dwellers may have additional income, but they, too, are largely dependent on income generated in rural areas. Secondly, with land degradation, drought and climate change, resources are shrinking. And, thirdly, a steady population increase has put additional pressure on natural resources.
Satisfying the growing demand of a population that relies essentially on resources that are being depleted at an alarming rate makes the situation unpredictable in the long run, a situation that is compounded by weak governance, weak institutions and limited capacities to respond to emergencies.
Despite the heroic efforts of the humanitarian community, lives are being saved but not changed. Year after year, the vicious circle intensifies. We must dig more deeply in order to address the root causes.
Conflicts over access to natural resources are not new, but their intensity and frequency are unprecedented. Farmers and pastoralists fight for control of scarce fertile land and water. As the users of natural resources are from different tribes or religious groups, and in the absence of a strong judiciary system, there are cases of excessive violence, leading to cycles of dangerous retaliations.
Droughts hit more frequently and more severely. Drought has always been a serious threat to lives and livelihoods. It is a phenomenon that is already affecting every climatic region, with approximately 70 countries now regularly affected. In the past three years alone, more than 25 countries have declared a national emergency due to drought. Drought means water shortages, power outages, degraded health and stalled economic momentum. Droughts annually wipe out enough produce to feed 81 million people every day for the entire year; that is the equivalent of the population of Germany.
Episodes of drought can double the risk of rioting in vulnerable communities. Food prices spike and civil unrest erupts, triggered mostly by vulnerable people living in the suburbs of large cities. Years of drought generally correspond to years of economic downturn for many countries whose economies essentially depend on the primary sector.
I believe that there are four dimensions to consider when we address environment and security linkages: first, ecosystem goods and services fundamentally underpin human well-being and human security; secondly, conflict, irrespective of its source, affects the viability or sustainability of investments in environmental protection and their outcomes; thirdly, ecosystem degradation, resource competition and the inequitable distribution of benefits increase vulnerability and the risk of conflict; and, fourthly, environmental cooperation can increase capacities for conflict management, prevention and recovery.
The scope of security and insecurity is by no means limited to violent conflict or its absence but includes the roots of sustainable livelihoods, health and well-being. Different types of violence are associated with increased rural-urban migration due to drought and desertification. For example, grievances against a Government might increase when agricultural outcomes are depressed by drought and its induced out-migration.
In other cases, the unfulfilled economic hopes of poor migrants, combined with the prevalence of youth street gangs, lead youth into spirals of violence. Desperate and lacking many prospects, young people may be easy prey for terrorist groups and traffickers of all stripes. Frustration and dissatisfaction due to the inequitable sharing of State income, especially that generated from extractives, lead to serious grievances and sometimes rebellions.
The vast majority of the world’s population relies on ecosystem services rooted in the soil. Therefore, the health of the land — due to its direct and indirect influences on the economy, degree of empowerment and human rights — catalyses the impact of environmental degradation on peace, security and stability.
Our capacities to assess and address the security risks driven by environmental degradation and climate change are not keeping pace with the speed with which the risk landscape is changing.
So how do we prevent environmental degradation and foster peace and security? We need to understand how difficult it is to mobilize societies against a threat whose costly consequences may not be felt until it is too late to prevent them.
Environmental security underpins the rationale for investment in global environmental benefits and is essential to maintaining the Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems, which generate water, food and clean air. Reducing environmental security risks also depends fundamentally on improving resource governance and social resilience to natural-resource shocks and stresses.
Indeed, the positive aspect of the central and fundamental link between humankind and land is that the pendulum may swing in both directions. Protecting lands could thus trigger a broad peace, stability and ecosystem recovery cycle, a constructive feedback loop extending far beyond an initial choice to protect the environment.
At the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, most of our flagship programmes tackle environmental degradation as a means to promote peace and security, for example, the Initiative on Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa, which is aimed at addressing the security challenges linked to land degradation and desertification. It aims to support African countries in the creation of decent green jobs in land rehabilitation. Another important initiative with a similar goal is the Great Green Wall. I am sure that Inna Modja will speak more about the vision of that initiative.
These are just examples of actions, but the threats that climate and environmental change pose to international peace and security need to be addressed across the entire impact chain by mitigating climate change, attenuating its consequences for ecosystems, adapting its socioeconomic systems, better managing the heightened resource competition it will bring about and strengthening conflict-management institutions.
To prevent conflicts while protecting our planet, we ought to tackle environmental degradation. Our environment is our health, our wealth and our wellbeing. If we, in a coordinated way, avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation, we can better pre-empt, prevent and manage many conflicts in the world.