By Sudeshna Chowdhury
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 2013 (IPS)

Untold thousands dead and thousands more stranded or missing – these are the latest figures from various reports on the devastation caused by flash floods in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Susan Martin. Credit: ISIM

According to the United Nations, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami displaced 2.2 million people in 12 countries. In Bangladesh, 4.4 million people were displaced by Cyclone Sidr and floods in 2007, estimates the world body.

And an estimated additional 200 million people will be displaced due to climate change and natural disaster by 2050, according to Refugees International.

Experts say that the assessment of damage in natural disasters becomes all the more difficult simply because of the underlying uncertainty that accompanies such calamities.

The international community has long been mulling over the impact of climate change on migration.  It is high time that climate refugees or environmental migrants get some serious attention, said Susan F. Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) in Washington, tells IPS correspondent Sudeshna Chowdhury.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: How can climate change affect migration? Is it mostly internal displacement or is it large-scale country-to-country displacement?

A: The first point is that environmental factors are seldom the principal reason that people move. People generally migrate when environmental problems intersect with other factors, such as economic (loss of livelihoods), political (lack of governmental safety nets), and social (networks of people who have already migrated) ones.

There are four pathways through which climate change is likely to increase the propensity of human mobility in the context of these other factors:

Changes in weather patterns that contribute to longer-term drying trends that affect access to essential resources such as water and negatively impact the sustainability of a variety of environment-related livelihoods including agriculture, forestry, fishing, etc.

Rising sea levels and glacier melt that cause massive and repeated flooding that render coastal and low-lying areas uninhabitable in the longer-term.

Increased frequency and magnitude of weather-related acute natural hazards.

Competition over natural resources that may exacerbate pressures, which contribute to conflict, which in turn precipitates movements of people.

The first two are slow-onset processes that are likely to lead to gradual increases in migration.

The latter two involve acute events and are likely to lead to more immediate, large-scale displacement.

We expect most of these movements to be within the borders of countries but in some cases, the migration and displacement is likely to be across international borders.

Much of the international migration is likely to be into neighbouring countries – for example, Bangladesh to India. A minority of the movements will likely be to more distant countries. There are cases, however, in which whole communities and even countries may need to be relocated, particularly in the small island states facing significant levels of rising sea levels and no interior to which people can move.

Q: Are the displaced mostly farmers and workforce from the rural sector whenever we talk about migration due to climate change?

A: It depends on the specific ways in which the impacts of climate change manifest themselves. In situations of prolonged drought, for example, the displaced are likely to be farmers and others dependent on rain-fed agriculture.

On the other hand, intense and frequent cyclones and hurricanes may displace thousands of people from urban areas along the coast. Generally, though, the extent of displacement in both rural and urban areas is tied to the way in which governments and communities prepare for and respond to these events.

With advanced planning, communities can increase their resilience to adapt to the effects of climate change in situ.

Q: Critics often argue that it is too soon to take climate change seriously. What will you tell them?

A: Ignoring the migration implications of climate change has considerable risks. If we wait too long, more people will move in emergency circumstances with little choice of destination and few opportunities to protect themselves from harm.

Policies should avoid situations where affected populations are forced to move (distress migration) or move in emergency situations. Special attention should be paid to providing alternatives to irregular migration through targeted temporary and circular work programmes. In cases, however, where the impacts of climate change preclude return to home countries, the focus should be on permanent admissions.

Q: Has there been enough documentation that can establish the link between climate change and migration?

A: There are still many gaps in our understanding of the interconnections between climate change and migration. Perhaps the most important involves numbers. As of today, there are no credible projections of the number or characteristics of persons who are likely to migrate principally as a result of environmental change.

Many of the estimates that have been published conflate different forms of movement: short-distance movements, longer-distance internal movements, cross-border movements into neighbouring countries, and longer distance international movements.

The estimates do not distinguish between temporary displacement and permanent relocation within each of these forms of migration. Nor do they provide information about the gender, sex, age, or socio-economic characteristics of those who are likely to migrate in each of these categories. And, there is little information about the likely migration corridors – that is, projecting from where and to where people will migrate.

We need considerably more empirical research on communities already experiencing significant environmental impacts to help develop the evidence base needed to make more accurate projections, not only of overall levels of migration but, more importantly, of how migration is likely to manifest itself.

Q: Which are the regions to be worst affected by climate change?

A: Climate change will have impacts on both developing and developed countries. The difference is that developed countries generally have the financial resources to be able to prepare, respond and recover from the effects of climate change.

The impacts will be felt more acutely in poor countries and, especially, in those weak governance or experiencing conflict and political instability.

If the experience with the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and Chile is a harbinger of what is likely to happen, particularly in acute events, it is worth noting that a much stronger earthquake in Chile led to little loss of life, largely because of building codes and other preparatory actions, whereas a weaker earthquake in Haiti led to devastating loss of life and displaced millions.

The natural hazard (the earthquake) was not the principal culprit; poor governance and poverty made people in Haiti much more vulnerable.

Excerpt:

Forty-nine percent of all disaster survivors are women. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Malini Shankar
BHUBANESWAR, India, Oct 13 2012 (IPS)

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, women are often the most vulnerable. Particularly in rural areas, women suffer disproportionately from inadequate shelter and poor sanitation facilities and are often tasked with rebuilding shattered homes.

The theme for this year’s international day of disaster reduction, led by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), is more relevant than ever: ‘Women and Girls: The [in]Visible Force for Resilience’.

Across India, droughts and floods – which Rajan Joshua of the Society for Education and Development (SEDS) described as “two sides of the same coin” – have put scores of women at risk, but also highlighted their ability to endure and adapt to even the most harsh conditions.

Vikrant Mahajan, chief operating officer of Sphere India, a New Delhi-based non-governmental organisation working on disaster relief operations in the subcontinent, told IPS, “Forty-nine percent of all disaster survivors are women”, many of whom face extreme challenges in the post-disaster period.

While conducting field research for her PhD, Parimita Routray, a student of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in Bhubaneswar, encountered shocking tales from rural women across the eastern state of Orissa, which is prone to floods, sea surge, storms, cyclones and seawater incursions.

“I have seen fisher folk using the beach for defecating and using sea water for cleansing,” Routray told IPS. “During my field visits, I have not come across a single water or sanitation programme for fisher folk.”

The lack of facilities itself is a “disaster in the making”, especially in a state that is susceptible to a host of natural catastrophes, she added.

“Women from the Kusupur village in the Puri district of Orissa, told me they find it extremely difficult to manage in flood or cyclone shelters, especially during their (menstrual cycle),” Routray added.

“All kinds of people (live) in those shelters and there is no privacy. A woman by the name of Pramila Pradhan in Puri district told me that women often avoid eating during the day to ensure that they can use the cover of darkness to answer nature’s call.”

At nightfall women must bear the additional risk of encountering floating animal carcasses or live snakes struggling to survive in receding waters. Without proper toilets they are also more likely to contract waterborne diseases, and must guard against epidemics like cholera, malaria, dengue and diarrhoea.

Crime rates, too, rise inevitably along with floodwaters, often hitting women hardest.

Mamata Nayak, the village council chief in Chahabatia village in Puri, told Routray that when outdoor areas used as toilets are submerged by floods, whole families are forced to defecate on dried cow dung cakes inside their homes, and then dispose of the waste in the water outside.

The Kosi River flood, which impacted over 3.3 million people in India’s western Bihar state in 2008, highlighted another aspect of women’s vulnerability to natural crises.

For miles around, agricultural fields were submerged in silt, leaving millions homeless and preventing farmers from cultivating their fields. The desilting process has not been completed to this day, forcing men to migrate in search of employment.

The women left behind were tasked with repairing homes that had been destroyed in the floods, as well as running households on next to nothing.

Even today, “Women (lament) that government officials who interview them for compensation demand that they produce property papers (land deeds) in order to legally claim compensatory housing,” Jaya Jha, coordinator of collaborative advocacy with Sphere India told IPS.

“These women are now desperately in need of shelters, water and sanitation. Inadequate power supplies and a dearth of health care services are worsening the situation,” she added.

Because they bear the brunt of disasters, women are determined to find ways to mitigate the effects of natural calamities.

Mamtha Kulkarni, a Bangalore-based advocate hailing from the Gadag district in northern Karnataka, a highly drought-prone and arid region, told IPS, “Water supply is reliable only twice a month and rainfall is so scanty that growing water-hungry crops like rice and green vegetables is impossible.”

“So instead, women in the villages cultivate gherkins, onions, garlic, tomatoes and aubergines. The only fruit we can grow is bananas. All our food recipes utilise these commodities to balance our nutrition needs – our staple diet includes maize flour-based steamed cakes and lentil salads,” she said.

Annie George of Building and Enabling Disaster Resilience of Coastal Communities (BEDROC), an NGO involved in tsunami relief in the town of Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu, believes women-led efforts are the best solution.

“Recovering and strengthening traditional skills is far more sustainable than developing alternate skills and livelihoods. Protection, promotion and expansion of livelihoods should be the approach (…).”

Strong policies, legislation and other supportive structures and networks are “essential and the governments should take this aspect very seriously”, she added.

In the Anantapur district of the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh – a region afflicted by drought in six out of every 10 years – droughts and floods are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

“For SEDS (located in Anantapur) it was clear that the women and the community as a whole need to be able to produce, reproduce and invent ways to mitigate disturbance of their livelihoods as a result of climate variations,” SEDS CEO Manil Jayasena Joshua told IPS.

“We support community organisations, (traditional) agricultural practices, natural resource management and health services,” Joshua stressed.

“All our projects, programmes and trainings are aimed at promoting self-reliance for rural women in the disaster-prone Anantapur district. An integrated approach is essential for long term disaster risk reduction,” he added.

(END)