Desertification is a source of Dafur conflict

In Sudan’s Darfur region, brutal scorched-earth tactics by nomadic militias and government army units have killed at least 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million out of their homes since 2003. Stopping the mass violence has become a rallying cry for many who argue that there is a need for “humanitarian intervention.”

The ENOUGH Project, for instance, calls for an approach that mixes peacemaking, protection, and punishment of perpetrators of mass violence. In contrast to such sweeping demands, however, negotiations have focused on shoring up a weak African Union mission by deploying a “hybrid” African Union/United Nations peacekeeping force.

While Darfur shows the limits of current peacekeeping and humanitarian policy, it is also becoming clear that the roots of conflict are not found in the often-repeated claim of simplistic “ethnic hatreds.” To a considerable extent, the conflict there is the result of a slow-onset disaster—creeping desertification and severe droughts that have led to food insecurity and sporadic famine, as well as growing competition for land and water. The "Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment"—a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)—argues that severe environmental degradation is among the root causes of the conflict. The 354–page study includes the following findings:

-      Deserts have spread southwards by an average of 100 kilometers over the past four decades.

-      Land degradation is linked with overgrazing of fragile soils. The number of livestock has exploded from close to 27 million animals to around 135 million.

-      A "deforestation crisis" has led to a loss of almost 12 percent of Sudan's forest cover in just 15 years, and some areas may lose their remaining forest cover within the next decade.

-      Declining and highly irregular patterns of rainfall in parts of the country—particularly in Kordofan and Darfur states—provides mounting evidence of long-term regional climate change. In Northern Darfur, precipitation has fallen by a third in the past 80 years.

Read the Worldwatch Institute story - “Desertification as a Source of Conflict in Darfur.”

(A recent conversation with a retired long-serving politician reflected, almost perfectly, points made in this Worldwatch Institute story. I suggested that worsening conditions conflicts in Syria were attributable to climate change and the former MHR, who had been a liberal (and still was, I can only assume), immediately denied any links to climate change, but rather, he said, the trouble arose from inter-tribal disputes and ethnic hatreds – Robert McLean.)