Abstract
There is a gap between science and policy in assessing the impact of soil degradation on migrations: policy is concluding that there is a cause-to-effect connection, already propelling massive population movements; and that action has to be taken now, even though its analysis is not yet confirmed with quantitative rigor. In the policy perspective, soil acquires a special status as an aggregator of ecosystem services that needs to be protected to prevent socio-economic and political instability which, in turn, are push factors for migrations: a set of relevant interactions between the state of soil, societal cohesion, and migration has been identified, centered on ecosystem services failures. Conversely, soil appears as a “practical object of intervention” because, more than other environmental variables, lands are concrete, localized, and understood as a fundamental value by human communities. Protecting them is likely to start comprehensive cycles of environmental and socio-economic rebalancing, with the potential of moderating population displacements. Land proper management and recovery could cost-effectively produce carbon sinks, hydric balance, biodiversity protection, food security, societal cohesion, gender benefits and more: a trans-sector approach to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
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Notes
- 1.
Status of the World Soils Resources, Rome (FAO and ITPS), 2015.
- 2.
Among others, Morrisey (2012).
- 3.
Atlas des migrations environnementales, 2016, Paris (IOM-OIM), p. 10.
- 4.
Gemenne (2011), p. 1.
- 5.
Gray (2011), p. 3.
- 6.
Cattaneo and Peri (2015), p. 2.
- 7.
While academic literature and warnings from environmental international organizations started to proliferate 30 years ago, it wasn’t before 2009 that some timid official recognition of the peace and stability dimensions of environmental stress surfaced as a shared concern in the official world of policy makers. The turning point can be pinned down in the 2009 UN Secretary General Report to the General Assembly Climate Change and its Possible Security Implications. Currently, reflections on these links are supported within G7 that, i.a., commissioned the 2015 Report A New Climate for Peace, Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks. The exception is to be found in military organizations: notably, NATO started an early evaluation for security purposes. See Conflict and the Environment: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, 1997.
- 8.
- 9.
Hsiang et al. (2011), p. 438; Lee et al. (2013), p. 1. A projection of severe near-surface permafrost degradation during the 21st century; Lee (2009).
- 10.
Zhang et al. (2007), p. 19214.
- 11.
Austin and Bruch (2000).
- 12.
Most explicitly on this issue, Migration and Desertification, UNCCD Factsheet Series n. 3, Bonn, 2014.
- 13.
- 14.
UNCCD, policy brief on migration, http://www.unccd.int/Lists/SiteDocumentLibrary/Publications/Migration%20policy%20brief%20Final%20draft.pdf.
- 15.
- 16.
Migration, Environment and Climate Change – Assessing the Evidence, Geneva (IOM), 2009.
- 17.
Land Based Adaptation and Resilience, Bonn (UNCCD), 2014.
- 18.
- 19.
The Aral Sea region crisis directly concerns Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and affects Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan indirectly.
As stated in a Letter dated 12 September 2013 from the Permanent Representative of Uzbekistan to the United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General, “The Aral Sea catastrophe stands as convincing evidence of the interplay” between the environment and strategic security. For this reason, the countries in the region affected by the catastrophe are increasingly drawing the attention of the international community to the fact that the destruction of the Aral Sea will have damaging effects not just on the immediate area, but on the entire world […]. Until 1960, the Aral Sea was one of the largest closed bodies of water in the world. It was 426 km long and 284 km wide, with an area of 68,900 km2, a volume of water of 1083 km3, and a maximum depth of 68 m. The Aral Sea region had a large variety of flora and fauna; its waters contained 38 species of fish and a range of rare animals; it was the habitat of 1 million saiga antelopes; and its flora included 638 species of higher plants. The Aral Sea played a vital role in the development of the regional economy, its industries, sources of employment and sustainable social infrastructure. In the past, the Aral Sea was among the richest fisheries in the world: 30,000–35,000 tonnes of fish were caught annually in the waters of the Aral Sea region. More than 80 % of those living along the Aral Sea shore were employed in catching, processing and transporting fish and fish products. The fertile lands of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya deltas and the rich grazing lands provided employment for more than 100,000 people in livestock rearing, poultry breeding and raising agricultural crops.
The Aral Sea also served to regulate the climate and mitigated the sharp fluctuations in the weather throughout the region, exerting a positive influence on living conditions, agriculture and the environment. In winter, arriving air masses heated up over the waters of the Aral Sea. In summer, they cooled down over the same waters.
The problems of the Aral Sea arose and expanded into a threat in the 1960s, as a result of the feckless regulation of the major cross-border rivers in the region—the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, which had previously provided some 56 km3 of water to the Aral Sea each year. A jump in the population in the area, urbanization, intensive land development and the construction of major hydrotechnical and irrigation facilities on the water courses of the Aral Sea basin carried out in previous years without regard for environmental consequences led to the desiccation of one of the most beautiful bodies of water on the planet. Within a single generation, an entire sea was virtually destroyed. The process of environmental degradation continues, and the Aral Sea region is becoming a lifeless wasteland.
Over the past 50 years, the total outflow from rivers into the Aral Sea has fallen almost 4.5 times, to an average of 12.7 cubic kilometres. The area of the sea’s surface is eight times smaller than it was, and the water volume has decreased by more than a factor of 13. The water level, which until 1960 had reached a maximum of 53.4 m, has fallen by 29 m. Salinity has increased by more than 13–25 times and is now 7–11 times higher than the average mineralization of the world’s oceans.
The sand-salt Aralkum desert, with a surface area of more than 5.5 million hectares, is inexorably taking over the Aral region and now covers the dried-up portion of the sea that was once home to a wealth of flora and fauna and served as the natural climatic regulator of the adjacent areas. Constant environmental risk, with its negative impact on the quality of life, health and, most importantly, the population’s gene pool, now affects not only the areas around the Aral Sea, but the whole region of Central Asia.
- 20.
Environment and Security in the Amu Darya Basin, Nairobi (UNEP), 2011.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
Target 15.3 of the 2030 Development Agenda.
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Mastrojeni, G. (2017). Soil Degradation and Migrations in the Age of the Global Environmental Crisis: A Policy-Making Perspective. In: Ginzky, H., Heuser, I., Qin, T., Ruppel, O., Wegerdt, P. (eds) International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy 2016. International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy, vol 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42508-5_14
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