Desertification and Human Migration

Abstract

This paper approaches the question how far out-migration from regions affected by desertification contributes to reducing the pressures on these lands, and hence to reducing desertification. For that purpose different forms of migration are analyzed and exemplified by case studies. The investigation concentrates on case studies representing often-observed conditions and migration patterns, and highlights the desertification-migration dynamics.

Migration of people in reaction to the changing environment is decisively shaped by social and political conditions in the places of origin as well as in the potential places of in-migration. Hence, such movements may generally be less predictable than that of other species. Desertification is not often sufficient reason for out-migration, and where it takes place, it is not necessarily a relief for the region of out-migration. As adaptations depend on a wide spectrum of social, economic, technical, and ecological factors, adaptations to changes in the natural environment may be even self-defeating. Increasingly, temporary forms of migration dominate where the family/household remains at the original place of living and is supported by remittances from the migrant(s). Farming, which otherwise would not be economically sustainable, is usually carried on in such agriculturally marginal areas, subsidized by remittances. This leads to further resource mining. Farm land is usually only abandoned when it is damaged beyond recovery and livelihood no longer secure, or when strategies of migration are so profitable that farming is no longer considered worthwhile. Policies to cope with emerging downward spirals should concentrate on the formation of and accessibility to human, physical, social, and financial capital to make labor more productive, provide income alternatives, and reduce the extensive use of free-access natural resources.