Land Alienation and Environmental Insecurity

Abstract

In this chapter environmental security is defined in terms of livelihood security. The concept is then broadened by exploring how, in societies where agriculture and land-based resources are the main source of livelihood, issues of security become more complex as various security regimes (food, physical, social, political, and so on) impact on each other. Seemingly limited regional or local security concerns may, in certain circumstances, develop into national security problems. Hence, national security should be expanded to include non-military factors. For instance, Meadows et al. (1972 and 1992) used a neo-Malthusian approach to demonstrate that resource scarcity due to population growth and excessive consumption of non-renewable resources beyond tolerable level poses a serious threat to the economic basis of the state. As the multilateral environmental movement began to gather momentum during the early 1980s, Ullman (1983: 133), in a paper entitled ‘Redefining Security’, argued that threats that degrade the quality of life or narrow the policy options available to a set of stake-holders, represent a security threat. In this sense the quality of the environmental (productive or degraded) and the quality of life are inseparable, and are in fact mutually reinforcing. Environmental insecurity therefore should be understood within the context of a degraded environment, which often contributes to a degraded quality of life.