Environmental Security Research Paper

1. Evolution Of The Concept

The concept of environmental security is diffuse because it has its origins in several different evolutionary strands and research traditions. One origin is in an expansion of the concept of military security. Another is the development of a welfare concept known as ‘human security’. A third is an extension of the work in natural hazards, environmental risk assessment and the notion of ecological and geopolitical ‘vulnerabilities’, which has led to the concept of critical zones for environmental security. The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987), which is best known for elaborating the concept of ‘sustainable development,’ highlighted environmental stress as a potential cause of military conflict. The 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl was a clear message to many people that human health and ecosystem integrity were interdependent. In 1987, President Gorbachev of the USSR proposed that ‘ecological security’ should be a top priority for international relations. The concept had entered the mainstream of academic and political discourse.

1.1 Military Security

The concept of national security to include nonmilitary aspects has evolved over the past few decades, as it has been accepted that issues such as ethnic and religious differences and environmental degradation affect national stability and the likelihood of conflict. Ullman (1983) argued for an expanded definition of security in which any action or sequence of events was a threat to national security if it had major and relatively sudden impacts on quality of life or significantly narrowed the range of choices available to a government or its people. Clearly, most environmental issues would not be security issues under this definition as they occur relatively slowly and do not, by themselves, significantly restrict people’s ability to respond to them. However, some regional issues, such as water in the Middle East and the drying of the Aral Sea in central Asia (which has lost 70 percent of its volume since 1960), are significant enough to be considered a threat to national security, and an underlying cause in regional conflict. The assessment of threat is highly contextual and it is difficult to establish any direct cause and effect relationships.

The North Atlantic Treaty, under which the NATO alliance operates, was one of the first to recognize that security is not only based on military strength but also depends on economic and social security. This dimension has been increasingly important within NATO since the end of the Cold War, when environmental aspects of security were also integrated into NATO strategy (Lietzmann and Vest 1999).

1.2 Human Security

Human security was first defined as threats to physical security; in particular, freedom from fear and freedom from want. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 states that ‘everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.’ By 1994, the concept of human security had evolved to encompass seven aspects of security: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security (UNDP 1994). At the same time, a distinction was made between human security and human development. ‘Human development is a broader concept, defined as a process of widening the range of people’s choices. Human security means that people can exercise these choices safely and freely’ (UNDP 1994, p. 23).

Environmental security is highlighted as an individual component of human security and as a contributing factor to other aspects of human security, such as food, employment and health, because these depend on people’s access to natural resources, like land, water and forests. Very often, these environmental security issues are played out at a regional level between national sharing borders and environmental resources.

1.3 Critical Zones And Vulnerabilities

A related concept is that of environmental criticality, when human activity has so radically altered the natural environment that it no longer can support human populations or their economic livelihoods, and it is beyond restoration by normal ecosystem processes or human efforts at remediation (Kasperson et al. 1996). This same idea lies behind the ‘red zone’ maps of Russian geographers and the concept of ‘hot spots’ of biodiversity at risk (Myers 1993).

Whether an area becomes a critical zone depends on the rate and extent of environmental degradation, but it appears that some areas are more vulnerable to reaching a critical state than are others. This has led to an interest in why certain combinations of geographic area and human society seem to be more vulnerable than others to environmental risk, and what the thresholds and possible indicators of vulnerability and adaptation might be (Lonergan 1997).

2. Global Change And Environmental Security

More recently, the relationship between global environmental change and environmental security has been examined. Global change is manifested in many environmental effects. These stem from the warming and other changes in the atmosphere brought about through the increase of levels of carbon dioxide and other gases, and of contaminants produced through human economic activity. These environmental effects extend to changes in ocean currents, precipitation patterns on land and sea, a rising sea level, and stratospheric ozone depletion. In turn, global change impacts many aspects of ecosystem functioning and human economic activity such as loss of biodiversity, global biogeochemical cycles, agricultural and forestry production. Some of these changes are gradual and long term, while other changes relate to the frequency and severity of peak events, like hurricanes, droughts and other natural hazards. It is argued that both types of changes can significantly affect people’s ability to cope with environmental risks and thus are likely to affect environmental security and conflict.

Global change has also led to a series of global environmental negotiations and agreements, as well as bargaining about trading rights to pollute. While these efforts at environmental diplomacy might seem to reduce the potential for environment insecurity and conflict, it is clear that in the short run, there are potential winners and losers among nation states as well as possible ‘free-riders.’ Thus the global environmental negotiations can exacerbate the potential for environmental disputes. These are revealed as ideological differences between industrialized and nonindustrialized (or developing) countries, whose interests are usually clearly different, but more importantly, they tend to emphasize regional disparities and potential for conflict.

Formal international scientific programs which seek to bridge the gap between science and policy (or research and action) are beginning to examine risk, vulnerability and security. For example, the Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS) of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) is studying the relationship between global change and environmental security (GECHS 1999). It is addressing some key questions: what types of environmental change threaten security? Which regions and groups of people are the most insecure and why? Can we predict future insecurities? What strategies are available to governments and communities to cope with environmental insecurity caused by global change? Another international science program, LUCC (Land-Use and Land-Cover Change) is focusing on critical regions and vulnerable places, especially what happens to the resiliency of people, agricultural production systems and biodiversity in the face of global changes like sea-level rise and increased frequency of extreme storm events (LUCC 1999)

3. Critical Zones

It has been argued that some environments, such as rainforest and tundra, are more sensitive to human exploitation and that some forms of human development, such as rapidly growing populations or ‘frontier’ economies (where exploitation has room to move and can therefore be more destructive) exacerbate environmental vulnerabilities. Amazonia is a tropical rainforest which has been damaged by frontier development and rapidly increasing in-migration.

Kasperson et al. (1996) examined nine regions of the world which were considered potentially critical zones according to three criteria: (a) the environmental changes must threaten the basic structure and function of the ecosystem; (b) the changes must endanger human well-being or sustained human use of the area; and (c) the threat must be great enough to overwhelm the capacity of the local people or government to deal with the degradation. They concluded that only the Aral Sea is presently a critical zone because the lake is essentially dead and surrounded by evaporated salts and highly contaminated soils. However, five of the areas studied are highly endangered and are in a precritical condition. These are: Eastern Sundaland (which includes the tropical forests of Borneo and the eastern Malay Peninsula); the semi-arid Ukambani region of southeastern Kenya; the deforested and highly eroded Nepal middle mountains; the arid plains in western Texas and New Mexico; and the Basin of Mexico in which Mexico City stands.

A different approach to critical zones is that being developed in the GECHS (Global Environmental Change and Human Security) project which is to identify indicators of environmental degradation and human insecurity to develop early warning of ‘hot spots’ for potential conflict (GECHS 1999). Data quality and reliability are major problems in this approach but some initial maps have been prepared based on an Index of Human Insecurity. The indicators include water scarcity, food import dependency ratio, energy imports as a percentage of consumption, access to safe water, expenditures on defense vs. health and education, indicator of human freedoms, urban population growth, child mortality, maternal mortality, income per capita, degree of democratization, and fertility rates (Lonergan et al. 1999). The results show that the areas with the highest insecurity are most of Africa, the Middle East, and south and southeast Asia. Within these areas are so-called pivotal states which are balanced precariously between security and insecurity: between development and political and social chaos; and where what happens in that country can have far-reaching, even global effects. Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and South Africa have been identified as pivotal states.

4. Environmental Security And Conflict

A number of major research projects have focussed on the nature of the linkages between environmental security and conflict including the Peace and Conflicts Studies Programme at the University of Toronto (Homer-Dixon 1994, Homer-Dixon and Percival 1996); the Environment and Conflicts Project (ENCOP) in Switzerland (Bachler and Spillman 1996) and the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (Gleditsch 1998, Hauge and Ellingsen 1998).

The relationship between environmental stress and conflict is a complex one and may not necessarily result in violent conflict; it can also lead to negotiation and peaceful resolution. Environmental stress almost always interacts with other social, economic and political factors before leading to conflict, and any resulting conflict can lead to further environmental stress. Usually environmental stress produces human insecurity problems like food insecurity, population movements and the breakdown of social and political institutions, and it is these secondary effects which can contribute directly to conflict. Thus, environmental stress is seen as sometimes a source of conflict, a catalyst or a trigger for conflict, depending on the circumstances. The social, economic and political context has always to be considered when assessing the potential effects of environmental insecurity.

The University of Toronto study identified three conditions of resource scarcity which could lead to conflict: (a) decreased quality and quantity of renewable resources (supply induced scarcity); (b) increased population growth or per capita consumption (demand-induced scarcity); and (c) unequal access to resources (structural scarcity). These types of scarcity can act singly but often combine to produce two common phenomena: resource capture and ecological marginalization. Resource capture occurs when a decrease in resources quantity or quality coincides with population increase, and the most powerful groups in society ensure that the resources are redistributed in their favor, leading to severe environmental scarcity for the poorer and weaker. Ecological marginalization occurs when population increase and inequitable access to natural resources combine to cause population migration, usually to more marginal and less inhabited environments like steeper mountain slopes and more-arid areas. The resulting higher population densities and lack of local environmental knowledge can lead to severe environmental damage by the migrants (Homer-Dixon 1994).

The ENCOP (Environment and Conflicts) Project sponsored by the Swiss Government and the Swiss Peace Foundation considers all conflicts to be social and political events even when environmentally induced. It found that the main contextual factors for environmental insecurity are: perceptions, especially when one group sees their interests as being threatened; economic vulnerability and resource dependency; institutional and technological capacity; cultural and ethno-political factors, especially where there are differences in wealth and power; the existence of democratic institutions and political stability; participation in decision making; and what mechanisms of conflict resolution are available. Based on a series of case studies, the ENCOP project found that environmentally induced conflicts were of three main types: (a) between different groups within a country; (b) through processes such as population displacement which leads to conflicts crossing national borders; and (c) when internationally shared resources like rivers, regional environments or global commons become degraded and lead to inter-state conflict.

5. Environmental Migrants

Environmental degradation has been cited as one of four root causes of refugee flows, together with political instability economic tensions and ethnic conflict (UNHCR 1993). The number of environmental refugees is estimated to be 10 million out of the 17 million official refugees and more than half of these are believed to be in sub-Saharan Africa (Westing 1992). But the numbers may be far greater and appear to be rapidly increasing. The greatest effects of climate change may be to displace millions of people through shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural failures.

Although the World Commission on Environment and Development identified environmentally induced population movements as a recent phenomenon (WCED 1987), there is much evidence that people have had to move from land affected by natural disasters, warfare and mismanagement throughout— and before—history. Despite the size of the problem, there has been relatively little empirical research on the role of environmental change in population movements. Some of this movement is across national borders, but it is estimated that for every individual who moves across an international border, there are two or three persons who have to move within their country. These are internally displaced persons (Myers 1995).

There are a number of difficulties in understanding the role of the environment in causing people to move. Migration research has long shown that the decision to migrate is a combination of ‘push–pull’ factors, as people weigh the advantages and disadvantages of where they are presently located compared to where they plan to move. It is difficult to isolate the role of environment in this decision unless there is a specific environmental stress such as an earthquake or flood from which people are fleeing and after which they are likely to return. Other environmental ‘push’ factors include slower environmental degradation such as deforestation; soil deterioration through erosion, salinization or waterlogging; and desertification and falling water tables, which make agriculture less viable. Development projects such as dams and irrigation schemes have often involved enforced resettlement. In India, it is estimated that over 20 million people have been displaced by development projects since the 1960s (Fornos 1992).

6. Critical Perspectives

Although work on environmental security has gained momentum in the 1990s in both academic and policy circles, there are strong critics from both the security and environmental sides of the debate. Security critics point out that broadening the definition of security to include aspects like environment, food security, and economics, renders it useless as an analytical tool as it means different things to different people. Furthermore, it encourages the military to undertake ‘environmental’ missions which takes time and resources away from their real task of military preparedness. Environmental critics claim that the research in environmental security is methodologically weak and cannot find causal links between environment and security. They also see that security institutions are looking for new missions (‘greening of security’) to maintain their funding after the end of the Cold War. Developing country scientists see the concept of environmental security as a northern industrialized paradigm. There is also concern that the concept of environmental security encourages a military ‘us versus them’ approach to problem solving, where complex relationships between environmental change and human development require less simplistic and more collaborative solutions (Lipschutz 1992, Gleditsch 1997, GECHS 1999). Despite these criticisms, environmental security is rapidly developing as a focus at the nexus of research and policy.

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