Climate change and extractivism, two causes of forced migration in the world

Climate change and extractivism, two causes of forced migration in the world

• Ecologistas en Acción has published the report “Forced migrations for environmental reasons” which documents that, in recent years, people who have been forced to migrate due to environmental transformations that have degraded their livelihoods have become exponentially suspicious.
• Climate change and natural disasters, the plundering of resources, armed conflicts and environmental pollution are some of the causes behind forced displacements and environmental migrations.

Forced migration induced by elements that are related to climate change and environmental degradation has always existed in the history of humanity. However, in recent years these displacements are taking center stage in the media as well as in social and political debates.

Climate change, the plundering of resources, environmental pollution, and armed conflicts are configured as determining processes in human displacement and are necessarily linked to each other, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish a cause in a migratory process.

In the report “Forced migrations for environmental reasons. A sociopolitical approach” explores the relationship between the characteristics of the current social, political and economic system, the transformations of ecosystems and migrations.

The first part of the study addresses the complexity and multiple forms that the concepts of migration, refuge and forced displacement take, as well as the difficulty of defining the causes that generate these migratory processes, also reflecting on an aspect that is sometimes invisible: the involuntary immobility.

In the second part, an analysis of the main systemic causes that lead to forced displacement is carried out, from the description of the characteristics of the current capitalist-extractivist system to climate change and natural disasters, the plundering of natural resources, armed conflicts. or environmental pollution.

Likewise, gender and social class are elements that cut across human mobility, determining difficulties and inequalities when migrating, which is why the report dedicates a chapter to this topic. A chapter that ends with an interview with two people - one Colombian and the other Senegalese - who have experienced forced migration for reasons that are related in the study.

Francesca Ricciardi, spokesperson for Ecologists in Action and co-author of the report, has declared: “Without wanting to reduce the complexity of the migratory phenomenon to a closed definition that does not allow the understanding of migrations as a network of multiple causes, we are coming closer to understanding forced migration for socio-environmental reasons such as the expulsion of people from their territories due to social, political, economic and cultural factors related to environmental degradation.

Link to the report “Forced migrations for environmental reasons”: https://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/292750