Blood and soil!? Scarcity and conflict re-revisited

Inspired by the growing body of literature linking natural resource scarcity to conflict, dating back at least to the 1960s but gaining momentum in recent years, Norwegian Ole Magnus Theisen published a review of the statistical literature on this link in 2008. In short, his conclusion was that large scale violence was generally not linked to scarcity of natural resources; but in stead to poverty and poor governance.

The literature reviewed have argued resource scarcity was the main cause of the Rwandan genocide, violent local clashes in Kenya, South Africa, Assam, Chiapas, Sudan and elsewhere. With varying significance land degradation, freshwater scarcity, population density (growth), deforestation, youth bulges, deviations in precipitation and similar factors have been shown to increase the risk of violent civil conflict. The problem is: when updating and expanding the datasets of two of the previous studies, Theisen was unable to replicate the statistical results.

Performing a re-computation of two statistical studies Theisen found most links previously found to be significant now fell out of traditional intervals of interest (P<0.1, at least). In the first evaluation high levels of land degradation still set off the alarm bells as it appears to significantly increase the risks of conflict onset. In the second evaluation the existence of oil resources were confirmed to increase conflicts. (The two studies didn't test for the exact same links and did also show links to non-natural resource causes, i.e. political stability.)

Theisen points out some of the problems with the studies he revisit (and with his own): Statistics have problems with investigating complex interactions such as those from natural resource scarcity to conflict, ecological fallacies are easily committed when calculating on national averages, which area is degraded and which is a rich land is sometimes determined by the eye of the beholder.

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Since 2008...
Much has happened and much has been written in the three years since Theisen published in Journal of Peace Research. He himself have co-authored a chapter, Implications of climate change for armed conflict, in the book Social dimensions of climate change: equity and vulnerability in a warming world, in which he calls the warnings of climate change possibly leading to more conflict "alarmist" (as "exaggerated"). The point is, climate change and/or resource scarcity caused by climate change or other factors are never the primary cause of conflict. But it may add yet another unbearable burden to already struggling societies and through complex social and political pathways it can contribute to conflict risk.

Global warming linked to conflict - not really. Post Cold War dynamics are clearly different. Social dimensions of climate change, page 80.

In climate change related political news (not academic research) the CIA has established a climate change office from which all research is top secret, Russia is expanding with two Arctic brigades of marine infantry and the notion of climate change already causing conflict is spreading. And that's just some recent reports, much more is to be found here at Ecowar.

Early 2011 the risk of riots was statistically linked to food prices. A food price spike in 2008 led to many food riots which in turn inspired increased "land grabs" - multinational corporations or corporations from non-poor countries buying up land in poor countries with the intention of growing food products (and biofuel) for the world market. In fact, since 2008 areas about seven times the size of Germany have been scooped up. In Guatemala hundreds of indigenous villagers have been chased from their rural homes, their huts burned as the military clear the area for richer farmers or agricultural businesses. In Nigeria, some villages have just clashed over disputed lands. Again, just some recent news.

I suspect Theisen's 2008 study would come out a bit different if done today just three years later?

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Magnus Theisen, O. (2008). Blood and Soil? Resource Scarcity and Internal Armed Conflict Revisited Journal of Peace Research, 45 (6), 801-818 DOI: 10.1177/0022343308096157

Three degrees warming doubles risk of civil war

Global patterns of civil conflict are directly associated with planetary-scale climate change. Specifically in tropical countries, the risk of civil war have just been shown to double in warmer El Niño years (to about 6% risk per country per year) compared to cooler La Niña years (when the risk is about 3%).

"When you think about it, car accidents happen all the time. But they become more likely based on some environmental conditions, like when it's raining or icy. [...] What we found is quite a bit stronger than a mere correlation."
- Solomon Hsiang

Changes in climate - including anthropogenic global warming - have been linked to conflict by historical analysis (see for example Climate change and conflict frequency), security analysts (see "Climate Change and National Security" - presentation by US Navy Admiral David Titley (video)), politicians (see UN Security Council concerned climate change may aggravate threats to peace) and in reviews of existing research (see Just read "Climate Conflict" by Jeffrey Mazo and What does climate change have to do with conflict?).

According to Solomon M. Hsiang and colleagues, however, all of the above evidence is 'anecdotal'. And it certainly isn't as concrete as their own work: Running a wide selection of statistical analysis methods on on the one hand a data set of occurrences of organized political violence of more than 25 battle-related deaths and on the other climatological records of the El Niño / Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon.

Looking into their analysis, the authors note how some conflicts seem to be re-occurring events and some seem to be merely 'displaced' in time, accelerated by the climatic shifts. Also, low-income countries are most strongly affected - but are they more at risk of climate induced conflict because they are poor and lack the means to mitigate the effects of environmental impacts? or are they poor because their political stability is sensitive to the ENSO cycle, perhaps even inherently unstable, conflict prone and poor because they are located where the ENSO climate pattern is strongest? Or is a third factor, not considered in this study, influencing or guiding the sensitivity to climate and poverty in relation to conflict proneness?

The increase in conflict risk during the about three degrees Celsius warmer El Niño years roughly corresponds to the decrease observed when average income is increased tenfold. So, could climate wars 'easily' be eliminated by raising the incomes in tropical countries by a mere 1000%? Hsiang and colleagues warn against generalization of their results to apply to global anthropogenic climate change without throughout discussions of climate-conflict links. Yet, perhaps they need not look far: weather directly influences the effectiveness of agriculture, the output of which determines food supply; and since food demand is not exactly down the recently identified link from food prices to risk of riots appears to be rather significant in this respect.

Hsiang, S., Meng, K., & Cane, M. (2011). Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate Nature, 476 (7361), 438-441 DOI: 10.1038/nature10311

This study covered elsewhere: ars technica / El Niño appearances tied to civil conflicts in tropical countries, TIME / Does El Nino—and Climate Change—Really Cause Civil Wars?, International Business Times / El Nino Doubled Chances of Civil War in Tropical Countries, Scientific American / El Nino Ups Conflict Odds, Huffington Post / Does Climate Drive Warfare? A New Study Suggests There's No Question.

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Risk of riots linked to food prices

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In 19th century Bavaria rye prices correlated to property crime rates (see Correlations from weather to sociology). When food prices spiked in 2008 commentators were smart enough to mention this might have something to do with the riots across the 3rd world (see World's poor are up in arms over food prices). The first half of 2011 has seen many riots in Africa and the Middle East and again it has been pointed out that at the same time we happen to see a food price spike on world markets (see "The Great Food Crisis of 2011" by Lester Brown and Middle East riots for food, interventions for oil?). Now a statistical study of the food price index and the riot frequencies is backing up the link.

Working with the hypothesis that "widespread unrest does not arise from long-standing political failings of the system, but rather from its sudden perceived failure to provide essential security to the population" Lagi and colleagues correlated food prices to riots. When marked on a graph of the UN food price index riots clearly cluster around price spikes. Most of the riot incidents that fall more or less outside a spike can be explained by additional extraordinary circumstances.

Food price index graphed from 2004-2011. Red lines mark riot incidents. The chance that the "Arab Spring" should have randomly coincided with the price peak is estimated to be less than six percent, even less if riots in each country are considered individually.

The researchers do not conclude "high food prices cause riots". What they say is expensive food could be one factor among others setting the stage for riots. When populations are hungry, it takes lesser trigger incidents to kick-start a riot.

"These observations are consistent with a hypothesis that high global food prices are a precipitating condition for social unrest."
 - Marco Lagi to Technology Review.

Two main causes for recent food price increases are named:

1. Investor speculation in food prices (US market deregulated)
2. Cultivation of biofuel crops on arable land (given subsidies)

The researchers are confident enough to predict "food riots occur above a threshold of the FAO price index of 210". If prices are persistently higher than that they speculate global unrest will occur. (Although we're currently above, don't panic yet - it's assumed to be a "bubble" created by investor speculation, soon to bust, driving prices below riot levels for some time.)

Same graph with inflation corrected price graph, trend lines and riot thresholds added. The trends (average price index estimates) are extrapolated to exceed the riot thresholds some time during 2012 or 2013.

The authors sent a warning letter to the US government just four days before Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia.

Sources: Technology Review / The Cause Of Riots And The Price of Food and the original paper:
Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand, Yaneer Bar-Yam (2011). The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East Physics and Society DOI: arxiv.org/abs/1108.2455

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"Rebel access to [natural] resources crucially shapes armed civil conflict"

How does rebel access to natural resources affect conflict? "How". Not "if". That is the question investigated by Päivi Lujala of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, recently published in the Journal of Peace Research.

Or rather: Where previous research has either suggested a link or sought to explain it by an indirect effect through resource abundance tending to corrupt weak governments Lujala sets out to look closer at the influence of the more exact locations of the resources (something I believe for example Le Billon did already).

Lujala is confident enough to state in the introduction that "new data on localities of hydrocarbon fields throughout the world, shows that crude oil and natural gas directly affect rebel movements [...] easily extractable resources, such as gemstones, have an effect on rebel groups." The relationship is quantified - for example:

• "If resources are located inside the actual conflict zone, the duration of conflict is doubled." And...
• "oil and gas reserves have this effect on duration regardless of whether there has been production or not."
  
• Regarding the initiation of rebellion "onshore [not offshore] oil production increases the risk of conflict onset by 50%."
  
• And "secondary diamond production increases the risk of conflict onset by more than 40%."

One of the things I have been pondering is the simple distinguishing of states of societies in just two categories: in peace or in war. It is insufficient for intelligent discussion. Lujala is adding words to this argument: "natural resources, especially those that are easily exploited, provide motivation and means for rebel uprisings." In other words, rebellions may just be organized crime with political agendas attached. Of course, even more or less "legitimate" rebel groups could be driven to resource exploitation if their financial resources are exhausted in a prolonged conflict.

Hydrocarbons have traditionally been categorized as non-lootable as production usually requires substantial international industrial activities. But Lujala finds oil reserves even not in production does have effects and explains it by rebels potentially being "willing to engage in a long conflict [...] if the future price is large enough". While regarding reserves in production exceptions are seen in Nigeria where large scale looting occurs and in Columbia where rebels extort oil companies. However, note that regarding gas "production has no effect on conflict onset." Gas probably appears too hard to loot?


A look at the statistical analysis reveals how the data set was checked for influences other than profitable natural resources. The same tests are run for presence of mountainous regions, forest cover, language differences and difficult weather. It is worth noting that separatist conflicts (over territory rather than government power) and conflicts with one or more sides being democratic tends to last longer, while countries suffering from poverty and overpopulation are more prone to conflict onset.





Lujala, P. (2010). The spoils of nature: Armed civil conflict and rebel access to natural resources Journal of Peace Research, 47 (1), 15-28 DOI: 10.1177/0022343309350015


Also see Ross, 2004 which is mentioned by Lujala several times.

Google Maps shows North Korea logging endangered tigers' protected forest

This scandal has been reported on several websites:

The sharp images from Google Earth clearly shows the North Korean communist dictatorship is logging forest areas in a UN national park. Not only does the megalomaniac Kim Jong-il seek to build a nuclear armament, impoverish his subdued people and occasionally sink South Korean ships – he's also cutting down trees in the fragile, ancient forest where the last Siberian tigers live.
International researchers have long been monitoring the NASA satellite images of the area since they are not allowed to inspect it on ground. They were wondering why the green color of the forest was fading to brownish. But the precise satellite images from Google Earth now shows why: The North Koreans have been secretly logging in strips no wider than 10 meters – too slim to stand out on the old NASA images.
“I have applied for a permit to visit the area but have been denied access”, says scientist Lina Tang.

Or maybe not. The above text is typical but it's not really a quote. It has been further dramatized in order to illustrate the symptomatic: There are two “good stories” in the recent academic research published in Biological Conservation. One is in the tale of the reckless North Koreans. The other in the coolness of Google.

Wait a second – what are we talking about?

Forest areas surrounding a mountain on the border between North Korea and China. The Koreans call the mountain Baekdu-san, the Chinese call it Changbaishan and Wikipedia calls it Baekdu Mountain. At it's peak is a picturesque lake – sacred to some, probably tourist attraction to more – called Heaven Lake. Down its slope the climate changes from freezing tundra to temperate forest. It is home to many plants and animals; including the endangered Siberian tiger and wild ginseng.

Show larger map

So, what did the article by Lina Tang and the eight co-authors really say? Below is a summary.

Forest degradation deepens around and within protected areas in East Asia

It is true that the NASA Landsat images didn't show the finer details. But they do show a story going back to 1985. The methods chapter is interesting for people into geeky stuff about image analysis. It is indeed also true that the forests have suffered degradation on both sides of the border.
The Changbaishan and Baekdu-san were established as UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in 1979 and 1989 respectively to protect the ecosystem there which is home to the highest plant biodiversity in the cool temperate zone and – as mentioned – many endangered species. But there are many differences in the way the forests have been managed and much more is known about the Chinese parts.
The Chinese government has successfully enforced a ban on logging but areas has been severely damaged by storms and are still recovering. From 1985 to 2007 about 6% of the forest was lost. On the other hand, poaching has occurred and wild ginseng has been collected into obscurity. Right outside the reserve the Chinese have extensively logged the pine forest, doing some reforestation with birch and aspen.
On the Korean side about half the reserve area had suffered strip logging by 2007. This was clear only recently as the strips are about 10 meters wide, whereas in the older satellite images each pixel cover about 30 meters. The Koreans have cleared about 39% of the forest outside the reserve for agriculture.
Another thing the older satellite images didn't reveal was seed collecting and tourism. From the year 2000 to 2007 it was allowed to gather pine seeds in the Chinese reserve, a cherished food ingredient and valuable source of income for locals. In those years very few seeds were left to enter the natural cycle (animal food source and natural reforestation) and today nearly every tree bears wounds from climbing spurs. Also, in 2006 administration was moved from the Forestry Bureau to the Tourism Bureau. The number of visitors has rocketed from about 30,000 per year in the 1980ies to as much as 10,000 a day now. Much less is known about how the Koreans administrate the reserve but they do allow tourism.
The researchers estimate the “truly well-protected” reserve forest areas to be 44.9% in China and 34.6% in Korea. But these areas are ecologically isolated due to the extensive deforestation of the areas surrounding the reserves.

Second thoughts

Before raising an environmentalist call to relieve Kim Jong-il of his duties let us consider the following: The North Koreans are probably at least as effective as the Chinese in banning illegal logging, the Chinese side has suffered similar levels of deforestation and unfortunately this situation isn't exactly unique.
We're having problems with ecological isolation, illegal logging, poaching, severe weather events, climate change in many places around the world. The difference is in how to influence the leader(s) of this country – a problem similar to what we see in places like Zimbabwe.
Writing about development we are encouraged to not portray the third world as the victims of the story. Norht Korea, however, despite its few glimmers of progress and success is a unique tragedy. One with the bomb.

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This story elsewhere: Treehugger / North Korea Logging in Protected Forest Discovered With Google, NASA Data, Mongabay / NASA, Google Earth catch North Korea logging protected area, UPI / Study: North Korea logs in protected area.
The Primary source is, of course:

Tang, L., Shao, G., Piao, Z., Dai, L., Jenkins, M., Wang, S., Wu, G., Wu, J., & Zhao, J. (2010). Forest degradation deepens around and within protected areas in East Asia Biological Conservation, 143 (5), 1295-1298 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.024



This article is also posted at TH!NK ABOUT IT #3: Developing World.

Food security: climate change and sustainable development (TH!NK2½ part I)

I and the other TH!NKers are moving from part 2 to part 3, from climate change and COP15 to sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals. Both topics are multifaceted, overlapping and quite complex.
In fact, apart from climate change essentially being a sustainability issue, sustainable development was addressed directly several times during TH!NK2. Including by the good old “skeptic” who appeared shocked COP15 had dealt with “international economic development policy”. I strongly suspect climate change will be mentioned more than once during TH!NK3 too.
Luckily, the highly esteemed scientific journal Science published a review article this month: Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People. Food security is one of those topics that is extremely important and linked to both climate change and sustainable development. As well as to security policy which is something I have been blogging about at my own Ecowar. It's a good article, summing up on the most important aspects while providing reliable figures.
To sum it up: A growing population with an increasing consumption will have to get by on an exceedingly exploited Earth. This will lead to crises, challenges and tough choices. A global political effort is needed to solve the most pressing problems and take advantage of the windows of opportunity: closing the yield gap, reducing waste, changing diets and more.

The yield gap

The first subject is enormous and actually mixed into most parts of the article. To “close the yield gap” means moving from the harvest we do achieve to what we theoretically could achieve if our current knowledge and technology was utilized. They mention a political aspect as well:

“Food production in developing countries can be severely affected by market interventions in the developed world, such as subsidies or price supports.”

Just look at the subsidization of sugar beet farming in the EU, US and Australia which makes the otherwise sound sugar cane farming in the 3^rd world less profitable. The chapter on the yield gap also addresses something that is central to the whole sustainability discussion:

“Food production has important negative “externalities,” namely effects on the environment or economy that are not reflected in the cost of food.”

Take the difference between a liter of “normal” aka “industrial” milk on the one hand and a liter of organic milk on the other. The latter is a bit more expensive. Having been buying organic food for many years I have more than once been ridiculed by someone who just saw a TV show claiming organic food isn't more healthy that other types of food. Well, my answer usually is that “normal” food is cheap because you really don't pay for it. You don't pay for the pesticides you indirectly put in our common ground water, the global warming you cause by the energy intensive production of fertilizers, the woes of future generations who will not be able to sustain this “normal” production et cetera, et cetera.
And contrary to what is sometimes claimed, sustainability isn't synonymous with a drop in production:

“One study of 286 agricultural sustainability projects in developing countries, involving 12.6 million chiefly small-holder farmers on 37 million hectares, found an average yield increase of 79% across a very wide variety of systems and crop types”

Increased food production

Part of closing the yield gap – or rather, raising the bar – is the whole genetic modification issue. So far what we have seen from that opportunity is decreased sustainability. Because the first large scale GM crops have been optimized for profits through aggressive patenting, monopolies, design for intensively industrialized farming and reliance on pesticides. What needs to be developed is crops with beneficial traits (such as drought resistance and less greenhouse gas side-effects in both cultivation and livestock digestion). Available to 3^rd world farmers without a debt trap attached.
Advances in genetic technology can help us take great strides in crop cultivation in general. One of the things we need to preserve to most efficiently take advantage of such technology is our natural biodiversity. Our ecosystem is a treasure trove of biochemistry that shouldn't be squandered away. Year 2010 is the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity because MDG number 7 included “achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss” of biodiversity. As I have already complained, this goal has failed. Doubly painful since it is so integrally linked to the climate change issue.

Reducing food waste

Now there is an obvious solution, right. 30 to 40% of all food is wasted. Solve that problem and we're almost halfway!
Except in the developing world much waste is due to infrastructure limitations including lack of refrigeration. But installing refrigerators for 3 billion more people will consume enormous amounts of energy leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions and other problems.
In the 1^st world we are rich enough to throw away food for cosmetic reasons. We rely on dates printed on packaging, not an actual assessment of the freshness of our foods. And due to diseases caused by industrialization (mad cows et cetera) we feel forced to destroy food waste rather than compost it or feed it to livestock.
Lastly, we waste massive amounts of food by converting grain into meat. Since the conversion efficiency is about 10% why don't we try and go without eating for nine days after one day of meat? That would be a lesson. However, vegetarian zealots: back off. There is plenty of room for livestock by feeding with human food waste and grass, meat is a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals, livestock doubles as workforce in ploughing and transport plus produces manure.
The conclusion begins: “There is no simple solution to sustainably feeding 9 billion people.” No, obviously not. And we'll experience endless discussion, crises and conflict over the arable land we have left as well as over the way we manage it and divide it's harvests.

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"Harvest" by seyed mostafa zamani

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This article is also posted to my column at TH!NK ABOUT IT #2: Climate Change.

The article Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People was brought to my attention by The Oil Drum. Thanks.

Godfray, H., Beddington, J., Crute, I., Haddad, L., Lawrence, D., Muir, J., Pretty, J., Robinson, S., Thomas, S., & Toulmin, C. (2010). Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People Science, 327 (5967), 812-818 DOI: 10.1126/science.1185383

Indigenous Peruvians and police in deadly clashes at oil and mining protests

Sometimes researchers are blamed of being alarmists stirring up fears of a fictional dystopia by the business-as-usual crowd. But it seems a forewarning of conflict over oil in Peru is proceeding according to exactly such a warning. The news first...

40+ dead at protest

In extension of free trade agreements the Peruvian government has plans for 'developing' the Amazon homelands of many indigenous communities - opening it for oil, mineral, logging, and agricultural exploitation. Locals have been protesting some of these initiatives claiming they are unconstitutional and in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When police intervened fighting erupted. Body counts wary; one is as high as 81.

President Alan Garcia Perez is claimed to have been behind a massacre on suspects of being Maoist guerrillas in 1986. A former army colonel turned politician is siding with the protesters. An arrest warrant has been issued on protest leader Alberto Pizango who has gone into hiding.

Sources: Upside Down World / 50 Days of Protest and One Massacre in the Peruvian Amazon | Peruanista blog | The New York Times / 9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility | AP / 9 more police killed in Amazon protests in Peru | AP / At least 31 killed in Peru Amazon clashes | Mongobay / Oil or Death in the Amazon

Peer reviewed prophesies

A 2008 paper on PLoS ONE discussed this ongoing and accelerating exploitation in "the most species-rich part of the Amazon". From the paper:

Without improved policies, the increasing scope and magnitude of planned extraction means that environmental and social impacts are likely to intensify. [... We] consider the conflicts where the blocks overlap indigenous peoples' territories.

Oil and gas development in the western Amazon has already caused major environmental and social impacts. Direct impacts include deforestation for access roads, drilling platforms, and pipelines, and contamination from oil spills and wastewater discharges.

In Peru, hydrocarbon blocks now overlap 20 protected areas. Thirteen of these protected areas preceded creation of the oil blocks and lack compatibility studies required by the Protected Areas Law.

the history of oil and gas extraction in the western Amazon is one of massive ecological and social disruption, the future need not repeat the past.

No, it need not. But it just did. Heed the warnings of those who reason with statistics and logic.


Finer, M., Jenkins, C., Pimm, S., Keane, B., & Ross, C. (2008). Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples PLoS ONE, 3 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002932



Vis stort kort
The lands of the Incas are endowed with copper, silver, gold, petroleum, timber, fish, iron ore, coal, phosphate, potash, hydropower and natural gas while troubled by deforestation, illegal logging, overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, air and water pollution (including pollution from mining wastes). (Source: CIA Factbook)

Opinion: Nations don't go to war over water

Writer Wendy Barnaby has written an essay for academic journal Nature in stead of a book for her publisher as the conclusion on "water wars" wouldn't sell. Some facts...

There are 263 cross-boundary waterways in the world. Between 1948 and 1999, cooperation over water, including the signing of treaties, far outweighed conflict over water and violent conflict in particular. Of 1,831 instances of interactions over international freshwater resources tallied over that time period (including everything from unofficial verbal exchanges to economic agreements or military action), 67% were cooperative, only 28% were conflictive, and the remaining 5% were neutral or insignificant. In those five decades, there were no formal declarations of war over water.

Three examples are explored a bit further: the Israel-Palestine, the India-Pakistan and the Nile water conflict situations. The Nile issue is about how the countries surrounding it were forced into cooperation following years of low level conflicts and the India-Pakistan issue on how cooperation has been set up in a treaty with the help of the World Bank despite the two countries being engaged in an ongoing military conflict. The Israel-Palestine issue is presented a bit weird:

it is foolish for Israel, a water-short country, to grow and then export products such as oranges and avocados, which require a lot of water to cultivate

Yes it is. Israel and most neighbours have water shortages but alleviate it by importing grain. There are a whole bunch of inconvenient truths not mentioned, but one is:

Palestinian and Israeli water professionals interact on a Joint Water Committee, established by the Oslo-II Accords in 1995. It is not an equal partnership: Israel has de facto veto power on the committee.

I'll dig out some more facts soon (in the mean time try my Israel and Palestine tags). But let's just note Wendy Barnaby's main conclusions:

Inequitable access to water resources is a result of the broader conflict and power dynamics: it does not itself cause war [...] predictions of armed conflict come from the media and from popular, non-peer-reviewed work

Undoubtedly true that main stream media is better at sensationalistic headlines than scientific journals. But is this move from simplistic causation to hen-or-egg discussion a bit too easy? I mean demand is very likely to go up, supply very likely to go down. Leading to cooperation or conflict.

water 'embedded' in traded products could be important in explaining the absence of conflict over water [...] as poor countries diversify their economies, they turn away from agriculture and create wealth from industries that use less water. As a country becomes richer, it may require more water overall to sustain its booming population, but it can afford to import food to make up the shortfall

most importantly, improve the conditions of trade for developing countries to strengthen their economies

Sure. That's what the WTO is for, right? ;-)







Barnaby, W. (2009). Do nations go to war over water? Nature, 458 (7236), 282-283 DOI: 10.1038/458282a

Search Google Books for Wendy Barnaby.

Three cases of migration and conflict: Hurricane Katrina, Bangladesh and The Dust Bowl

"Environmental change can trigger large out-migration, which can cause violent conflict in areas receiving migrants."

A peer reviewed article on environmental migration would fit right into my little project here, right? As I realized Reuveny's Ecomigration and Violent Conflict: Case Studies and Public Policy Implications was a look at only three incidents and that two of these were from the USA my expectations dropped somewhat. Most of this is supposed to be going on in Africa, right?

Well, when the cases from the world's most affluent nation only confirms what speculation you have on the third world... this is a rather interesting article. The three cases are the 1930'ies US Dust Bowl [Wikipedia], Bangladesh since the 1950'ies especially the Farakka Barrage situation [Wikipedia] and August 2005's Hurricane Katrina [Wikipedia]. It's main conclusion you have already read above. But I'll look into a few details...

The theory

Standard migration theory operates with economic, political and other forces - not environmental. Doing so could have serious implications as governments have signed treaties to accept political refugees, not "environmental". However, already in 1985 a paper on droughts and land degradation in sub-Saharan countries concluded these problems caused "population movements".

I think it's pretty much stating the obvious: If you live from the land and suddenly you can't, you're a lot more likely to simply leave the area. It's a different type of border you seek to cross though: While "traditional migrants" would seek to cross a cultural or political border, environmental migrants just wish to leave the stricken area.

The mechanics of "ecomigration" issues is described in four non-exclusive parts:

• "the in-migration can burden the destination's economy and resources, promoting native-migrant competition for jobs and other resources"


• "the arrival of in-migrants may upset the existing ethnic balance"


• "in-migration can enable ploys to exploit the situation and induce suspicions about such ploys"


• "the conflict may follow existing fault lines"

In-migration is more likely to cause trouble in poor receiving counties than in rich. And migrating women, children and elderly having family ties in the receiving area are least likely to cause conflict. Trouble risk is also correlated to migration mass and period: the more and the faster the more problematic.

Reuveny finishes his theoretical stuff with a pinch of optimism:

"Migration can benefit the receiving area through several channels, including increasing the labor force and tax-base."

The cases

In the 1930s the US Great Plains were stricken by droughts and storms while the area's agricultural practices were far from geared towards the situation. Massive soil erosion and obvious declines in life quality resulted. The area was now called The Dust Bowl. Close to 2.5 million people out-migrated.

Most went to neighboring states but about 300,000 traveled to California. They were received as "ignorant filthy people", called "Okies", some argued Bible in hand that they were "inferior" and it was even suggested to pay them to be sterilized. They were beaten, their shacks burned and they were accused of "communism". In 1936 Los Angeles police stopped migrants at the state border. Welcome to California.

The Bangladesh case is a bit more typical. A small less developed country with a huge and growing population strains it's natural resources to a breaking point. It's geography happens to make it particularly vulnerable to both accumulated environmental stresses (soil erosion etc.) and periodic natural disasters (namely floods).

Then in 1975 the neighboring country builds a barrage, diverting water away from Bangladesh. Salt water intrudes the sinking fresh water resources and land productivity plummet. 35 million people were directly affected.

Some 12 to 17 million Bangladeshis have migrated illegally to India and about half a million to other areas in Bangladesh. Migrants have since clashed with residents over social, ethnic, religious, national and other proximate issues. Countless people have been killed in clashes.

Reading about Hurricane Katrina is particularly weird as this is fresh from TV memory. But as it turns out the case fits right in.

A combination of human and natural factors combined to aggravate a disaster situation: the Mississippi River had been turned into a maritime highway destroying natural sedimentation, land clearing and draining of swamps eliminated natural coastline protection, compromises led to levee building only protecting from hurricanes level 3. The false sense of security from the levee only led to more risky development.

80% of the population fled the area when weather forecasts told of the impending hurricane. Including 100,000 elderly and poor who were evacuated by the government. Shortly after Hurricane Rita hit too and US government estimates a total of nearly 2 million people were displaced.

As we all remember, New Orleans was smashed. One year after Katrina hit 2,180 people had died as a direct consequence of the storm, more than 200,000 people lost their jobs, about 335,000 homes were destroyed and only about 40% of New Orleans' population had returned.

Across the river from New Orleans the city of Gretna [Google Maps] had police block the entry of displaced people firing warning shots in the process. Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia insisted more than half the evacuees they'd accepted were violent criminals. The city of Houston reported a rise in homicides of 70% in November and December 2005 and 28% in February 2006 compared to normals. March 2006 75% of Houston residents answered a poll they felt "strained" by the 150,000 migrants living there.

Reuveny sees three main similarities: The three societies all depended on their environments for livelihood, human actions or lack thereof exacerbated the disasters and political, economic, sociological and psychological factors overlapped with environmental ones. A number of obvious differences are mentioned too.


Climate change is expected to cause a wide array of disasters and stresses on our ecosystem. Sea level rise is just one of them. Flickr Creative Commons image is "Climate Change Refugees" by ItzaFineDay.

Can climate change cause migration and conflict in the future?

Reuveny says "yes". The evidence of impact scale is worrying already; history is there to suggest it will repeat itself.

If sea levels rise by just 1 meter more than 260 million people will be exposed to flooding. (Yes, that was two hundred and sixty million individual humans) Most of these Asians but at least some 14 million Europeans too. These people will have to move somewhere. Imagine something like 130 Katrinas but with permanent land loss and in countries less able to cope with the situation. Bitterly ironic since climate change is largely caused by rich, developed countries.

A set of initiatives for alleviation or solution is also proposed, but I dare not post it uncensored in the mere blogosphere. But Reuveny feels it's safe to assume...

"[...] the expected cost of climate change-induced ecomigration and conflict will likely rise quickly [...]"

Reuveny, R. (2008). Ecomigration and Violent Conflict: Case Studies and Public Policy Implications. Human Ecology, 36(1), 1-13. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-007-9142-5

Environmental degradation kills 62 million people each year

Do you think the headline figure sounds a little bit too high? Perhaps you are right because the year 2007 study I just read includes such causes of death as AIDS and second hand smoking. But rather than being just a look at the body count it's actually an assessment of the relationship between population growth and escalating degradation of the environment and how both factors kill people.

This blog usually deals with typical conflict caused or inspired by natural resources. Population growth is essentially only a problem because of the limited space available hence I think it's fair to say the problems it causes are also 'environment problems'. The closer we live the more we expose each other to our diseases and the various toxins we produce, consume and waste. The more people we are the more food we need - the more biosphere we consume and industrialize, the closer we keep our livestock and the more of us go hungry. And the more hazardous the environment we live in, the more likely we are to kill our neighbor and run off with his.

The top three killers

#3: Tuberculosis
Blowing soil can contain many different pathogens - tuberculosis (TB), anthrax et cetera. Industrialized agriculture and deforestation are the main reasons for erosion by wind of contaminated soil. Just an example of how the various issues are intrinsically linked. Right now about 2 billion people (absurd) are infected with TB and 3 million people will die each year.

#2: Diarrhea
Hastily erected housing and slum suffer from bad sanitation. Bad sanitation - or none at all - will cause various health issues. But 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitation. Proper sanitation could have hindered most of the 4 billion annual diarrhea infections as well as most of the 2.1 million deaths. Totally, lack of sanitation is estimated to kill more than 5 million people each year by various means.

#1: Malnutrition
People who don't eat right or just not enough are more susceptible to many other problems. The soil erosion mentioned, caused by industrialized agriculture, is not only spreading diseases and diminishing our arable land area - crop productivity per area is drastically reduced. Causing more malnutrition. 6 million children die from malnutrition issues each year. 2.5 million die from vitamin A deficiency and 9 million from iron deficiency. A staggering total of about 18 million people dies from malnutrition each year.

Honorable mention is deserved in the case of air pollution problems (3 million), asthma (2.1 million), malaria (1.2-2.7 million) and measles (1.1 million).

But we're getting better, right?

On the Bjørn Lomborg show, perhaps. In the real world, no. From 1970 to 2002 the number of cancer cases climbed from 331,000 to 563,000 in the USA alone; mostly caused by chemical pollutants. From 1940 to 2007 women's risk of breast cancer went from 1/22 to 1/7. From 1971 to 1986 malaria increased by 76% in Brazil; mostly caused by deforestation. From 1950 to 2007 the number of malnourished people went from about 500 million or 20% to 3.7 billion or 60%. Iron intake is going down along with the rest of the measures of food quality. Antibiotics go useless as pathogens evolve resistance do to our overuse. I could go on and on...

New problems in a new environment

SARS evolved because people and livestock crowded in China. Almost the same story with avian flu. Neither has killed that many people yet, but they are new problems with high mortality rates.

Construction of dams has increased the number of snails that host schistosomiasis [Wikipedia] and climate change is creating an environment more suitable for them. Schistosomiasis has now spread to areas where it was never seen before, infecting more than 200 million people, killing as many as 200,000 annually. Global warming also helps spread malaria and many other diseases. Our massive consumption of fossilized fuels seems to be at the root of so many of our problems. (And what do we do? Use more of it waging wars over the remaining sources of it.)

Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter microbes infect our increasingly crowded livestock while new diseases evolve in unsanitary industrialized slaughterhouses.

While I think I insist HIV isn't an environmental issue, infected people help spread numerous other diseases. Wars and urbanization undoubtedly help spread both. Our biosphere is a complex system. Any change in a complex system will produce numerous other changes and will always cause crisis somewhere. I wrote it already: I could go on and on...




Pimentel, D., Cooperstein, S., Randell, H., Filiberto, D., Sorrentino, S., Kaye, B., Nicklin, C., Yagi, J., Brian, J., O'Hern, J., Habas, A., Weinstein, C. (2007). Ecology of Increasing Diseases: Population Growth and Environmental Degradation. Human Ecology, 35(6), 653-668. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-007-9128-3

Natural resources and civil war

My third research blogging post takes a real quick look at What Do We Know about Natural Resources and Civil War? by Michael Ross, year 2004. It is a review of several other studies; work by Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler and James Fearon seems to have been among the most influential and the work of Le Billon - which I blogged about this March - is reviewed too.

The studies vary widely in scope and methodology: Covering from 27 to 262 civil wars, spanning various intervals from 1945 to 2000 and approaching issues such as missing data in entirely different ways. But a set of common issues and conclusions are identified.

Issues

Ross discusses causality issues that any investigation on environment-conflict links should pay attention to. I.e. "reverse causality": Years of unrest could drive off manufacturing businesses in turn leading to a higher dependence on exporting natural resources. Which then in turn could fuel outright conflict. Also, we are reminded how both resource dependence and war can be caused by a third variable. Or several variables. Many states dependent on the export of some local commodity have several other issues: poverty, corruption, harsh government etc. All of which could inspire conflict.

Some of the studies reviewed are criticized for using a very broad variable; "primary commodities". Other studies produce more significant correlations using finer definitions; oil, gems etc.

Common conclusions

One conclusion from a Collier & Hoeffler study seems a bit math-naive (which may be why I tend to pay attention):

[...] data suggest that resource dependence has a non-linear effect: it increases the likelihood of conflict until the resource exports-to-GDP ratio is 32%; beyond this point it diminishes the likelihood of conflict.

• Oil increases the likelihood of conflict, particularly separatist.


• Lootable commodities such as gems and drugs tend to lengthen existing conflicts.


• There is no link between legal agriculture and civil war. (Despite most wars being fought in countries with large agricultural sectors.)

In some cases though, it appears diamonds have shortened wars by facilitating military victories.

Ross, M.L. (2004). What Do We Know about Natural Resources and Civil War?. Journal of Peace Research, 41(3), 337-356. DOI: 10.1177/0022343304043773

(pause) by kevindooley

Ecowar: The political ecology of war

So far this blogging project has been characterized by the Google News Alert I set up way back when I first got the idea and whatever inspiration I got studying for my bachelor's and master's degrees in horticulture, a natural science. But I just did a search using both regular Google (doh!) and Scholar using all fields of science not just the exact ones. There is a lot of texts out there exploring links between conflict and natural resource. A lot. Peer reviewed stuff too.

So, I'm going to seek out the best and put down a couple of notes on it. The first article I feel like mentioning is The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts by Le Billon - because the author put it on his university server as a file named "ecowar.pdf" (hope I'm not exposing some copyright violation here?). How could I not spend a link on that? On the other hand, it means you don't have to trust me - you can read the original yourself even without a subscription on Poltical Geography.

For me to do a meaningful comment on the paper is limited by the fact that it aims at the very core of my subject. Thus, no borderline discrepancies stick out immediately. So much the more important it doesn't prove me wrong, I guess. Le Billon doesn't waste time like me though: First postulate is that natural resources have motivated, financed and shaped conflicts. Next sentence the main objective is defined: examine theories of relationships between resources and armed conflicts. Within this scope the paper highlights resource dependence, globalisation and peace promotion rather than abundance, scarcity and lootability which must be themes more commonly discussed in political sciences (I don't know).

The introduction mentions a shift from natural resources playing a role in conflicts as a means of financing the conflict to simply inspiring the conflict. A significant increase in importance. Also, an interesting term is mentioned: the resource curse (hello new tag):

most empirical evidence suggests that countries economically dependent on the export of primary commodities are at a higher risk of political instability and armed conflict

Some other authors are criticized for insufficiently taking into account countries with or without resources that have developed peacefully (Norway, Japan etc) and reminds us the parts of nature we call resources are probably resources just because of our cultural ideas. An extremely obvious observation that I haven't really thought of so far - probably why I have managed to completely miss out on conflicts related to diamonds. Also, the influence of the type of resource on the type of conflict is discussed (ie. fights over extracted resources focus on territory control whereas fights over produced resources focus on trade control) - interesting because the influence verifies the link. Table 1, page 573 classifies a number of conflicts in four different categories based on the type of resource as well as it's relative location. A bit interesting how both the Iraq vs Iran and the Iraq vs Kuwait conflicts are put in the coup d'etat (proximate/point) category and are tagged 'oil' - fortunately the article is too old to be politically incorrect by including the USA vs Iraq war. The other three categories of Billon's typology are rebellion/rioting (proximate/diffuse; ie. Israel vs Palestine about freshwater), secession (distant/point; ie. Morocco vs West Sahara about phosphate) and warlordism (distant/diffuse; ie. Afghan quagmire about opium).

Billon claims the literature has had a tendency towards looking at only rebellion/rioting type conflicts as resource conflicts. While probably true it is curious how Zhang found best climate-conflict correlations when looking at rebellions only. Perhaps it's just that governments are better at "wrapping it"? (Another example of this might be the US government and the Iraq war; see Study: False Statements Preceded War.) More likely it's just that the better correlation inspires the more political theories? Scientists of non-exact fields are subject to the underlying mathematical patterns, they just don't really describe these in their texts it seems. While having zero P<0.5 observations, examples are aplenty in Billon's text.

Let me finish with a couple of important reminders from the conclusion:

While it would be an error to reduce armed conflicts to greed-driven resource wars, as political and identity factors remain key, the control of local resources influence the agendas and strategies of belligerents.

Beyond motivating or financing conflicts, the level of dependence, conflictuality, and lootability of a resource can also increase the vulnerability of societies to, and the risk of armed conflict. Yet, there is no environmentally deterministic relation at hand.

Le Billon, P. (2001). The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts. Political Geography, 20(5), 561-584. DOI: 10.1016/S0962-6298(01)00015-4

Finally, let me just mention really quick (now that Billon didn't) that Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany while Denmark was considered a stepping stone only (Norway has iron and other resources, Denmark has farmers supplying Germany) and that Japan were among the very first civilized nations to enforce environmental protection laws namely to sustain their forestry.

Climate change and conflict frequency

The cornerstone of this blog here is a peer reviewed correlation of climate and war in historical China: see my first post from July 2007. I just wrote a thorough summary of the article at Shvoong.com; here's a shorter version and my own take on it.

Short summary

Zhang's study is a thorough mathematical correlation from climate to war frequency done on a macro-historical level. Warfare has already been theoretically described as an adaptive ecological strategy of humankind in situations of limited resources. Zhang provides some empirical evidence to go with the theory. The hypothesis of the study is that climate changes has catalyzed historical events by it's importance for agricultural productivity, and that temperature is the most important climatic factor due to it's very direct effect on growing season lengths, precipitation reliability, summer warmth etc.

The data used for the analysis are comprised of China's extensive historical records literally body counting 3 millennia back in time and a set of five different weather data measurements merged into one. The war data was pruned to 899 wars between year 1000 and 1911. The weather data synchronized with emphasis on the most reliable methods all of which correlate beautifully in regard to oscillations. Population data are available from year 1741 to 1851 "only".

The cold periods are defined by time frames of significantly low average temperatures. The cyclical pattern and the correlation is not just an abstract figure somewhat closer to 1 than 0. It is quite obvious how cold phases coincide with periods of high war frequency. The war periods generally lag the onset of cold phases by 10 to 30 years which makes sense since it would take some time for the reduced agricultural productivity to manifest as resource limitations and overpopulation.

The study goes into more detail; ie correlations are particularly strong for wars of type "rebellion" and stronger in the (wet, warm) south than in the (arid, cold) north. The north-south difference is explained by historical attitudes towards migration. Population growth is seen to rise (to 1.3%) during the 1741-1805 warm phase and drop (to 0.6%) during the 1806-1850 cold phase.

Zhang argues past research has been simplifying history, reducing causes of warfare to financial, political and ethnic ones while largely ignoring the ecosystem. Zhang emphasizes how current global warming is different from the warm phases of his study. However, his last words are that even if the developed world gets by most people still rely on simple farming techniques that are highly susceptible to ecological stress and that shortages of essential resources may "very likely" trigger future conflicts among groups of people.

Ecowar?

So, what does Zhang tell Ecowar? "Keep blogging"! Zhang must have been looking at some inconclusive data wondering pretty much the same thing I'm wondering when looking at the news of the world.

I have posted a bit about Jared Diamond who's straight out explaining some violence with what's basically "ecological stress". While Zhang highlights temperature drops, what we're mostly seeing right now is issues sparked from a temperature rise, ie drought. My Darfur: Drought or Islamism? post has the whole issue in it's little nutshell. Just like the Chinese food shortages inspired "rebellion", rising food prices gets today's consumers "up in arms". The UN has read the writing on the wall and has analyzed the Security risk of climate change. Et cetera, click backwards in time on my blog if you like. There are also more peer reviewed research on the subject out there which I plan to blog some time.

My enthusiasm when beginning this blog was fueled by the publication of Zhangs study. Although all I'd read was a journalist's interpretation. That article has now been pulled from the web. At the same time I have grown as weary of pseudo-science and political rants dressed as science in the blogosphere. So what better opportunity to introduce my flashy new Research Blogging icon!?

Zhang, D.D., Zhang, J., Lee, H.F., He, Y. (2007). Climate Change and War Frequency in Eastern China over the Last Millennium. Human Ecology, 35(4), 403-414. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-007-9115-8

This basically means my post is about a piece of peer reviewed scientific work that I have read and understand myself. As well as a number of other criteria you can check out at Research Blogging. Anyway, I hope I just reinserted my cornerstone.