Gradual and sudden environmental changes are resulting in substantial human movement and displacement, and the scale of such flows, both internal and cross-border, is expected to rise with unprecedented impacts on lives and livelihoods. Despite the potential challenge, there has been a lack of strategic thinking about this policy area partly due to a lack of data and empirical research on this topic. Adequately planning for and managing environmentallyinduced migration will be critical for human security. The papers in this volume were first presented at the Research Workshop on Migration and the Environment: Developing a Global Research Agenda held in Munich, Germany in April 2008. One of the key objectives on the Munich workshop was to address the need for more sound empirical research and identify priority areas of research for policy makers in the field of migration and the environment.
As climate change and extreme weather events increasingly threaten traditional landscapes and livelihoods of entire communities the need to study its impact on human migration and population displacement has never been greater. The Atlas of Environmental Migration is the first illustrated publication mapping this complex phenomenon. It clarifies terminology and concepts, draws a typology of migration related to environment and climate change, describes the multiple factors at play, explains the challenges, and highlights the opportunities related to this phenomenon. Through elaborate maps, diagrams, illustrations, case studies from all over the world based on the most updated international research findings, the Atlas guides the reader from the roots of environmental migration through to governance. In addition to the primary audience of students and scholars of environment studies, climate change, geography and migration it will also be of interest to researchers and students in politics, economics and international relations departments.
This open access book critically examines the policies and practices related to climate-related human mobility in Asia-Pacific and the legal and policy protection framework for climatically displaced migrants (CDMs) through an interdisciplinary human rights-based approach. While covering the policy and theoretical dimensions of mobility, it also evaluates the issue through empirical studies. The book illustrates how interdisciplinary rights-based approaches address and identify gaps in the protection framework for the region regarding dimensions of climate change displacement, migration, forced migration, susceptibility to climate change, and typology of climate change-induced displacement. Presenting multiple case scenarios, it recommends a legal mechanism based on human rights in a region brimming with variety and multiculturalism. Bringing together voices from the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement, the book examines issues that are immediately relevant in countries where they are living and working. In addition to academic perspective, the chapters also bring perspectives from positions held in national human rights institutions and government. They bring insight into lived experience and policy processes, seeking to avert, minimize, and address displacement, including through general disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation initiatives, as well as specific initiatives around emergency preparedness for response and planned relocation and resettlement. The chapters examine diverse forms of human mobility, including displacement, planned relocation, and forced immobility. The combination of studies focusing on both sudden onset and slower onset movement is also distinctive. With a thorough understanding of the interdisciplinary rights-based approaches to the issue, students, researchers, policymakers, administrators, and all those engaged in studying these topics can quickly evaluate and appreciate how the rights of CDMs are protected on a national, regional, and international level in Asia-Pacific.
Environmental migration is not new. Nevertheless, the events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to increase human movement both within states and across international borders. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted an increased frequency and severity of climate events such as storms, cyclones and hurricanes, as well as longer-term sea level rise and desertification, which will impact upon people's ability to survive in certain parts of the world. This book brings together a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. With chapters by leading scholars in their field, it collects in one place a rigorous, holistic analysis of the phenomenon, which can better inform academic understanding and policy development alike. Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement, the conceptualisation of migration responses to climate change, the terminology that should be used to describe those who move, and attitudes to migration that may affect decisions to stay or leave. The book will help to facilitate the creation of principled, research-based responses, and establish climate-induced displacement as an important aspect of both the climate change and global migration debates.
Displacements in the Asia Pacific region are escalating. The region has for decades experienced more than half of the world’s natural disasters and, in recent years, a disproportionately high share of extreme weather-related disasters, which displaced 19 million people in 2013 alone. This volume offers an innovative and thought-provoking Asia-Pacific perspective on an intensifying global problem: the forced displacement of people from their land, homes, and livelihoods due to development, disasters and environmental change. This book draws together theoretical and multidisciplinary perspectives with diverse case studies from around the region – including China’s Three Gorges Reservoir, Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and the Pacific’s Banaba resettlement. Focusing on responses to displacement in the context of power asymmetries and questions of the public interest, the book highlights shared experiences of displacement, seeking new approaches and solutions that have potential global application. This book shows how displaced peoples respond to interlinked impacts that unravel their social fabric and productive bases, whether through sporadic protest, organised campaigns, empowered mobility or; even community-based negotiation of resettlement solutions. . The volume will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, environmental and climate change studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, international law and human rights.
Academic discussion of climate‐related human mobility has understandably focused on the places where people are especially vulnerable to climate‐related harm: the Global South. Yet, the unique biophysical, legal and socio‐political characteristics of the Nordic region, as well as its roles as both ‘home’ and ‘host’ to climate‐related mobilities, justify its independent attention. Filling this lacuna, this collection is the first to address climate‐related human mobility in the Nordic region. It is a timely and much needed collection, which brings together leading and emerging voices from both academia and practice in a single volume, spanning policy and geographical breadth. Its chapters cover both regional approaches to the global phenomenon of climate mobility, such as the traditional role of the Nordic states as norm entrepreneurs and their representation in multilateral fora, and on‐the‐ground climate impacts unique to this region and their localised responses. Case studies include judicial decision‐making as it relates to climate‐related migration, insights into the local communication of climate risk, changes to Nordic development and climate policy, as well as climate‐related mobilities of Nordic Indigenous Peoples. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of disaster and climate studies, as well as climate‐related mobility, migration and displacement.
Despite clear aspirations by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to create an effective and transparent framework to facilitate movements among skilled professionals within the ASEAN by December 2015, progress has been slow and uneven. This report examines the challenges ASEAN member states face in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up access to certain jobs, and a limited willingness by professionals to move due to perceived cultural, language, and socioeconomic differences. The cost of these barriers is staggering and could reduce the region's competitiveness in the global market. This report launches a multiyear effort by ADB and the Migration Policy Institute to better understand the issues and develop strategies to gradually overcome the problems. It offers a range of policy recommendations that have been discussed among experts in a high-level expert meeting, taking into account best practices locally and across the region.
Maritime migration : a wicked problem / Kathleen Newland -- Case study : unauthorized maritime migration in Europe and the Mediterranean region / Elizabeth Collett -- Case study : unauthorized maritime migration in the Bay of Bengal / Kathleen Newland -- Case study : unauthorized maritime migration in the Gulf of aden and the Red Sea / Kate Hooper -- Case study : the maritime approaches to Australia / Kathleen Newland -- Case study : maritime migration in the United States and the Caribbean / Kathleen Newland and Sarah Flamm
