Environmental Refugees in Kenya

Mitigating causes of environmental refugees

ESA-22806 Environmental System Analysis: Methods and Applications Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University 10 December 2009
th

Obinna Okafor

ABSTRACT Environmental refugees are a growing problem. In 1995 the estimation was that there were 25 million refugees due to environmental causes and this number could be doubled in the year 2010 if not acted upon (Myers, 2002). Kenya is a country where the problem of environmental refugees is occurring and the main question addressed in this assessment is: What are possible measures to mitigate the causes leading to environmental refugees in Kenya? This report is the result of a limited environmental system analysis performed for the government of Kenya, limited in the way that only a part of the problem of environmental refugees is taken into account. Population growth leading to unsustainable land management is taken as main cause for environmental refugees, thereby for example ignoring climate change or social factors as drivers. In this analysis three different tools are used to perform the assessment. The first tool, developing a causal diagram, is used to frame the problem and possible solutions. Derived from this is that possible mitigation measures are birth policy, agroforestry, alternatives for fuel wood, irrigation, building dams and desalinitation of sea water. Next, scenario analysis is applied to elaborate more on the future state of Kenya from the year 2010 to 2030 in order to determine which of the mitigation measures will, under future conditions, have the highest effect. Eventually, a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is performed to determine a rank from the most preferred to the least preferred solution. Established is that agroforestry is the best mitigating measure that the government of Kenya can use for the problem of environmental refugees. This measure can well be implemented and is mitigating the problem almost at the beginning. Birth policy also has high potentials, but might be difficult to implement in democratic countries. Ethically this measure also suffers from critique. The worst measures are desalinitation of sea water and building dams, mainly because these measures are restricted to only a small part of Kenya and are expensive.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... II TABLE OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... II TABLE OF TABLES .................................................................................................... II 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 2. Problem Formulation ................................................................................................. 2 3. Methodology .............................................................................................................. 3
3.1 Literature review ..................................................................................................................................... 3 3.2 Environmental system analysis tools ....................................................................................................... 4

4 Results ......................................................................................................................... 5
4.1 Causal Diagram ...................................................................................................................................... 5 4.2 Identifying, screening and designing alternatives ................................................................................... 6 4.3 Forecasting future states of Kenya (Scenario Analysis) .......................................................................... 7 4.4 Predicting the consequences of the alternatives .................................................................................... 10 4.5 Comparing and ranking the alternatives. A Multi-criteria decision analysis........................................ 10

5 Discussion ................................................................................................................. 13 6 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 15 7 References ................................................................................................................. 16 Annex ........................................................................................................................... 18

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Causal Diagram. ......................................................................................................... 5

TABLE OF TABLES

Table 1: Possible future scenarios (2010-2030) in Kenya. ........................................................ 8 Table 2: Method developed for CIFOR. .................................................................................. 11 Table 3: Regular ranking of criteria. ........................................................................................ 12

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1. Introduction An increased number of people forced to leave their home, either temporally or permanently, because of the environmental degradation, such as soil erosion, deforestation, high salinity of soil, desertification, among others. Environmental degradation is caused by natural factors or anthropogenic factors emerging from the unsustainable use of natural resources. These displaced people, who have to seek another place to live in order to survive because their former sustenance base (ecosystem) cannot support their life anymore, are called environmental refugees (Myers, 1997). According to Myers (2002), over decades the number of environmental refugees increased dramatically reaching 25 million in 1995, of which almost half were located in Sub-Saharan Africa. If current pressures on the environment continue as a result of population growth, the total number of people who will be forced to leave their homeland could increase dramatically in the next 30 year. This could lead to profound socio-economic, political and environmental problems at local, national and international levels or even could lead to violence and conflict (Myers, 2002). In Kenya the number of environmental refugees is increasing as a result of both anthropogenic and natural causes (El-Hinnami, 1985). Because of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of these refugees, many organizations including governments have been doing ever-continuous work to reduce the main causes (Myers, 1997; EL-Hinnami, 1985). The absence of recognition within the international arena of environmental refugees as refugees however, has limited the efforts to reduce the problem (Myers, 1997). Taking into account these problems, the issue of environmental refugees, as is said by Myers (2002), must have priority in the international political agenda, since it could be one of the foremost human crises of our times (Myers, 2002, p. 611). The best way to act upon the problem of environmental refugees is to anticipate instead of only reducing the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the problem. Identifying the main causes and understanding their interrelations is the first step to implementing strategies in order to tackle the problem. This should be done through committed efforts by local, national and international organizations (Myers, 1997). To address these problems, the objective of this paper is to study the effect of unsustainable land management on environmental refugees in Kenya, in order to propose possible mitigation measures. Therefore in this report first a Causal Diagram is elaborated. Furthermore a Scenario Analysis and a Multi-Criteria Analysis are done.

2. Problem Formulation Addressing the problem of environmental refugees the objective proposed by the Government of Kenya is to study the effect of the unsustainable land management on environmental refugees in Kenya, in order to propose possible mitigations measures.

For this purpose the following research question will be used: What are possible measures to mitigate the causes leading to environmental refugees in Kenya?

This main question will be answered through answering the following sub questions: 1) How does unsustainable land management in Kenya influence environmental refugees? 2) What are the possible mitigation measures to be implemented in Kenya? 3) How will the amount of environmental refugees develop in Kenya until the year 2030? 4) What are the main consequences of the implementation of the measures to mitigate the problem of environmental refugees? 5) What is the most preferred mitigation measure to the problem of environmental refugees in Kenya?

Limitations Though there are a lot of different causes for environmental refugees, for the sake of the ability to handle the problem in the time frame given, the focus in this paper is on population growth and the related unsustainable land management. Major drivers not taken into account are climate change and social factors. For climate change, the second reason why it is not taken into account is because on the scope of Kenya as a country it is impossible to influence this climate change as it is a global issue.

Boundaries The time frame taken in this assessment is 2010-2030. This time frame is divided in two time steps of 10 years. This timeframe is chosen because it will take a while before mitigation measures will have effect. To be able to handle the problem spatial boundaries are also necessary. This assessment will be limited to Kenya as part of Sub-Saharan Africa.

3. Methodology 3.1 Literature review The concept environmental refugee was first used by El-Hinnawi (1985) stating that environmental refugees are people that are forced to leave their habitat because of environmental disruption (e.g. deforestation, desertification, erosion or drought). Over time, there has been an increase in number of environmental refugees. Two decades ago, it was reported by the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), that as many as 50 million people could become environmental refugees (Tolba, 1989) if sustainable development would not be embraced (Tolba, 1989). More recently, Myers (2002) and Goffman (2006) referred to a potential estimate of 200 million of environmental refugees within 50 years if global warming sets in and sea levels rise. According to Myers (2002) in 1997 there were at least 25 million environmental refugees located in sub-Sahara Africa, Central America and some part of Asia. This number could double in 2010 if not before, as there is a rapid increase in numbers of (poor) people pressing hard to already overloaded sustenance bases (environment) (Myers, 1997). What can be seen is that although numbers differ, there is agreement that the amount of environmental refugees will increase in the future if not acted upon. From the beginning of defining environmental refugee by El-Hinnawi (1985) discussions about this definition have been ongoing. Because El- Hinnawi (1985) in his definition did not provide generic criteria to distinguish differences amongst environmental refugees and other types of migrants (Bates, 2002), the quest for classification of environmental refugees came up.

Causes of environmental refugees Environmental disruption makes the sustenance base economically, socially and environmentally unviable, and thereby making it difficult to support human livelihood in these habitats (El-Hinnawi, 1985). This disruption can occur naturally or caused by human actions (intentional or unintentional), leading to polluted and/or degraded environments (Bates, 2002). Natural causes of this disruption can for example be: erosion, earthquakes, forest fires and drought and are called natural disasters (Bates, 2002). While anthropogenic causes are a result of economic development, warfare, or industrialization (e.g. dam failure, deforestation and industrial processes) (Bates, 2002). Environmental refugees might occur as a result of acute disruptions or gradual deterioration (e.g. depletion or pollution) in the sustenance base of their habitation, thereby displacing them temporarily or permanently (Bates, 2002). Moreover, an intentional action in a strategic manner (economic development or ecocide) to the ecosystem could also result to dislocation of the inhabitants permanently (Glassman, 1992).

3.2 Environmental system analysis tools Problem formulation: To find possible mitigation measures to the problem of environmental refugees in Kenya, in order to support the Government of Kenya to deal with this, it is important to look for the causes. In this assessment causes were brought up by members of the team and discussed within till agreement was achieved.

Identifying, screening, and designing alternatives: Within the causal diagram also possible mitigation measures are determined. Discussed solutions are written in the diagram in order to be implemented later on in the scenario analysis and the multi-criteria analysis.

Forecasting future contexts or states of the world: One of the applications of

scenario

analysis is to assess the implications of certain (policy) measures on the future state of the environment (Swart et al., 2004). In this assessment two limited qualitative exploratory baseline scenarios on the future state of environmental refugees are used. The aim is to explore two plausible futures for Kenya by the year 2030, by means of making assumptions about changes in the main driving forces (economic development, population growth, urbanization and climate change) leading to the problem of environmental refugees.

Building and using models for predicting consequences: Due to the time frame, the important consequences in the short-term and long-term of each mitigation measure in both future scenarios in Kenya are predicted based on the reasoning and judgmental analysis of the members of the team.

Comparing and ranking the alternatives: A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is applied on the different mitigation measures determined in the causal diagram. To provide information about the performance of each measure, the different measures are ranked from most preferred to least preferred. The most preferred option is the one that achieved in greater extent the criteria and therefore the objective of the problem.

4 Results 4.1 Causal Diagram The causes why people become environmental refugees are multifarious and complex. In this assessment the focus is on population growth and the resulting unsustainable land management, which lead to resource depletion and thereby causing an increase in environmental refugees. Figure 1. shows the causal-diagram for this focus including possible solutions.

Figure 1: Causal Diagram.

The main driving force which causes environmental problems that force people out of their homeland is the population growth. Kenya has one of the highest rates of population growth in the world. The population growth rate of Kenya between 1985 and 1990 was 4.0 (Bilsborrow and Okoth Ogendo, 1992). Because of the limited space for arable land and the limitation of resources, the high population growth leads to unsustainable land use. Social aspects like poverty and low education, influences the rate of population growth. The unsustainable use of land can be seen through increased deforestation, desertification and soil degradation. Because of the use of wood as a fuel for cooking, the amount of wood usage is high. Bilsborrow and Okoth Ogendo (1992) estimated the average annual

deforestation rate in Kenya to be 1.6 % for 1980s. Deforestation and overuse of arable land leads to wind erosion and desertification. Improper irrigation methods or systems, which use high amounts of water, raise the soil salinity, in the arid and sub arid areas of Kenya, up to a level where a land use for agricultural activities is not longer possible (Githaiga et al., 2003). These effects of unsustainable land use lower the availability of resources such as fertile land and groundwater. The decrease in resource availability increases the pressure on the local land users, resulting in even more depletion. Others are forced to leave their homes, and migrate within Kenya or abroad, due to a lack of resources and become environmental refugees.

4.2 Identifying, screening and designing alternatives There are many solutions or mitigation measures to the causes of environmental refugees. These solutions, which reduce the causes of environmental refugees, influence environmental refugees directly or indirectly. Below are the solutions listed, discussed for this assessment:

Agroforestry: Agroforestry is a way of practicing agriculture in areas where the microclimatic conditions are not optimal (Lott et al., 2009). It is a system using consistent trees and shrubs together with different crops on the same land unit. This land unit can also be used for pasture livestock (Bashir et al., 2006). Agroforestry reduces soil degradation and increases soil fertility, leading to an improvement in food security. Likewise, this system is used to prevent deforestation of local forests, since the grown trees and shrubs can provide fuel wood, timber and fodder for livestock to local communities. In the same way, agroforestry is useful to improve the carbon sink capacity of the area and thereby contribute to the mitigation of climate change on a local scale (Bashir et al., 2006). Proper Irrigation: has, because of the amount of used water, a big influence on the availability of this resource. In arid and sub-arid areas, improper irrigation causes salinitation of soils. Implementing effective and low-cost drip irrigation systems protect the soil from salinitation and saves good quality/quantity (of) water for domestic activities (Karlberg et al., 2007). In this way sustainable management of water, without the depletion of resources, will be possible. Desalination: Desalination creates the possibility to use non-conventional water resources such as treated waste water or sea water. Simple desalination systems can be built using solar energy (El-Kady and El-Shibini, 2001). These systems can help to implement sustainable resource management by protecting the local natural water resources. Birth policy: Continuing population growth in Kenya is leading to an increase in unsustainable land management in the area since inhabitants, in order to acquire the basic needs to

survive, are causing deforestation of natural forests, erosion of lands and losses in soil productivity (Bilsborrow, and Ogendo,1992). One of the causes of the increased population is the lack of a family planning policy (Prata, 2009). According to Prata (2009), help of the government, but mostly international aid in financial and human resources, can help designing good family planning policies, in order to reduce the birth rate in Kenya. Moreover, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) clarified that a family planning policy should be accompanied by programs which focus on poverty eradication, equality between genders, womens empowerment, strengthen of human rights and male responsibility in sexual behaviour (Speidel et al., 2009). Alternatives for fuel wood: As mentioned in the causal diagram, the continuing use of fuel wood in Kenya in both urban and rural areas has led to deforestation and will continue to cause destruction of the forests, unless alternative energy resources are going to be provided. Paraffin, gas and electricity are the alternative energy resources that can be used instead of fuel wood. The ecological and health impacts will be less with the use of these energy resources (Brouwer and Falcao, 2004). Building dams: As Kenya has a great problem of water scarcity due to the desertification and the salinitation, the government should make a plan to build a number of dams. Building dams can help to store large amounts of water (Schiff and Winters, 2002), which can be used by the people during dry periods.

Foreign aid: Because Kenya is a developing country, foreign aid can help to implement the above mentioned solutions, hence reducing the causes of environmental refugees. 4.3 Forecasting future states of Kenya (Scenario Analysis) In this assessment two baseline scenario are designed to study the future state and trend of Environmental Refugees in Kenya. The different scenarios show possible developments for the future. In these scenarios, the main driving forces that causing environmental refugees are: population growth, economic growth and urbanization. A basic assumption is that the climate change is projected to be equal and significant in both scenarios and in both time steps for each scenario as climate change can not be influenced on the national scale and because there is still uncertainty about the level of climate change. The base year of these scenarios is 2010, and the scenarios are projected (time horizon) till 2030 by using two time steps of 10 years (i.e. 2010 to 2020 and 2021 to 2030).

Table 1: Possible future scenarios (2010-2030) in Kenya.

Scenario 1 In scenario 1 the economic growth is very moderate in the first time step from 2010 to 2020. This causes a bigger increase in population growth (Perman et al., 2003). In the second time step (2020-2030) the economic growth stays on the same (moderate) level and the population growth on the same high level. In both time steps population growth will lead to higher demands for resources and end up in higher needs for arable land (Cropper and Griffiths, 1994). This results in a deficit of available land. This pressure forces people from rural areas to cities. Another effect of the relationship between population growth and urbanisation is that population pressure makes working in urban sectors more attractive (Sato and Yamamoto, 2005). In the first time step urbanisation will increase in a moderate way, while in the second time step, caused by the growing population pressure in the rural areas, the growth of urbanisation is higher. However, many people do still live in rural areas and the rural population is growing as well. The pressure from the increasing population and therefore, as mentioned above, a higher need for arable land, causes environmental problems and more unsustainable land use. Unsustainable land use (e.g. too much livestock) forces desertification and wind erosion (Hintermaier-Erhard und Zech, 1997). High water use for irrigation in the semi-arid and arid areas of Kenya leads to soil salinitation and lowers the soil fertility (Hintermaier-Erhard und Zech, 1997). Population growth increases the demand for wood and then deforestation (Cropper and Griffiths, 1994). In both time steps the above mentioned environmental problems and the unsustainable land use increases in a significant way. These problems considerably increase the problem of environmental refugees.

Scenario 2 In scenario 2 in the first time step (2010-2020) the economy in Kenya will slightly grow. The assumption is that with an increase in economic growth, the population growth will decrease. So over the time period 2010 to 2020 population growth will slightly decrease. Then, from 2020 to 2030, the economic growth will even be higher and thus population growth will decrease even more (see Table 1) (Perman et al., 2003). Decreased population growth on its turn, leads an increase in economic growth (Brander and Dowrick, 1994). Because of the slight growth in economy from 2010 to 2020, people living in rural areas in Kenya will be migrating to the cities for economic purposes, thereby leading to moderate urban development in the cities. This urbanisation will keep developing moderately between 2020-2030 as the economy in the cities will be improving. These determinant factors (i.e. population, economic growth, urbanisation and climate change) will cause unsustainable land use in the first time step as a result of a moderate increase in economy (i.e. intensive agricultural activities on less marginal lands) and the urbanisation of cities, thereby reducing available land for precise agriculture practices in 2010 to 2020. From 2020 to 2030 urbanisation will slightly increase because the population is still (slightly) growing but the economy is growing as well and thereby reducing the pressure on the agricultural lands. This results in a decrease of unsustainable land management. The chain of action will continue as unsustainable land management will lead to desertification. Climate change is also an important driver for desertification. The desertification rate from 2010 to 2020 is more or less the same as in scenario 1, because climate change stays the same, and people are still dependent on their direct environment for a living. From 2020 to 2030 the economy is growing stronger and people will need less land for cultivation due to increased use of modern technologies (Cropper and Griffiths, 1994) and thereby putting less pressure on the land. Nevertheless, climate change stays the same and thus the decrease in the growth rate of desertification is small. Erosion will also be less due to the economic increase and population growth decrease as less pressure on the lands leads to more vegetated landscapes. Nevertheless, wind erosion will stay a problem in the north of Kenya where the desert is getting into the land due to climate change. Salinitation. As a result of the accumulation of salt in the soil, will also decrease between 2010 and 2030, as the economy is developing and people have more financial measures for sustainable land management (e.g. irrigation systems). Deforestation, in this scenario, shows a similar pattern as salinitation and wind erosion. Thus in scenario 2 the increase of environmental refugees is slowed down, butt still the total amount of environmental refugees will increase as a result of climate change and population growth, although less than in scenario 1.

4.4 Predicting the consequences of the alternatives Mitigation measures In scenario 1 the biggest problem is the high population growth throughout both time periods and that its related economic growth is only increasing moderately. These two important factors lead to an increase in all the other drivers of environmental refugees (i.e. ULM, desertification, wind erosion, salinitation and deforestation). For this reason using birth policies in scenario 1 will most likely have the most impact. Nevertheless, it should be questioned whether or not using birth policy is ethically acceptable. Beside this, to successfully implement birth policy strong regulations are required. This might not be feasible in democratic states (Winckler, 2009). The other five solutions (i.e. agroforestry, irrigation, alternatives for fuel wood, building dams and desalination of seawater) will also influence the amount of environmental refugees in scenario 1. Though they all have an influence one is better than the other. The causes these measures work on are all equal (i.e. they have the same slope in the scenario diagram except for deforestation) Agroforestry seems the best solution of these five as it has its impact at the beginning of the chain leading to environmental refugees. Although alternatives for fuel wood and irrigation seem to work, they may have less impact as they both work only on a small part of the problem (see Figure 1, p. 5).

For scenario 2 the situation is somewhat different. Population growth is already slowing down and thus birth policies will have less impact than in scenario 1. In this situation the best solution is to effect unsustainable land management directly, by means of implementing agroforestry, as this influences the complete chain leading to environmental refugees (see causal diagram). In this scenario, mitigation measures for salinitation (i.e. irrigation) will have the least impact as salinitation is hardly a problem in scenario 2. Building dams and desalinitation of seawater have a good result, but these measures influence the end of the chain that leads to environmental refugees (see Figure 1, p. 5) and do therefore only mitigate and not prevent. When the ultimate cause is not tackled, these solutions must be implemented over and over and then these solutions do not work on a sustainable base. 4.5 Comparing and ranking the alternatives. A Multi-criteria decision analysis In this multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) eight criteria are defined to assess the performance of each of the measure brought up in the causal diagram. Subsequently the criteria are listed: Soil protection means that the natural soil functions, like the filter and buffer function, will maintain on the long term.

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Increasing water availability refers to a surplus on water disposable for using or a higher water use efficiency. In this way the same amount of water can be used by more people. Forest protection means that the amount and the quality of the forest remains stable. High spatial scale of implementation is the potential of an alternative to be used in different regions in Kenya. Technical feasibility refers to whether or not the technique for implementing a possible solution is available and its implementation is simple. Acceptance of alternatives by population deals with if people accept the alternative. This is determined by social and cultural values (beliefs). Support sustainable economic growth means a increasing GDP per capita by economic activities of the population without compromising the economic growth for future generations. Cost of implementation refers to the total cost of implementing a mitigation measure. Scoring the mitigation measures: Scoring is based in the performance of each measures against each criterion, using the method developed for CIFOR (Table 2), where 1 is given to the measures that are strongly unfavourable in relation to the criterion. Likewise, 5 is given to measures in which their performance is really good.

Table 2: Method developed for CIFOR.

Score 0 1 2 3 4 5

General description Impossible to score Not applicable Strongly unfavourable Unfavourable Acceptable Very favourable Outstanding

Weighting the criteria: In order to determine the degree of importance or relevance of each criterion in the decision process, weights are given. First, criteria are ranked individually by the team members using a scale ranging from 1 to 9, where 1 is given to a weakly important criterion and 9 to an extremely important criterion (Table 3). Equally, each member of the team will assign a percentage between 0 and 100 to each criterion (rating). Thereafter, with the results obtained by the five experts of the team a relative combined weight is given to each criterion.

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Table 3: Regular ranking of criteria.

1 Weakly important

3 Less important

5 Moderately important

7 More important

9 Extremely important

Overall evaluation of the measures: To provide information to the Government of Kenya about the preference of each measure to reduce the problem of forced migration due to environmental factors in Kenya, using the CIFORs method (Table 2) an order from the most preferred to the least preferred measure is given. This is done by multiplying the weights and scores for each of the mitigation measures. The complete result of the Multi-Criteria Analysis is showed in annex 1. Measures with the highest overall score are the most preferred to reduce the causes forcing environmental refugees. From the six compared possible solutions agroforestry got the highest overall score (overall score 4.1) resulting in a very favourable option. Irrigation systems (3.4), alternatives for fuel wood (3.3), birth policy (2.9) and building dams (2.8) are considered acceptable options, whereas the desalinization of sea water (2.1) is the least preferred since it is an unfavourable option in order to mitigate the problem. Sensitivity Analysis In order to make a sensitivity analysis the scores given in the regular ranking and rating by the first expert are changed in order to find if this has an effect on the overall score of each mitigation measure. In this way, more importance in the decision process is given to environmental criteria (soil protection, increasing water availability and forest protection) whereas the importance of socio-economic criteria is thought to be low (Annex 2). The overall score obtained for each of the mitigation measures and the ranking from the most preferred to the least preferred measure do however not change. Agroforestry turned out to be still a very favourable measure (4.1) to mitigate causes of environmental refugees, followed by acceptable measures such as irrigation systems and alternatives for fuel wood (3.3) birth policy (2.9) and building dams (2.8) Desalinization of sea water (2.1) continues to be seen as an unfavourable measure in order to mitigate the problem.

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5 Discussion First the results of this environmental system analysis will be discussed and thereafter a discussion will follow about the methods applied in this assessment. Like the multi-criteria analysis shows agroforestry is the most preferred solution. This is because it has a high potential for a sustainable land use. If the implementation is correct, it protects in a great extent the natural resources like soil, forest and water. The implementation is possible in a wide range of landscapes in Kenya and can support a sustainable economic growth in the agricultural sector. So, because of its overall effect (economy and environment) and easiness to implement this measure is most favourable for mitigating the causes of environmental refugees. Likewise, through irrigation systems it is possible to mitigate problems such as water scarcity and degradation of soils. The performance of the measures against agroforestry is lower. Whether or not irrigation systems are profitable for a sustainable land use depends on the performance of the system. Irrigation measures using high water amounts in the arid and sub arid regions of Kenya forces soil salinitation, while drop irrigation systems are useful for the implementation of sustainable land use. The implementation of a birth policy can lead to ethical and social problems (difficult to implement in democratic countries). Therefore only birth policy measures with low pressure on people, like enlightenment measures, should be implemented. The success of these low pressure measures depends on a lot of other social-economic aspects. For this reason birth policy should be implemented together with other (environmental) mitigation measure, so when birth policy fails there is still a mitigating effect on the causes of environmental refugees. Desalinisation of sea water is least preferred to solve the problem due to the high technical complexity, it is expensive to implement and is not a way to control the degradation of forests and soils. Furthermore, the environmental assessment performed also has some limitations. One of these limitations is that stakeholders are not included in the assessment because of time and resource restraints. Another limitation of the assessment that the reader should keep in mind is that the different causes, solutions and scenarios given in this assessment are merely a fraction of the possibilities. There are many and complex forces causing environmental refugees. Therefore the implementation of the solutions could turn out not to be sufficient when other factors (e.g. social factors) are not taken into account. It could well be that the pressure from these other factors (e.g. social-economy factors) is higher than the pressure from environmental factors. In this assessment there is not thought of a solution for these other factors.

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As third limitation the assumptions done in the scenario analysis can be mentioned. The scenarios are partly based upon assumptions of the team and partly on scientific evidence. The idea behind this is to reflect how the situation in Kenya will be in the future under different circumstances (e.g. different economic situations). Some of these assumptions could well not be realistic for Kenya, but are used to get a clear division between the two different scenarios. To finish the discussion main recommendations for further research is to perform an integrated environmental and social-economic assessment (interdisciplinary research) for finding solutions to the problem of environmental refugees as the problem is also multidisciplinary.

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6 Conclusions Environmental refugees will continue to increase unless some drastic actions are taken to mitigate the driving forces. From the scenario analysis conducted is that the number of environmental refugees can continue to increase drastically in the near future in Kenya, if the current trend in population growth and unsustainable land management continue. Unsustainable land management is causing environmental refugees by depleting the resource base in an area (e.g. deforestation and desertification). Possible mitigation measures for the government of Kenya for the problem of unsustainable land management (driven by population growth and leading to environmental refugees) are the implementation of birth policies, agroforestry, alternatives for fuel wood, irrigation, building dams and desalinitation of sea water. In the future this problem will most likely increase due to population growth. The question however is what the rate of this growth will be. Implementing birth policies might have a big effect when population increases drastically, but when population growth already declines these policies might turn out to be not effective at all. Agroforestry, on the other hand has big effects on both future scenarios of Kenya, likewise for irrigation. Concluded can be that the most preferred measures for the government of Kenya to mitigate the causes of environmental refugees by the year 2030 are agroforestry and irrigation. While birth policy has great potential it has ethical issues and might be difficult and costly to implement in democratic systems. Only implementing a single alternative solution might not effectively mitigate the problem at hand. A combination of alternatives to ensure synergistic efforts/effects on mitigating this problem might be necessary.

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7 References Bashir, J., Eyasu, E. and Mogotsi K. 2006. Role of agroforestry in improving food security and natural resource management in the drylands: a regional overview. Journal of the Drylands 1(2): 206-211. Bates, D. C. (2002). Environmental Refugees? Classifying Human Migrations Caused by Environmental Change. Population & Environment 23(5): 465-477. Bilsborrow, R. E. and Okoth Ogendo, H.W.O. 1992. Population-Driven Changes in Land Use in Developing Countries. Ambio 21(1): 37-45. Brander, J. A. and Dowrick. S. 1994. The role of fertility and population in economic growth. Journal of Population Economics 7(1): 1-25. Brouwer, R. and Falcao, M. P. 2004. Wood fuel consumption in Maputo, Mozambique. Biomass and Bioenergy 27: 233-245. Cropper, M. and Griffiths, C. 1994. The Interaction of Population Growth and Environmental Quality. The American Economic Review 84(2): 250-254. El-Hinnawi, E. 1985. Environmental Refugees. Nairobi, Kenya. United Nations Environmental Programme. El-Kady, M. and El-Shibini, F. 2001. Desalination in Egypt and the future application in supplementary irrigation. Desalination 136: 63-72. Githaiga, J. M., Red, R., Muchiru, A. N. and van Dijk, S. 2003. Survey of Water Quality Changes with Land Use Type in the Laitkotikok Area, Kajiado Distric, Kenya. LUCID working paper series number: 35. Glassman, J. .1992. Counter-insurgency, ecocide and the production of refugees: Warfare as a tool of modernization. Refuge: Canadas Periodical on Refugees 12: 2730. Goffman, E. 2006. Environmental refugees: How many, how bad? At: http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/discoveryguides-main.php. Visited: 20-11-2009. Hintermaier-Erhard, G. and Zech, W. 1997. Wrterbuch der Bodenkunde. Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart.. Karlberg, L., Rockstrom, J., Annandale, J.G. and Steyn, J.M. 2007. Low-cost drip irrigation. A suitable technology for southern Africa? An example with tomatoes using saline irrigation water. Agricultural Water Management 89(1-2): 59-70. Lott, E., Ong, C. K., and Black, C. R. 2009. Understorey microclimate and crop performance in a Grevillea robusta-based agroforestry system in semi-arid Kenya. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 149(6-7):1140-1151.

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Myers, N. 1997. Environmental refugees. Population and Environment: Population and Environment 19(2): 167-182. Myers, N. 2002. Environmental refugees: a growing phenomenon of the 21st century, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London: Biological sciences 357(1420): 609613. Perman, R., Ma, Y., McGilvray, J. and Common, M. 2003. Natural Resource and Environmental Economics. Pearson Education, Harlow. Prata, N. 2009. Making family planning accessible in resource-poor settings. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Science 364 (1532): 3093-3099. Sato, Y. and Yamamoto, K. 2005. Population concentration, urbanization, and demographic transition. Journal of Urban Economics 58: 4561. Schiff, M. and Winters, A. L. 2002. Regional cooperation and the role of international organizations and regional integration. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2872. Speidel, J. J., Weiss, D. C., Ethelston, S. A. and Gilbert, S. M. 2009. Population policies programmes and the environment. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Science 364 (1532): 3049-3065. .Swart, R. J., Raskin, P. and Robinson, J. 2004. The problem of the future: sustainability science and scenario analyis. Global Environmental Change 14(2): 137-146. Tolba, M. K. 1989. Our biological heritage under siege. Bioscience 39: 725728. Winckler, E. A. 2002. Chinese reproductive policy at the turn of the millennium: Dynamic stability. Population and Development review 28(3): 379-418.

17

Annex

Annex 1: Annex 2:

Results of the multi-criteria analysis Results of the sensitivity analysis

A-C D-F

18

Annex 1:

Results of the multi-criteria analysis REGULAR RANKING AND RATING (WEIGHTING) Expert 1 Expert 2 Expert 3 Expert 4 Expert 5 Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Soil protection Increasing water availability Forest protection High spatial scale implementation Technical Feasibility Acceptance alternatives by population Support sustainable economic growth Cost of implementation 7 9 5 5 7 15 20 11 11 15 9 9 8 7 8 19 19 16 9 12 9 9 9 7 8 15 15 15 5 15 8 8 7 5 9 13 13 13 8 15 6 5 6 7 7 7,5 5 7,5 10 10

10

16

20

10

20

20

20

15

20

COMBINED WEIGHT Ranking Sum of Relative votes Weight 39 40 35 31 39 13,49 13,84 12,11 10,73 13,49 Rating Sum of Relative votes Weight 69,5 72 62,5 43 67 13,9 14,4 12,5 8,6 13,4 Combined Weight (%) 13,70 14,12 12,31 9,66 13,45

Criterion Soil protection Increasing water availability Forest protection High spatial scale implementation Technical Feasibility Acceptance alternatives by population Support sustainable economic growth Cost of implementation TOTAL

32

11,07

57

11,4

11,24

32

11,07

48

9,6

10,34

41 289

14,19 100

81 500

16,2 100

15,19 100

PERFORMANCE MATRIX Mitigation measures Soil protection Increasing High spatial Forest water scale protection availability implementation
3 4 3 5 5 3 5 0 3 2 0 5 4 3 5 2 1 4

Technical feasibility

Acceptance alternatives by population

4 5 1 3 4 2

Support sustainable economic growth

5 4 4 3 4 2

Cost of implementation

Overall Score

Agroforestry Irrigation system Birth policy Building dams Desalinization of sea water Alternatives for fuel wood Weight (%)

5 4 3 2 0 3

4 4 2 3 2 4

3 3 3 2 1 3

4,1 3,4 2,9 2,8 2,1 3,3

13,7

14,1

12,3

9,7

13,4

11,2

10,3

15,2

Annex 2:

Results of the sensitivity analysis REGULAR RANKING AND RATING Expert 1 Expert 2 Expert 3 Expert 4 Expert 5 Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Ranking Rating Soil protection Increasing water availability Forest protection High spatial scale implementation Technical Feasibility Acceptance alternatives by population Support sustainable economic growth Cost of implementation 9 9 9 1 2 20 20 25 5 5 9 9 8 7 8 19 19 16 9 12 9 9 9 7 8 15 15 15 5 15 8 8 7 5 9 13 13 13 8 15 6 5 6 7 7 7,5 5 7,5 10 10

10

16

20

10

10

20

10

20

15

20

WEIGHTING Ranking Sum of Relative votes Weight 41 40 39 27 34 14,75 14,39 14,03 9,71 12,23 Rating Sum of Relative votes Weight 74,5 72 76,5 37 57 14,9 14,4 15,3 7,4 11,4 Combined Weight (%) 14,82 14,39 14,66 8,56 11,82

Criterion Soil protection Increasing water availability Forest protection High spatial scale implementation Technical Feasibility Acceptance alternatives by population Support sustainable economic growth Cost of implementation TOTAL

32

11,51

60

12

11,76

31

11,15

52

10,4

10,78

34 278

12,23 100

71 500

14,2 100

13,22 100

PERFORMANCE MATRIX Mitigation measures Soil protection Increasing High spatial Forest water scale protection availability implementation
3 4 3 5 5 3 5 0 3 2 0 5 4 3 5 2 1 4

Technical feasibility

Acceptance alternatives by population

4 5 1 3 4 2

Support sustainable economic growth

5 4 4 3 4 2

Cost of implementation

Overall Score

Agroforestry Irrigation system Birth policy Building dams Desalinization of sea water Alternatives for fuel wood Weight (%)

5 4 3 2 0 3

4 4 2 3 2 4

3 3 3 2 1 3

4,1 3,3 2,9 2,8 2,1 3,3

14,8

14,4

14,7

8,6

11,8

11,8

10,8

13,2