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Environmental migrant

Environmental migrants are people who are forced to leave their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local or regional environment. These changes compromise their well-being or livelihood, and include increased drought, desertification, sea level rise, and disruption of seasonal weather patterns (such as monsoons[1]). Though there is no uniform, clear-cut definition of environmental migration, the idea is gaining attention as policy-makers and environmental and social scientists attempt to conceptualize the potential social effects of climate change and other environmental degradation, such a deforestation or overexploitation.

"Environmental migrant" and "climate migrant" (or "climate refugee") are used somewhat interchangeably with a range of similar terms, such as ecological refugee, environmental refugee, forced environmental migrant, environmentally motivated migrant, environmentally displaced person (EDP), disaster refugee, environmental displacee, eco-refugee, ecologically displaced person, or environmental-refugee-to-be (ERTB).[2] The distinctions between these terms remain contested.

Environmental emergency migrants: people who flee temporarily due to an or sudden environmental event. (Examples: someone forced to leave due to a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, etc.)

environmental disaster

Environmental forced migrants: people who have to leave due to deteriorating environmental conditions. (Example: someone forced to leave due to a slow deterioration of their environment such as , coastal deterioration, etc. The village of Satabhaya in the Kendrapara district of Odisha in India is “one of the foremost victims of coastal erosion and submergence due to rising sea levels”. The villagers were losing their homes to the encroaching sea and their cultivable lands to saline ingress, and were forced to migrate elsewhere.[8] In Nepal, many villages in mass migration has been reported from Sivalik Hills / Chure regions due to water scarcity.[9] Similarly, in eastern highland of Nepal 10 households in Chainpur, Sankhuwasabha, 25 households in Dharmadevi and 10 households in Panchkhapan have been forced to migrate due to water crises in their areas.[10]

deforestation

Environmental motivated migrants also known as environmentally induced economic migrants: people who choose to leave to avoid possible future problems. (Example: someone who leaves due to declining crop productivity caused by desertification. A study conducted between 2014 and 2018 reveals that a large proportion of the deltaic populations of Volta delta in Africa, the Meghna delta in Bangladesh and India, and Mahanadi delta in India cited economic reasons as a cause of their migration and only 2.8% cited environment reasons. But one third of migrant households perceived an increased exposure to environmental hazards and deltaic populations associated environmental factors with more insecure livelihoods. This shows how the environment is having a proximate effect on migration.)[11]

Ganges Brahmaputra

The International Organisation for Migration proposes three types of environmental migrants:


Other scholars have proposed various other types of migrant including:

Society and culture[edit]

Popular culture[edit]

The notion of 'environmental migrant' has been a part of popular culture at least since The Grapes of Wrath, a 1939 novel by John Steinbeck.[28]

Bogumil Terminski, Environmentally-Induced Displacement. Theoretical Frameworks and Current Challenges, CEDEM, , 2012.

University of Liège

Westra, Laura (2009). . Routledge. ISBN 9781849770088.

Environmental Justice and the Rights of Ecological Refugees

Vince, Gaia (2022). Nomad century : how to survive the climate upheaval. Allen Lane.  978-0-241-52231-8. OCLC 1286796695.

ISBN

World Refugee & Migration Council (2021) 'Solutions for the Global Governance of Climate Displacement'

Media related to Environmental migrants at Wikimedia Commons