Vicious Circle

Two broad patterns of causation have to be distinguished: cases where environmental deterioration is the reason for peoples’ movements (Theme I), and cases where migration is the cause of subsequent environmental problems (Theme II).

A careful assessment of recent experiences of mass displacement and environmental degradation suggests that the pattern of cause and effect often changes as the environmentally displaced of yesterday become today’s cause of environmental deterioration in a new location. This might be labeled an environmental or migration equivalent of shifting cultivation. The term, used in tropical agriculture to describe the process of sequential cultivation of crops in cleared areas of forest where people move once they have depleted the fertility of the original site, seems quite apposite to many instances of migration discussed here. As in the case of shifting cultivation, the process, once benign (given low population density and ample scope for restoration of resource productivity) has become unsustainable and a major cause for concern.