In the late 1980s, early 1990s,
policy-makers and academics began to realise the significance of environmental
degradation in relation to human movement. The literature commonly attributes
the origin of the term "environmental refugee" to Essam El-Hinnawi in
1985; this is slightly incorrect, however. In fact, the International Institute
for Environment and Development (IIED) first used the word in a 1984 briefing
document, whereby the environmental refugee was defined as a person or peoples
who have exhausted the natural resources of their homelands due to
mismanagement and evacuate due to this. It is interesting that the first
definition of the term "environmental refugee" was not sympathetic to
their cause and indicated that the responsibility be the refugee's own doing.
It was after this, therefore, that El-Hinnawi, researcher
for United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), popularised the notion that
an environmental refugee is a person who has forced to become a refugee and
flee from environmental disasters. El-Hinnawi brought in the era of dramatised
pictures of desperate refugees fleeing disaster and utterly distraught.
I am critical of the representation of these people as victims and refugees who are completely helpless. These people are not completely helpless; they may be in help, but there are still things these people can do to survive.
Norman Myers is also a notable academic and
policy adviser who's influence has resulted in the increasing popularity of the
term "environmental refugee" and a growing social alarm at unprecedented
numbers of refugees moving into safer lands of the often more
developed.
The backlash was substantial.
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