Alerting humanitarians to emergencies

Username:

Password:

Sign me in
automatically

Get a password

Forgot your
password?

Login

Reuters
websites United
States Japan United Kingdom ------------------- Other
websites

About AlertNet
| Why join
AlertNet?  | Help

You are here: Homepage > Newsdesk
> Scarce, degraded land is spark for Africa conflict

HOME

Newsdesk

NGO Latest

EMERGENCIES

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

Middle East

COUNTRY PROFILES

Select a
country -
Afghanistan -
Albania -
Algeria - Angola
-
Antigua -
Argentina -
Armenia -
Azerbaijan - Bahamas
-
Bangladesh - Barbados
-
Belarus - Belize
-
Benin - Bhutan
-
Bolivia -
Bosnia-     Herzegovina
-
Botswana - Brazil
-
Bulgaria - Burkina
Faso -
Burundi -
Cambodia -
Cameroon - Cape
Verde -
Central     African
Republic - Chad
-
Chile - China
-
Colombia -
Comoros - Costa
Rica -
Croatia - Cuba
-
Cyprus - Czech
Republic -
Democratic     Republic
of Congo -
Djibouti - Dominica
-
Dominican     Republic
- East
Timor -
Ecuador - Egypt
- El
Salvador -
Equatorial     Guinea
-
Eritrea -
Estonia -
Ethiopia - Fiji
-
Gabon - Gambia
-
Georgia - Ghana
-
Greece - Grenada
-
Guatemala - Guinea
-
Guinea-Bissau - Guyana
-
Haiti -
Honduras -
Hungary - India
-
Indonesia - Iran
-
Iraq - Israel
- Ivory
Coast -
Jamaica - Jordan
-
Kazakhstan - Kenya
-
Kiribati - Korea
(South) - Kuwait
-
Kyrgyzstan - Laos
-
Latvia -
Lebanon -
Lesotho -
Liberia - Libya
-
Lithuania -
Macedonia -
Madagascar - Malawi
-
Malaysia -
Maldives - Mali
-
Malta - Marshall
Islands
-
Mauritania -
Mauritius - Mexico
-
Micronesia -
Moldova -
Mongolia -
Montserrat -
Morocco -
Mozambique -
Myanmar     (formerly
Burma) -
Namibia - Nauru
-
Nepal -
Nicaragua - Niger
-
Nigeria - North
Korea -
Pakistan - Panama
- Papua
New     Guinea
-
Paraguay - Peru
-
Philippines - Poland
-
Republic of     Congo
-
Romania - Russia
-
Rwanda - Samoa
(Western)
- Sao
Tome -
Senegal - Serbia
&     Montenegro
-
Seychelles - Sierra
Leone -
Slovakia -
Slovenia -
Solomon     Islands
-
Somalia - South
Africa - Sri
Lanka - St
Kitts-Nevis - St Lucia
- St Vincent
&     Grenadines
-
Sudan -
Surinam -
Swaziland - Syria
-
Taiwan -
Tajikistan -
Tanzania -
Thailand - Togo
-
Trinidad &     Tobago
-
Tunisia - Turkey
-
Turkmenistan - Tuvalu
-
Uganda -
Ukraine -
Uruguay -
Uzbekistan -
Vanuatu -
Venezuela -
Vietnam - Yemen
-
Zambia -
Zimbabwe

TOPICS

Select a
topic - Bird
flu -
Books -
Children -
Climate and     Weather
-
Crises poll     2005
-
Dengue -
Diamonds and     resource
wars -
Disaster     mitigation
-
Earthquakes -
Ebola - Food
Security -
Health -
HIV/AIDS -
International     Humanitarian
Law -
Landmines -
Locusts -
Malaria - Media
&     Humanitarianism
-
Polio -
Politics of     Aid
-
Quiz -
Refugees &     displacement
- Reuters
Tsunami
AidWatch -
Security -
Talking points -
Technology -
Tuberculosis -
Viewpoints -
Water -
Women -
Working in     Relief

IMAGES

Reuters Pictures

Pictures Galleries

Satellite Images

Interactive
Map

RESOURCES

NGO
Directory

Jobs

Training

NGO SERVICES

Alerting

NGOs join
here

Why join
AlertNet?

AlertNet Challenge

Take the quiz...

Go

Tsunami AidWatch

Global Pledge-o-meter

Go

LOW GRAPHICS

GET
WEEKLY EMAIL

ALERTING

Weekly appeal

Save the Children finds hundreds of thousands at risk
from malnutrition in Niger

Scarce, degraded land is spark for Africa
conflict

22 Jul 2005 12:45:34
GMT

Source: Reuters

By
Ed Stoddard

JOHANNESBURG, July 22 (Reuters) - On a continent where a
man's worth is often measured by his cattle, rivalry for the beasts
and the degraded land they graze on is sparking lethal conflicts
across Africa.

Observers say the violence is rooted in increasingly parched
soil which has been battered by overgrazing, erosion, population
growth and global warming, exacerbating struggles among human
communities with ancient and blood-stained histories.

Last week cattle rustlers in northern Kenya massacred dozens
of villagers, sparking brutal reprisals in a lawless region near the
Ethiopian border. The death toll from the mayhem was 80.

Those clashes were the most recent in a cycle of clan
killings between herders in Kenya over land and scarce water in the
arid north.

On the other side of the continent in mostly desert Niger,
nomadic herdsmen and crop farmers are locked in age-old battles.

Explosive population growth has increased pressure on land,
forcing farmers to sow crops on "corridors" traditionally used by
migrating herders for access to rivers, further stoking conflict.

"This the age-old farmer/herder conflict, the old Biblical
tale of Cain and Abel. The struggle over resources between people
who are using them in different ways," said Henri Josserand, the
head of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation's Global
Information and Early Warning System.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, compiled by U.N.
agencies and other groups, says drylands occupy more than 41 percent
of the world's land area and are home to more than 2 billion people,
some of them the world's most impoverished.

In three key regions of Africa -- the Sahel, the Horn of
Africa, and southeast Africa -- severe droughts occur on average
once every 30 years. These droughts triple the number of people
exposed to severe water scarcity at least once in every generation.

"The correspondence between areas of ecosystem (degradation)
and social conflict is suggestive of a link," a U.N. assessment of
ecological hotspots in Africa said last year.

"Conflict creates conditions promoting ecosystem degradation,
or environmental resource depletion could be a cause of conflict,"
it said.

END OF NOMADIC LIFE?

In Niger, drought has forced herders to drive their livestock
onto planted fields, where they destroy crops, as has happened
during the latest drought that ruined the October harvest.

In May at least 11 people were killed in the Boboye region,
100 km (60 miles) east of the capital Niamey, when rival groups
clashed over land.

"The friction between the two has become more frequent
especially in years when there is drought, forcing animals to go to
crop areas where there is water," Josserand told Reuters by
telephone from his Rome office.

The problem, researchers say, is compounded in Niger by
judicial corruption and inefficiency that hampers the equitable
settlement of land disputes.

"The political authorities are incapable of resolving some
very serious conflicts," said sociologist Boureima Alpha Dado, a
senior research at the University of Niamey. "If it's badly handled,
it ends in bloodshed."

"We don't think the nomadic way of life, wandering around in
search of pasture, has a future," he said. "We have to have a more
intensive system, with food stocks for the animals, a modern system
like in Europe."

Environmental damage compounds the problem.

In central Nigeria, nomadic cattle herders and peasant
farmers have been warring over a scorched landscape as the desert
creeps southward.

In the central state of Plateau, communal violence last year
killed hundreds, leading to a state of emergency being imposed on
the area.

Disputes over land erupted into religious conflict,
underscoring the dangers posed by combining a stressed environment
with spiritual or ethnic faultlines.

"For a while the media will continue to ascribe riots and
other violent upheavals ... mainly to ethnic and religious conflict.
But as these conflicts multiply, it will become apparent that
something else is afoot," wrote Robert Kaplan in a seminal article
published in 1994 in the Atlantic Monthly.

"It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the
national security issue of the 21st century," he wrote. (Additional
reporting by Matthew Green in Dakar and George Obulutsa in Nairobi)

AlertNet news is provided
by

Newsdesk

NGO
Latest

Reuters
Pictures

Mysterious
disease kills 17 in southwest China-paper (7 minutes
ago)
Source: Reuters

Nigeria's
Obasanjo hails reform talks despite boycott (2 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (3 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (3 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (4 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

MORE

Newsdesk

NGO
Latest

Reuters
Pictures

Mysterious
disease kills 17 in southwest China-paper (7 minutes
ago)
Source: Reuters

Nigeria's
Obasanjo hails reform talks despite boycott (2 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (3 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (3 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

Strong
quake hits Indian islands, but no tsunami (4 hours
ago)
Source: Reuters

MORE

Newsdesk

NGO
Latest

Reuters
Pictures

ACT
Alert: Flooding devastates Moldavia, Romania (2 days
ago)
ACT - Switzerland

Mandelson
hints at Christian Aid trip to Africa (2 days
ago)
Christian Aid - UK

Ethiopia
food crisis cannot be wished away with sacks of grain
(2 days ago)
Christian Aid - UK

ADRA
mit Projektpersonal im Einsatz in Provinz Comanesti und
Provinz Nanesti. (2 days ago)
ADRA -
Germany

ADRA
mit Projektpersonal im Einsatz in Provinz Comanesti und
Provinz Nanesti. (2 days ago)
ADRA -
Germany

MORE

Newsdesk

NGO
Latest

Reuters
Pictures

People
cool off in the Mediterranean sea at Calella's beaches in
Catalunya's Costa Brava, Spain
Source: Reuters

People
cool off in the Mediterranean sea at Calella's beaches in
Catalunya's Costa Brava, Spain
Source: Reuters

A
HIV/AIDS patient stands in her hut in Siliguri, India

Source: Reuters

Villagers
look at a forest fire in Pampilhosa da Serra's mountain range in
Portugal
Source: Reuters

A forest
fire burns in Pampilhosa da Serra's mountain range in central
Portugal
Source: Reuters

MORE

Printable
view  |  Email this
article  |  Send
comments

Emergencies and
topics

African
extreme weather

Climate
and Weather

Eritrea-Ethiopia
border

Hurricane
Dennis

Intense
hurricane Emily

Niger
food crisis

Nigeria
violence

Super
typhoon Haitang

Tropical
depression AL06

Tropical
storm Cindy

Tropical
storm Dora

Tropical
storm Eugene

MORE

Countries

Reset

Full-size map

Ethiopia
profile
· View map

Kenya
profile
· View map

Niger
profile
· View map

Nigeria
profile
· View map

South
Africa profile
· View map

MORE

Disclaimers  |  Copyright  |  Privacy  |  Contact us
|  Feedback  |
About us

Mon Jul 25 01:43:10
2005