Environment and Civil Strife

Abstract

Homer-Dixon, T. F Environment, Scarcity, and Violence. . 1999 . Princeton University , Princeton, New Jersey . 253 pp. $27.95. ISBN 0-691-02794-3 . Scarcities of renewable natural resources, whether inherent due to ecological constraints or created by sociopolitical factors, are a principal cause of sectarian violence and ethnic conflict in modern human societies. Environmental degradation has crossed a threshold of irreversibility in many parts of the world, and it may now function as a permanent, independent cause of civil strife and ethnic violence in developing countries. These are the conclusions of an important new book by Thomas Homer-Dixon, which summarizes and synthesizes the findings of a decade-long, international program of research into the effects of scarcities of natural resources on social conflicts and civil strife in developing countries. Conservation biologists take note: Homer-Dixon's findings indicate that the geopolitical effects of environmental problems driving the current biodiversity crisis may be even worse than those predicted by the ardent pessimists among our ranks. The 16 case studies cited by the author, which involved more than 100 investigators from 15 countries, indicate that this phenomenon affects hundreds of millions of people in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. These case studies, along with findings of collateral research programs based in Norway and Switzerland, demonstrate that scarcity of renewable natural resources may not be subordinate to political, economic, or social factors as a principal cause of civil strife and violence in developing countries. The author's key conclusions are two. First, scarcities of renewable natural resources (e.g., cropland, forest products, water, pasturage, fisheries stocks) function as an important cause of civil strife and social violence in modern societies. Second, scarcities may be created by inherent ecological factors such as climate and soils, or by sociopolitical and economic forces such as the inequitable distribution of resources among different social or ethnic groups within societies. Resource scarcities do not function independently of societal factors as a cause of violent civil strife but instead interact closely with social, political, and economic factors that are often unique to a particular society or situation. Irreversible ecological damage resulting from the human degradation of landscapes has the potential to become a permanent source of social conflict in certain societies, even when the political and economic factors that originally caused such degradation have been resolved. Homer-Dixon's analysis is keyed to the concepts of “resource capture” and “ecological marginalization”—structural imbalances in resource distribution within modern societies that frequently result in mass displacements of economically disenfranchised rural populations into marginally productive and ecologically sensitive areas. The resulting concentrations of human populations in areas of shallow soils and hilly terrains in tropical rainforest and dry woodland biomes may have devastating consequences for regional landscapes. Homer-Dixon points out that although scarcity of renewable natural resources frequently appears to be a major cause of ethnic violence and guerrilla insurgencies within countries, it is not currently a major factor in international conflicts. In chapter 6 the author presents his thesis that cultures differ in their inherent resilience to the effects of resource limitations according to the availability (or lack thereof) of an enabling societal milieu for developing technological fixes that can alleviate natural or induced constraints on resource availability—what Homer-Dixon terms the “ingenuity” factor. Although the concept has some heuristic value, the term as used in this book strays uncomfortably close to what biologists could characterize as themes of social Darwinism and group selectionism. I believe that many if not most of the stipulated societal and economic constraints on ingenuity may be more tightly linked to modern political milieus than to “traditional” cultural mores. The precise differentiation of political and cultural factors in national economies is becoming increasingly difficult, however, given the ongoing effects of globalization of trade and capital investment and homogenization of modern urban cultures. The interrelationships of urban growth, rural poverty, and violent civil strife are discussed at length in chapter 7. The role of resource scarcity per se as a driving factor of rapid urbanization in developing countries may be somewhat overemphasized, given the interaction of other potent factors. Urban migration is a phenomenon of major significance to even the most prosperous farming communities of Europe and North America, where the amenities and economic opportunities offered by urban life cast a pall over the exigencies of rural occupations such as ranching, farming, logging, and mining. In other words: How are you going to keep the children home on the farm, once they've seen MTV? Homer-Dixon's analysis provides little comfort for conservationists and environmentalists concerned with the escalating, deleterious effects of human impacts on global ecosystems. Social and political scientists may find this work a stimulating and provocative look at the complexity and importance of interactions between human societies, their geophysical environment, and their political milieu. Devout technophiles, neoclassical economists, and others possessed of an unbounded faith in the infinite capacity of human ingenuity to cope with environmental constraints on resource availability will undoubtedly give short shrift to the author's conclusions. Such market-obsessed economic optimists would do well to recall that, in human societies as well as stock exchanges, past performance provides no guarantee of future gains. Most chapters would serve as excellent, stand-alone supplemental readings for undergraduate or graduate courses in human ecology, conservation biology, resource economics, and environmental science. The terminology employed will be challenging for biologists and students, because the functional definitions of key words and concepts often differ greatly from those associated with biological or vernacular idioms. The author is careful, however, to identify explicitly and define novel or idiosyncratic terminology when these are first introduced into the text. Subsequent editions of this book would benefit greatly from the addition of an extensive glossary and an expanded and upgraded index. University libraries should take advantage of the relatively low price of the current hardcover edition to put it on their shelves as a reference volume. The availability of a discounted paperbound edition would greatly facilitate the dissemination of this important volume to students, professionals, and libraries everywhere.