Population Shifts and Migration in the Sahel and Sub-Sudan Zone of West Africa Reviewed from the Aspect of Human Carrying Capacity

Abstract

The hardship triggered by the climatic change in the Sahel zone is an important factor in the dynamics of the Sahara syndrome, which led to the migration of its rural population to the more humid Sudan-savanna zone. Unfortunately, this migration was to the same sort of physically and socioeconomically fragile system and caused problems in the areas of immigration, and the dangerous dynamics of the biological reproduction process as well as the prevalent economic production process have not yet changed. The statement of Bogue hits the point: “Thus, migration is a process for preserving an existing system” (1969 p. 487). Any attempt to search for the apparent carrying capacity can be seen as a wasted effort, as modeling the carrying capacity by quantitative information does not seem to be possible yet. It is more promising to fight against the vulnerability of the poor population in countries where the average income is less than US$ 1 per person per day. There are some dominant physical and human factors of which only the socioeconomic constellation may possibly be altered directly and, through this, the climate indirectly. In the main they can only be identified on the spot as the geographic situation differs from village to village and region to region. The salient point is to look at the social roots of the vulnerability of the small farmers and their entitlement to the benefits of their local society. Governments, and not only in West Africa, should be alarmed by this vicious circle: the climatic change of increased dryness in the Sahel zone has led to out-migration to the neighboring more humid zones to the south; but that decrease in rainfall in the north has been caused in large part by the deforestation in the south as a result of the population increase there. The problem is embedded in two global processes: global climate developments and the socioeconomic makeup of the so-called least developed countries.