Creating a Union: Biodiversity and the Refugee Crisis

By Rachael Goff

In 2002, the majority of the world’s governments agreed “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level…to benefit all life on Earth” has not been met.  Meaning, biodiversity is a growing problem, and the governments of the world are not doing their part to change this growing problem.  A parallel problem is the 65.3 million people that have been forcibly displaced worldwide, and the fact that only 107,100 of those people have been resettled.  That means that about .16% of this problem has been solved.  Due to the lack of solutions that have been found for these problems separately, it is possible that these two issues may need to learn from one another.

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 clearly defines what needs to be done about the continually diminishing species of plants, animals, and environments that the world is currently destroying.  It starts by describing how humans are continuing to destroy ecosystems, which is arguably the biggest problem in the preservation of biodiversity.  Deforestation in order to clear land for non-productive uses can be defined as two problems in one.

The deforestation aspect is obviously an issue because it wipes out entire environments, including the plants and animals that inhabit that land.  The simple solution to this is to create protected areas where human activity is limited.  This allows for ecosystems to both recover from what damage has been done to them previously, and it also allows for them to grow strong enough to be able to handle what may happen in the future that could potentially damage these areas.  These protected areas must include all resources that are necessary for the inhabitants’ survival.

A solution to the refugee crisis that takes inspiration from the protected area notion is to settle refugees in places where all resources are provided for survival.  This means that settling people in places where water is miles away is not an effective use of that land.  People must be located in spaces that provide them with the ability to live.  If resources are not provided to those that need them, they will not survive.

In addition, non-productive uses of land include the cultivation of tobacco, tea and coffee, floriculture, sugar cane, and other unnecessary production of goods to be sold to wealthier countries that can spend money on commodities.  Non-productive uses of land simply means that land is being used for unnecessary reasons, and biodiversity could be flourishing in an area which is actually being destroyed.  Land that is being used for no good reason is killing the plants and animals that should be in that area.

In the same way, countries that host displaced people that also use land for non-productive uses are wasting the resources that could be used to help those people.  If any of this wasted land were to be used to grow food for those that need it, the problem of world hunger could be drastically altered.  Food could be given to refugees, or the refugees could grow food on that land, or food could even be sold to refugees for minimal amounts of money: there are numerous ways in which this land could be used more productively.

While only some examples were given, there are many parallels that can be drawn between biodiversity issues and the refugee crisis.  The five major categories in which biodiversity can be restored are protecting areas, preventing species introductions, informing/educating, slowing climate change, and promoting sustainability.  All of these solutions can be applied to the refugee crisis.  Separately, these problems remain, but it may be possible to resolve these problems together.