Relationship between Environmental Degradation, Resource Scarcity, and Civil Conflicts in Somalia
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine relationship between environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and civil conflict in Somalia. Environmental degradation is disposed to increase the number of disputes emerging from duel over the scarce resources. Consequently, it makes the society such offensive that it is inclined to armed conflict.
In this study we investigated five variables in which civil conflict was the dependent variable. Population growth, land degradation, water resource and the climate change were explanatory variables. Time series data, 1990-2015, from various sources was employed. Regression methods, Ordinary Least Square was used to estimate the model parameters. Augmented Dickey-Fuller test was used to examine stationary of the data as Johansen cointegration was used to detect the long run relation between the study variables.
The study found that one million increase of the rural population will lead the likelihood of the civil conflicts by about 1.04%. The decline of every one hector of arable land will cause the likelihood of the civil conflict to increase by about 1.5%. The rise of the one kilometer cubic of fresh water decreases the likelihood of the civil conflicts to about 4.49%. Rise of the temperature came to be insignificant and has no contribution to the civil conflicts in Somalia.
References
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[2] Bachler, G.1994. 'Desertification and Conflict. The Marginalization of Poverty and of Environmental Conflicts', paper presented at the Symposium on Desertification and Migration, Almeria, Spain, 9-12 February.
[3] Berry, J.A. and Pott-Berry, C. 1999. Genocide and Rwanda. Washington, DC: Howard University Press
[4] Boko, M. et al. 2007. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Working Group II contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 433—467.
[5] Brock, L.1991. Peace through parks: the environment on the peace research agenda. Journal of peace research, 28 (4): 401-423. DOI: 10.1177/0022343391028004006
[6] Brunnschweiler, C. and Bulte, E. H 2009. Natural resources and violent conflict: Resource abundance, dependence and the onset on civil wars. Oxford Economic Papers New Series, 61(4): 651-674
[7] Buhaug, H. 2010. Climate change not to blame for African civil wars. PNAS 107(38): 16477-16482.
[8] Cole, J. 1996. Geography of the World's Major Regions. London & New York: Routledge.
[9] Deudney, D. 1990. 'The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National ScaxnXY', Millennium 19(3): 461-476.
[10] Diehl, P.F. and Gleditsch, N.P (Eds) 2001. Environmental Conflict (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).
[11] Galtung, J. 1969. Violence peace and peace research. Journal of peace research, 6(3): 167 - 191. DOI:10.1177/002234336900600301
[12] Galtung, J., 1982. Environment, Development and Military Activity. Towards Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93 (2): 366 – 375.
[13] Giordano, M. 2003. The geography of the commons: The role of scale and space. Journal of Peace Research, 49(1): 35–50. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8306.9302007
[14] Gleditsch, N.P. 1998. Armed conflict and the environment: a critique of the literature. Journal of Peace Research, 35(3): 381 –400.
[15] Hauge W. and Ellingsen T. 1998. Beyond environmental security: casual pathways to conflict. Journal of peace research, 35(3): 299-317. DOI: 10.1177/0022343398035003003
[16] Hegre, H., Ellingsen, T., Gleditsch, N.P. and Gates, S. 1997. 'Towards a Csivil Peace? Democracy and Democratization 1832-1992', paper presented to the 31st North American Meeting of the Peace Science Society (International), Indianapolis IN, 20 23 November.
[17] Hendrix, C. S., and Salehyan, I. 2012. Climate change, rainfall, and social conflict in Africa. Journal of Peace Research, 49(1): 35–50. DOI: 10.1177/0022343311426165
[18] Himes, J. S. 1980. Conflict and conflict management. Athens, GA: University of Georgia
[19] Homer-Dixon, T. F. 1994. Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict; Evidence from Cases. International Security, 19(1): 5-40.
[20] Homer-Dixon, T.F. 1999. Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
[21] Homer-Dixon, T.F. and Blitt, J (Eds). 1998. Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population and Security (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield)
[22] Ishiyama, J and Pechenina, A. 2012. Environmental Degradation and Genocide, 1958 2007, Ethnopolitics: Formerly Global Review of Ethnopolitics, 11(2): 141-158. DOI: 10.1080/17449057.2012.656836
[23] Kahl, C. H. 2006. States, scarcity, and civil strife in the developing world. Princeton University Press.
[24] Kaplan, R. 1994. The Coming Anarchy. Atlantic Monthly, 273(2): 44-76.
[25] King, M.H. and Elliott, C.M. 1996. UNICEF’s call to greatness—an open letter to Carol Bellamy. National Medical Journal of India, 9(2): 130–145
[26] Kleitsch, N.P. (Ed.) 1989. Conflict and the Environment (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Publications).
[27] Leff, J. 2009. Pastoralists at war: Violence and security in the Kenya-Sudan-Uganda Border Region. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 3(2): 188—203. DOI: 10.4119/UNIBI/ijcv.5
[28] Levy, M.A., Thorkelson, C., Vo¨ro¨smarty, C., Douglas, E. and Humphreys, M. 2006. Freshwater availability anomalies and outbreak of internal war: results from a global spatial time series analysis, Paper presented to the 47th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego, CA, 22–25 March. Available at: www.isanet.org/sandiego/
[29] Lobell, B D., et al. 2008. Prioritising climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science, 319(2): 607-610.
[30] Lodgaard, S. 1992. 'Environmental Security, World Order, and Environmental Conflict Resolution', ch. 7 in Nils Petter Gleditsch, ed., Conversion and the Environment. Proceedings of a Seminar in Perm, Russia, 24-27 November 1991. PRIO Report, no. 2, May (11 5-136).
[31] May, J.F. 1995. Policies on population, land use and environment in Rwanda. Population and Environment, 16: 321–334.
[32] Ostrom, E. 2007. A diagnostic approach for going beyond panaceas. PNAS 104: 15181 1518 Press. Princeton University Press.
[33] Renner, M., Pianta, M. and Franchi, C. 1991. 'International Conflict and Environmental Degradation', ch. 5 in Raimo Vayrynen, ed., New Directions in Conflict Theory. Conflict Resolution and Conflict Trans- formation, London: SAGE, in association with the International Social Science Council (108 128).
[34] Starr, J. R. 1991. Water Wars, Foreign Policy, 82: 17-36.
[35] Tir, J. and Diehl, P.F. 1998. Demographic Pressure and Interstate Conflict: Linking Population Growth and Density to Military Disputes and Wars, 1930 89. Journal of Peace Research, 35(3): 319-339. DOI:10.1177/0022343398035003004
[36] Wellesteen, P. 2002. Understanding Conflict Resolution War, Peace and Global and the global system. Sage, London
[37] Westing, A. H. 1986. Global resource and international conflict: environmental factors in strategic policy and action. Oxford: Oxford university press.
Published
2019-08-29
How to Cite
MOHAMED, Abdinur Ali; NAGEYE, Ahmed Ibrahim.
Relationship between Environmental Degradation, Resource Scarcity, and Civil Conflicts in Somalia.
Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism, [S.l.], v. 10, n. 3, p. 640-650, aug. 2019.
ISSN 2068-7729.
Available at: <https://journals.aserspublishing.eu/jemt/article/view/3839>. Date accessed: 22 dec. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.14505//jemt.10.3(35).18.
Section
Article
Copyright© 2024 The Author(s). Published by ASERS Publishing 2024. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of CC-BY 4.0 license.