By Dr. Kariuki Muigua, PhD (Leading Environmental Law Scholar, Policy Advisor, Natural Resources Lawyer and Dispute Resolution Expert from Kenya), Winner of Kenya’s ADR Practitioner of the Year 2021, ADR Publisher of the Year 2021 and CIArb (Kenya) Lifetime Achievement Award 2021.*
Natural resources are important for meeting the basic needs of most communities in Kenya and the world over. However, these resources are under threat due to various factors which include poverty, climate change, desertification, unsustainable exploitation and environmental degradation, among others. Climate change and biodiversity conservation have thus been said to be the common concern of humanity as all States derive benefits from protective action taken either unilaterally or collectively. Indeed, the impacts of climate change are increasingly viewed as global security risks, which will have far-reaching implications for both human and renewable natural systems.
The Bali Principles of Climate Justice of 2002 (Bali Principles) acknowledge that if consumption of fossil fuels, deforestation and other ecological devastation continues at current rates, it is certain that climate change will result in increased temperatures, sea level rise, changes in agricultural patterns, increased frequency and magnitude of “natural” disasters such as floods, droughts, loss of biodiversity, intense storms and epidemics. Further, deforestation contributes to climate change, while having a negative impact on a broad array of local communities.
Notably, deforestation has been one of the major problems contributing to climate change in Kenya. This problem was even acknowledged in the Climate Change Policy and there have been attempts to address the same through the enactment of the Climate Change Act, 2016 which is meant to provide for the legal and institutional framework for the mitigation and adaption to the effects of climate change; to facilitate and enhance response to climate change; to provide for the guidance and measures to achieve low carbon climate resilient development and for connected purposes, amongst other efforts by the stakeholders such as the eviction of communities living in Kenya’s five water towers – Mau Forest Complex, Mount Kenya, the Aberdares, Mount Elgon and Cherangani.
The Bali Principles also affirm the fact that the impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by small island states, women, youth, coastal peoples, local communities, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, poor people and the elderly. Also noteworthy is the assertion that the local communities, affected people and indigenous peoples have been kept out of the global processes to address climate change. There are three types of environmental scarcity: supply-induced scarcity is caused by the degradation and depletion of an environmental resource; demand-induced scarcity results from population growth within a region or increased per capita consumption of a resource, either of which heightens the demand for the resource; and structural scarcity arises from an unequal social distribution of a resource that concentrates it in the hands of relatively few people while the remaining population suffers from serious shortages.
Environmental deficiencies supply conditions which render conflict all the more likely. They can serve to determine the source of conflict, they can act as multipliers that aggravate core causes of conflict, and they can help to shape the nature of conflict. Moreover, they can not only contribute to conflict, they can stimulate the growing use of force to repress disaffection among those who suffer the consequences of environmental decline. This has been the case in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid areas where pastoralists’ tribal clashes over resources have recurred over the years with no successful intervention by the Government. The limited water and pasture resources creates competition and tension amongst these communities, often leading to conflicts.
The Bali Principles also acknowledge that unsustainable production and consumption practices are at the root of this and other global environmental problems. The impacts of climate change also threaten food sovereignty and the security of livelihoods of natural resource-based local economies. They can also threaten the health of communities around the world-especially those who are vulnerable and marginalized, in particular children and elderly people. These principles envisage a situation where countries will put in place measures geared towards addressing and eliminating any unsustainable production and consumption practices in their territories in a bid to curb environmental degradation. Indeed, scientists have warned that climate change will hit many African countries more severely than previously thought.
The scientists, from Britain’s Meteorological Office and Leeds University, have argued that people in Africa will likely be among the hardest hit by climate change over the coming decades – with less capacity to deal with the impact. The adverse effects of these climatic changes especially in the Sub-Saharan region, including Kenya have been affirmed and documented by various authors. The UNESCO has observed that the effects of global warming and climate change impacts are already contributing to increased state fragility and security problems in key regions around the world – conflict in the Middle East and Africa, tensions over fisheries in the South China Sea, and a new political and economic battleground in a melting Arctic Ocean.
UNESCO goes on to state that climate change stresses on natural resources – combined with demographic, economic and political pressures on those resources – can degrade a nation’s capacity to govern itself. This includes its ability to meet its citizens’ demands for basic resources – like food, water, energy and employment – also known as its output legitimacy. The threat to output legitimacy can contribute to state fragility, internal conflict, and even state collapse. Seen through this lens, climate change may present a serious challenge to state stability and legitimacy in the Horn of Africa – a region already grappling with numerous challenges before climate change became a factor.
The Horn of Africa which includes some of the most vulnerable states in the world – Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and South Sudan has been reported as a region that exhibits some of the clearest indications of a connection between climate change and conflict – namely, conflicts between agricultural and pastoral communities precipitated by climate-exacerbated droughts and water variability. Climate-related environmental change influences violent conflicts when: (a) it negatively affects people’s livelihoods; (b) it influences the tactical considerations of armed groups in ongoing conflicts; (c) elites exploit social vulnerabilities and resources; and (d) it displaces people and increases migration in vulnerable and highly vulnerable natural resource dependent contexts.
Studies have shown that the risk of violence increases, particularly among farmers and pastoralists who depend directly on agro-ecosystems for their livelihoods, when drought, floods or land overuse and degradation lead to decreasing production and economic loss. This is usually explained as reduced opportunity costs of using violence to seize control over resources compared to traditional livelihoods. As already pointed out above, these are the risks that persistently face the arid and semi-arid areas in Kenya and the horn of Africa in general.
*This article is an extract from the Article “Natural Resource Conflicts: Addressing Inter-Ethnic Strife through Environmental Justice in Kenya” by Dr. Kariuki Muigua, PhD, Kenya’s ADR Practitioner of the Year 2021 (Nairobi Legal Awards), ADR Publisher of the Year 2021 and ADR Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 (CIArb Kenya). Dr. Kariuki Muigua is a foremost Environmental Law and Natural Resources Lawyer and Scholar, Sustainable Development Advocate and Conflict Management Expert in Kenya. Dr. Kariuki Muigua is a Senior Lecturer of Environmental Law and Dispute resolution at the University of Nairobi School of Law and The Center for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP). He has published numerous books and articles on Environmental Law, Environmental Justice Conflict Management, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Sustainable Development. Dr. Muigua is also a Chartered Arbitrator, an Accredited Mediator, the Africa Trustee of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Managing Partner of Kariuki Muigua & Co. Advocates. Dr. Muigua is recognized among the top 5 leading lawyers and dispute resolution experts in Kenya by the Chambers Global Guide 2022.
References
Muigua, K., “Natural Resource Conflicts: Addressing Inter-Ethnic Strife through Environmental Justice in Kenya,” Available at: http://kmco.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Natural-Resource-Conflicts-Addressing-Inter-Ethnic-Strife-Through-Environmental-Justice-in-kenya-Kariuki-Muigua-7th-September-2019.pdf (accessed 5 May 2022).
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