Environmental change can also raise security is- Despite the decrease in civil wars globally in
sues by changing or threatening supplies of food recent years, millions of people continue to be
and other goods. Scarcity of shared resources, displaced and negatively affected by violent con-
such as fresh water, has been a source of conflict flict. Armed conflict often causes heavy damage
and social instability. to the environment. It reduces societal capacity
to adapt to global environmental change, while
Natural resources have often been a means of making sound environmental management dif-
funding war as it was in Liberia and Sierra Leone ficult.
in the 1990s. Armed conflicts have also been
used as a means to gain access to resources,
and they can destroy or result in severe degrada-
tion of environmental resources.
Conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and refugee settlement in Guinea DownloaD Graphic 2
Natural resources, including diamonds and timber, helped fuel civil war The 1974 image shows small, evenly spread, scattered flecks of
in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 1990s. Diamonds were smuggled light green in the dark green forest cover of the Parrot’s Beak and
from Sierra Leone into Liberia and onto the world market. In the mid- surrounding forests of Liberia and Sierra Leone. These flecks are
1990s, Liberia’s official diamond exports ranged between US$300 and village compounds, with surrounding agricultural plots. The dark areas
US$450 million annually. These diamonds have been referred to as in the upper left of the image are most likely burn scars.
“blood diamonds,” as their trade helped finance rebel groups and the
continued hostilities. By the end of the war in 2002, more than 50 000 In the 2002 image Parrot’s Beak is clearly visible as a more evenly
people had died, 20 000 were left mutilated and three-quarters of the spread light grey and green area surrounded by darker green forest
population had been displaced in Sierra Leone alone. of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The light colours show deforestation
in the “safe area” where refugees had set up camp. Many of the
As civil wars raged in Sierra Leone and Liberia, hundreds of thousands refugees integrated into local villages, creating their own family plots
of refugees fled to safety in Guinea. In 2003, about 180 000 refugees by cutting more trees. As a result the isolated flecks merged into one
resided in Guinea. Between Sierra Leone and Liberia, there is a small strip larger area of degraded forest. The forest devastation is especially
of land belonging to Guinea known as the “Parrot’s Beak,” because of obvious in the upper left part, where areas that were green in 1974
the parrot shape contour of the international border between the countries now appear grey and brown, also due to expanded logging.
(depicted as a black line on both images). This strip is where refugees
constituted up to 80 per cent of the local population.
Sources: Meredith 2005, UNEP 2005b, UNHCR 2006a
Credit: UNEP 2005b
26 VITAL GEO GRAPHICS
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