Climate change means different things to different people.
To 26 year old Ben Namakin, an environmental activist from the small island nation of Micronesia, it means this: “Climate change for me is a matter of life and death for my people.”
If predictions from scientists who study climate change are to come true, Ben Namakin’s could be the first island nation to be swallowed up by waters.
The term climate change refers to long-term alterations in the weather patterns of a given area. It can take thousands and even millions of years to change the climate of an area.
In this regard, around the world, owing to a long-term increase in human activities that produce gases that destroy the earth’s natural abilities to moderate its own climate, many negative changes in weather conditions are starting to be seen (IE: Climate Change). Experts predict that the situation is likely to get worse if nothing is done to urgently reverse the trend of these non-sustainable, non-environmentally friendly human activities.
Small island states like Ben Namakin’s often do the least to propagate climate change yet end up bearing its brunt.
On islands like Ben’s, the primary reason for displacement of people is environmental changes that culminate in typhoons, mudslides, wave surges, flooding or even severe droughts. When these climate-induced disasters occur, it often leads to the mass exodus of communities.
Amongst migration experts, this imposed movement is referred to as “forced migration”. It is also called “deracination” which is originally a French word that means ‘to uproot’.
Today, tens of millions of forced migrants live around the world. The factors that lead to forced migration vary greatly and could include: repressive regimes, conflict, developmental policies and changes in the environment.
Working closely with the government and other regional and international stakeholders, humanitarian organizations that are concerned with the safe movement of the forced migrants on island's like Ben's offer the inhabitants intervention services, emergency relief and reconstruction assistance. The kind of support that these organizations offer could range from building of dams to reconstruction of public and private infrastructure.
As the humanitarian organizations continue to develop intervention strategies for these most-at-risk communities, I would like to urge the scholars of this day to give some serious thought to what impact climate change is having on the migration trends of our generation. In my humble opinion, this phenomenon is being given much less "credit" than it deserves.
The author is a humanitarian analyst and she writes on migration. Email her on: msanyu@yahoo.com
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