In limbo: Environmental refugees in the third world

While the number of refugees fleeing persecution and communal conflict approaches 50 million, people have also been forced to leave their homelands because of economic misery and environmental disruption. The number of environmentally displaced people is estimated to rival, if not exceed, that of treaty-defined political refugees. This chapter examines the political implications of humanitarian concern for environmentally displaced persons who are currently denied refugee status and therefore have little international protection. It is argued that the prevailing definitions of refugees found in UN documents are inadequate. The term 'environmental refugees' is still controversial. Uncritical use of the term undermines the validity of refugee status claims and thus misrepresents the complexity of the problems. Efforts to clarify differences between environmental migrants and refugees, political and environmental refugees, and environmental victims and refugees may reduce the controversy. Sudan is discussed as an example of the connections between environmental degradation and forced population movements.