By Saswati Bora, Operations Officer, Agriculture & Environmental Services, the World Bank
Ms. Bora, the lead author of the background paper “Food Security and Conflict” to the 2011 World Development Report: Conflict, Security and Development, kicks off our first Landscapes Roundtable on the role of integrated landscape management in mitigating or avoiding conflict. With an eye to the challenges facing a growing global population she provides some foundation on a landscape approach and the links between strained natural resources and conflict.
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Conflict often arises in the competition over factors of production, primarily unequal access to land and water resources. Agricultural land productivity is already declining due to desertification, salinization, soil erosion, and deforestation, and the growing world population is only adding to the demand on land resources. Water scarcity in many countries is also leading to conflict among countries and regions that share resources and reserves across national boundaries. Climate change adds further stress and volatility to the agricultural system. By 2050, climate change could reduce yields by 30 percent (without effective adaptation); this takes place over a period when the world needs to produce at least 50 percent more food to feed the world’s growing population, set to reach 9 billion people by 2050. Climate change can also lead to migration from increasingly uninhabitable areas that may place additional burdens and resource conflicts in areas receiving migrants.
Having more people to feed, with more competition for land and water, more variable climate, and greater food price volatility increases the stresses on livelihoods and food systems. Countries under the greatest pressure are often the least able to respond, especially when inequalities or environmental degradation coupled with weak institutions lead to marginalization of large segments of the population. When countries are under stress, conflict can be triggered by natural (such as a prolonged drought in Ethiopia in 1973-74), economic (such as the large and rapid increase in food prices in Haiti in 2008), or political events (such as denied access to land in Madagascar in 2008-2009). Better managing the competing demands for land, water, and forest resources through a landscape approach can play a significant role in reducing these stresses and limiting conflict.
A “landscape approach” takes both a spatial and socio-economic approach to managing land, water, and forest resources and the ecosystem services they provide. Increasingly landscape approaches are being employed to implement strategies that integrate management of these resources, and that promote sustainable use and conservation in an equitable manner. For example, in Rwanda, agriculture is challenged by uneven rainfall, production variability, small land holdings, limited commercialization, and especially land constraints due to population growth. The World Bank and other donors are supporting the Government’s Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation Project that addresses these challenges through a landscape approach by providing infrastructure and assistance for land husbandry (terracing and downstream reservoir protection), water harvesting (valley dams and reservoirs), and hillside irrigation (water distribution piping, fittings and field application for basin and furrow irrigation). In addition, the project provides training for farmers, supports farmer organizations, and enhances marketing and financing activities. As a result, the productivity in rain-fed areas has tripled, small farmers now have access to improved farming methods, more land is protected against soil erosion and the share of commercialized agricultural products has increased. At the national level, government has adopted a program for ‘border-to-border’ landscape restoration, and intends to adopt an ecosystems approach to implement this.
Although landscape approaches can reduce resource stress and conflict, it is only part of the solution and needs to be implemented in the “right” way. While feasible, it can be difficult to target both improved livelihoods and conservation objectives, since conservation will not always be in the interest of some or all stakeholders.
A landscape approach works better when land tenure rights are secure and complemented by improved governance over land resources. This provides incentives for individual farmers, households, and communities to invest in land and water management, and to protect trees and forests. Appropriate pricing regimes encourage rational use of scarce resources. Regulations are also needed (e.g. to control pollution run-off or avoid free grazing of animals), but must be backed up by appropriate incentives for private farmers to invest in “public good” activities that may benefit others in the landscape.
The public good nature of many of these investments, including positive environmental impacts outside the project area, requires the right incentives and justifies complementary financing from local and central governments. It is important to have information and communications infrastructure and strategy in place. If people don’t have access to information they can understand, they have less of an incentive to change their behavior. Open communication also enables innovation. Decentralized decision-making can help facilitate locally adapted solutions and encourages local communities to participate. Transparent and accountable institutions are essential.
Addressing these features can tackle some of the structural issues — related to failed institutions and competition over natural resources — that often lead to conflict. A landscape approach has the potential to reduce the stresses that lead to conflict and ultimately restore a balance of environmental, social, and economic benefits.
Related reading:
Food Security and Conflict
(The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this post are entirely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank Group)
Roddy Hale
May 22, 2013 at 7:01pmWell to be fair Seth you could post this comment on any of the blogs posted on this forum couldn’t you? You are quite correct that this blog does not address the “elephant in the room” nor do many of the blogs on this site. There is a reason for that and it is obvious from the title of this blog site. I wonder if your suggestion of a typical neo-classical economic approach of lifting people out of poverty, can also be branded with the terms “familiar” and “old-fashioned development mindset”? It would be interesting to here your thoughts on that. You seem to be suggesting that comfortable living standards will lead to slower population growth. What is the time frame for this. How long does it take such an economic solution to shrink the elephant? I am curious as to when you think this will be achieved. It hasn’t been achieved yet has it, so is there no room for such approaches as those mentioned in the above blog in the meantime?
Seth Hazelquip
May 15, 2013 at 8:47amWhile the terminology may be different, I find that the content of this approach is very familiar – soil & water conservation, improved cultivation methods for higher yields, better marketing, etc. The great weakness is that it does not address the elephant in the room – rising population. Even if the claim of 300% yield increases can be verified independently, the triple of a very small number is still a very small number, and any gain in yields will quickly be overwhelmed by the rising population.
This is precisely the old-fashioned development mindset that aims to keep poor people on their tiny farms for a little while longer, while poor rural people themselves are looking for other forms of livelihood away from farms.
Since the article mentions Rwanda, it is worth noting that the Rwandan government’s much larger initiative targets high-tech industrialisation as a way to create well-paying employment. This approach holds much more promise for better standards of living than keeping poor people on tiny farms. Comfortable living standards in towns also usually leads to better educational and health opportunities, smaller families, and slower population growth. This would really solve the problem, rather than just postpone it for a few more years.
While farming systems improvements (call it a ‘landscape approach’ if you will) is a good thing, it is not the most direct or effective way to address the problem of conflict between poor people over limited land resources. To really address the problem, we would need to talk about overall economic modernisation.