Climate change and conflict in the Sahel: the acacia gum tree as a tool for environmental peacebuilding

 

This article explores the possibility that large-scale gum arabic production could eliminate the causes of violence provoked by climate change in the West African Sahel region as this region is experiencing a number of major humanitarian crises. The word “coast” means the Sahara border of Africa where the area it means is a strip across countries stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean namely Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Cameroon, South Sudan, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal. The region’s population includes 16 million of the 50 million African shepherds coexisting with rural farmers, who together represent 65 to 70 percent of the African workforce in rural areas, and farming is one of the primary sources of livelihoods in the Sahel region, which is already arid or semi-arid region. For both humans and livestock, agricultural products and water supplies are under severe threat in terms of climate change, which has increased floods, heat waves, droughts and land degradation.

As the coast becomes more dry, the soil becomes less productive, and this environmental pressure in turn exacerbates hunger, unemployment and poverty. Many hungry and unemployed rural coastal youth migrate to cities in search of better livelihoods, thus increasing competition for job opportunities, housing and food as the associated risks of violence increase in these cities, others go to the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Europe or join armed groups to make a living. The basis for all these issues of drought, internal displacement and environmentally stimulating migration is climate change, which exacerbates water scarcity, reduces vegetation cover, exacerbates environmental erosion and contributes to unemployment and conflicts between communities. These conditions create greater opportunities for recruitment by terrorist groups in the Sahel region.

While environmental degradation damages the livelihoods of people who depend on natural resources, the sound management of those natural resources renews the wealth that contributes to the peacebuilding process by creating jobs, revenues and local infrastructure. An economy in which eighty percent of livelihoods depend on natural resources can make it sustainable by strengthening capacities through participation and developing local businesses that strengthen the social fabric and protect the environment. The Sahel presents a relevant case study in this regard as it is environmentally debilitating and at the heart of a humanitarian crisis, and this article focuses on one specific and little-known face: the gum arabic tree.

This tree in the tropics produces a natural gum arabicgum that comes out of the bark during the dry season and is the finest type of tree producing gum arabic, Thegum arabic tree has recently become of interest to researchers because of the importance of its derivatives for multinational companies that use it in various products.

After fieldwork in Niger, the research suggested that cooperation in gum arabic production between and within communities and cooperation between local government agencies and their international partners may stop or reduce violence.

 

Family farms are the main sources of food and income in rural Niger, the drought-prone Sahel region that is home to more than 80 percent of the country’s population. Cattle and crops have been depleted as droughts and floods have increased due to climate change, putting more than three-quarters of the population at risk of severe food and economic insecurity. In these circumstances, cross-border cooperation between farming communities, NGOs, international partners and government agencies becomes important. The development of gum arabicproduction as part of this cooperation has the potential to reduce levels of violence through environmental reforms and help reduce poverty.

On the basis of interviews with government institution specialists and representatives, the best hope to combat the main causes of conflicts in the Sahel region is to grow agricultural production through land rehabilitation and through improved soil fertility. Niger’s agronomists have used the Hashab tree among other types of achea to forest farmland and community land and to establish carbon capture sites because its gum is what they are Where land overuse and nutrient-specific farming methods are depleted, carbon sequestration, which is a solid catalyst for climate change, increases the soil’s organic component and helps its ability to absorb water, thereby improving land productivity and encouraging fodder crop growth. The gum arabic tree contributes to this process to increasing the environmental and economic value of the land.

During the field research on October 19, 2018 and at the carbon capture site in Shida (located in the rural Bliara commune), the investigation was able to observe the application of this knowledge in the plan to restore the Earth's power to change the effects of climate change. The sustainable land management plan used here to dig depressions in the form of a half moon to stop surface water from flowing away, and agricultural engineers advised workers to plant the Hashab tree at an equal point on both sides in order to establish the impact of carbon sequestration, as this resulted in an advanced improvement of the wasteland.

Investing in the cultivation of the Hashab tree can be the best way to promote the Sahel region economically, socially and environmentally by virtue of the fact that gum arabic production does not require advanced technology and knowledge and because the tree has environmental advantages. The promotion of gum arabic production also offers benefits to Western multinational companies as well as the Sahel.

Most African families lack resilience to environmental shocks, diseases and conflicts. Given the region’s environmental and economic shocks that people struggle to cope with, regular livelihood plans are integrated with crisis strategies. Gum arabic product can contribute to these coping strategies, and its production can have a positive impact on the livelihoods of local communities, with revenues from gum sales in the drylands of Ethiopia and Sudan contributing 14-23 per cent of household incomes for small producers. Wider tree farming could help coastal residents cope with the effects of climate change, including violence.

Many villagers have so far relied on remittances from family members who travel to cities and other African countries and finally to Europe to get the money they send to help their families, but more income from gum arabic reduces the importance of remittances in the livelihood plan and thus reduces pressures for migration and attempts to join armed groups for wages. Finally, we find that the growing importance of gum arabic as a cash crop reduces pressure on selling food crops for cash and thus reduces food shortages.

There are several reasons that restrict environmental peace efforts, as military campaigns against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and al-Qaeda gain its foothold in the Middle East, jihadist fighters have been stationed again in weak countries in the Sahel region. The war in Libya has also fueled the rise of armed groups with side effects in the Sahel, and as a result insecurity has increased to the point that chaos has undermined environmental peacebuilding efforts, and in such circumstances it is necessary to ensure security so that individuals can venture into the forest to harvest gum arabic.

The problem of land ownership is another factor that contributes to the choice of individuals to return to violence. Different governments in the region are often ineffective in resolving conflicts over the land. Extreme poverty has prompted some rural families to sell their land to meet their immediate needs for survival. Where elites buy fertile land, investments in developing gum arabic will not directly benefit the poor. In addition, a large-scale campaign to plant the Hashab tree may reduce pasture areas, provoking ethnic conflicts. It is clear that the healthy interrelationship between good governance and natural resource management is necessary to sustain peace.

Participants in the research of this study stressed the need to reorganize the production of gum arabic by restructuring the distribution of revenues for the benefit of the poor, which in return increases the well-being of the rural Sahel region. Appropriate regulation of the distribution of gum arabic ensures a rapid flow of goods in the market for the benefit of traditional collectors and private owners alike. Therefore, villagers may see an increase in their family economic activity, incomes and adaptation.

Conclusion:

The development of gum arabic production reduces the level of violence and found that this activity can serve this goal by improving environmental security, food security, water security, economic security, social security and livelihood strategies. The production of gum arabic also offers environmental and socio-economic benefits to the rural Sahel region, and its development, which includes collection, agriculture and commercialization of gum material, will benefit the Sahel region and multinational companies that use the products, so its product represents a specific and promising environmental peace-building practice for the Sahel region that will result in a long-term solution to the current unknown situations.

This research also explored whether gum arabicproduction could contribute to reducing famine and poverty by improving agricultural productivity by reviving land and improving soil fertility without fertilizer. To do this, building on the agricultural environment is rethinking the impractical use of agrochemicals.