Page 8 - FMR64_Trafficking and smuggling & Climate crisis and local communities_2020_web

FMR 64
8 Climate crisis and local communities
www.fmreview.org/issue64 June 2020

nomadic economy. Since the war, most of the contingent on the replenishment of either
population has resided in the Tindouf camps. naturally occurring surface water or small
Following the conclusion of the war with man-made wells. Irregular, unpredictable
Morocco, Polisario – which itself maintains rainfall patterns and prolonged drought,
substantial camel herds – made a concerted however, make it difficult to depend on
effort to develop the Liberated Territories ephemeral water sources, and also increase
specifically for nomadic pastoralism pressure on the Tindouf aquifer. This
by implementing large-scale landmine problem can be partially mitigated by the
clearance, installing and maintaining wells, use of mechanical wells. The development
and rejuvenating the nomadic economy. of artificial water resources in the Liberated
Territories, moreover, has also allowed for
Climatic challenges – and appropriate the development of community gardens,
responses with Polisario-run gardening projects
Camp life has presented unique challenges emerging in a number of locations.
for the previously nomadic population, The unpredictable rainfall, generalised
and many of those challenges have been drought and depletion of groundwater are
exacerbated in recent decades by a changing problems for both nomads and refugees, but
climate. Attempts by NGOs to encourage the population of the Western Sahara camps is
sedentary agriculture – Oxfam, for instance, unusual in that it retains a tie to both refugee
has invested in the cultivation of the multi-use and nomadic worlds. The anthropologist
plant Moringa oleifera – have met with mixed Cindy Horst, writing about Somali refugee-
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success, in part because the camp population nomads in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp,
is more familiar with animal pastoralism. defined Somalis’ nomadic heritage “as
Another increasingly severe problem has consisting of three elements: a mentality of
been the increased frequency of flooding in looking for greener pastures; a strong social
the camps. Rather than experiencing a steady, network that entails the obligation to assist
continuous decline in rainfall, the Algerian each other in surviving; and risk-reduction
desert around Tindouf has seen long droughts through strategically dispersing investments
interspersed with brief but very intense in family members and activities.” In a
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rainfall. Most semi-permanent structures in sedentary community, this nomadic mentality
the camps were initially built by the refugees persists in the form of opportunism,
from mud-bricks made using locally sourced flexibility, social solidarity and resisting
materials. In some cases, the refugees resisted single points of economic failure – which
building with more permanent materials are largely the values that Sahrawi refugees
for ideological reasons, preferring to remain ascribe to their own nomadic heritage. Any
perpetually ready to return to Western climate resilience strategy implemented
Sahara and a future independent State. in the Tindouf camps, then, will have to
Flooding, previously very rare in the region, bridge the refugee and nomad categories.
has become an almost annual occurrence. It is perhaps unsurprising that the
In 2015, for instance, many of the mud-brick most promising strategy comes from the
houses dissolved in the heavy rains, leaving population itself. In 2016, a Sahrawi refugee
hundreds of refugees homeless. Building named Taleb Brahim, who had previously
with water-resistant materials, like cement, trained as an engineer in Syria, began
partially mitigates the problem, though experimenting with hydroponic agriculture.
the production of mud-bricks in the camps Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants
provides employment for many refugees. without soil, typically by immersing the roots
Another problem exacerbated by climate in nutrient-enhanced water. Hydroponic
change is the depletion of groundwater. The agriculture is vastly more water-efficient
Tindouf camps were deliberately built near than most other methods, and is therefore a
a large aquifer, and nomadic movement promising strategy for intensive agriculture
throughout the Liberated Territories is in arid climates. Brahim’s earliest hydroponic