Sudan Vision Daily News Paper Official Website - Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment (16)

By: Alula Berhe Kidani

The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and Physical Development launched on 8th July, the Sudan Post-Conflict Environment Assessment Report. The Report Assessment mission was funded by generous contribution from the Governments of Sudan and the United Kingdom.

This important report for planning and designing development programmes will be reviewed almost fully on this page.

The Nuba mountains region in Southern Kordofan provides an example of the increase in natural resource competition and local conflict that results from the combination of agricultural expansion, land degradation and the southward migration of pastoralists.

At the start of the civil war in the 1980s, cattle-herding pastoralists from the Hawazma Baggara tribe started penetrating deeper into the Nuba mountains in search of water and pasture for their cattle, due to the loss of grazing land to mechanized agriculture and drought. The rivalry that ensued with the indigenous Nuba tribe, who practised a combination of sedentary farming and cattle rearing, contributed to the outbreak of large-scale armed conflict. Meanwhile, as some of the dry season pastures around Talodi were off-limits during the conflict years, the Hawazma had to remain in their wet season grazing lands in Northern Kordofan, exerting greater pressure on the vegetation there.

In 2006, UNEP observed the return of Hawazma Baggara to their former grazing camps in conflict zones in Southern Kordofan, for example near Atmoor. UNEP also witnessed the presence of the camel-herding Shanabla tribe in the midst of thick woodland savannah at El Tooj (now reportedly reaching up to lakes Keilak and Abiad).
This new southward migration of camel herders constitutes an indicator of livestock overcrowding and rangeland degradation in Northern Kordofan, and is a harbinger of further conflict with the Nuba. At Farandala in SPLM-controlled territory, the Nuba expressed concern over the widespread mutilation of trees due to heavy lopping by the Shanabla to feed their camels, and warned of 'restarting the war' if this did not cease. Camel herders from the Shanabla tribe at a water point in El Tooj, Southern Kordofan. The southward migration of camel herders is a harbinger of renewed conflict in the Nuba Mountains.

Conclusions on the role of environmental issues in conflicts over rangeland and rain-fed agricultural land Pastoralist societies have been at the centre of local conflicts in Sudan throughout recorded history. The most significant problems have occurred and continue to occur in the drier central regions, which are also the regions with the largest livestock populations, and under the most severe environmental stress.
As there are many factors in play - most of which are not related to the environment - land degradation does not appear to be the dominant causative factor in local conflicts. It is, however, a very important element, which is growing in significance and is a critical issue for the long-term resolution of the Darfur crisis. The key cause for concern is the historical, ongoing and forecast shrinkage and degradation of remaining rangelands in the northern part of the Sahel belt.

Much of the evidence for UNEP's analysis is anecdotal and qualitative; it has been gathered through desk study work, satellite images and interviews of rural societies across Sudan. The consistency and convergence of reports from a range of sources lend credibility to this analysis, although further research is clearly needed, with a particular emphasis on improved quantification of the highlighted issues and moving beyond analysis to search for viable long-term solutions.

A conference on the topic of environmental degradation and conflict in Darfur was held in Khartoum in 2004. The proceedings illustrated the depth of local understanding of the issue. Given the situation observed in 2007,however, UNEP must conclude that this high quality awareness-raising exercise was unfortunately apparently not transformed into lasting action.

Assessment of the environmental impacts of conflict
Introduction

This section approaches the linkages between conflict and environment from the reverse angle to the above analysis, by examining if and how armed conflict has resulted in negative or positive impacts on the environment in Sudan. Direct impacts, indirect impacts and key conflict-related issues are identified and discussed in this chapter. Detailed discussion and recommendations on the various environmental issues of concern (e.g. deforestation) are referred to the corresponding sector chapter.

Definitions and impact listings

The following definitions are used for direct, indirect and secondary environmental impacts of conflict in Sudan:
- Direct impacts are those arising directly and solely from military action;
- Indirect and secondary impacts are all impacts that can be credibly sourced in whole or in part to the conflicts and the associated war economy, excluding the direct impacts.
On this basis, UNEP has developed the following list of impacts for discussion:
Direct impacts include:
- Landmines and explosive remnants of war
(ERW);
- Destroyed target-related impacts;
- Defensive works; and
- Targeted natural resource destruction.
Indirect and secondary impacts include:
- Environmental impacts related to population displacement;
- Natural resource looting and war economy resource extraction;
- Environmental governance and information vacuum; and
- Funding crises, arrested development and conservation programmes.

Direct impacts
Landmines and explosive remnants of war

Landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) are a major problem in Sudan. Thirty-two percent of the country is estimated to be affected, with the greatest concentration in Southern Sudan (As many as twenty-one of the country's twenty-five states may be impacted, although the true extent of Sudan's landmine problem remains unknown, as a comprehensive survey of the issue has not been undertaken to date.

The reported and registered number of landmine casualties over the past five years totals 2,200, though again, no systematic data collection and verification mechanism exists. In addition, there is no data at all on animal casualties from mines in Sudan, but these are expected to be much higher than the human casualty rate. The impacts of landmines on wildlife would only be significant (at the ecosystem level) if individual losses affected locally threatened populations of key species.
The potential impacts of landmines and ERW can be divided into chemical and physical categories.
Conventional explosives, such as TNT and RDX, found in artillery shells and mines are highly toxic and slow to degrade. While they present an acute toxic hazard if ingested, the toxic risk is considered insignificant compared to the risk of injury from explosion.
Apart from human casualties, another major impact of landmines is impeded access to large areas for people and their livestock. In Sudan, access to some areas has been reduced for decades, as they have remained mined or suspected as such since the beginning of the conflict.
In all but the driest areas, the result of reduced access has been the relatively unimpeded growth of vegetation. UNEP fieldwork, in the Nuba Mountains in particular, revealed extensive areas of woodland regrowth in suspected minefields. Such regrowth can have a beneficial effect on the affected areas and associated wildlife populations, but the flow of benefits to people is usually reduced, as they cannot safely extract resources (e.g. water, fuelwood, fodder) from these sites. Despite the risks, however, UNEP teams witnessed people walking, herding cattle and gathering fuel in clearly marked minefields.

In 1983, southern military forces sabotaged these generators powering the Jonglei canal excavator.
Plans to restart the giant water project constitute a major potential flashpoint for renewed conflict.

CS 4.2 Unexploded ordnance, minefields and deforestation at Jebel Kujur, Juba district

The Jebel Kujur massif near the city of Juba in the state of Central Equatoria (Bahr el Jabal) clearly illustrates the localized but severe impacts of conflict affecting many urban centres in Southern Sudan, as well as the environmental governance challenges facing the new government.
During the 1983-2005 conflict, Juba was a garrison town for the central government military, and was continuously under siege and frequently attacked by SPLA forces. The town itself still shows extensive scarring, and overgrown entrenchments, minefields and scattered unexploded ordnance are visible on the fringes. Deforestation and soil erosion are severe, particularly at Jebel Kujur, which originally supported a dense forest cover. A quarry is also operating at one end of the range.
In late 2006, clean-up was ongoing, but there were still minefields and areas of stacked ordnance in the foothills of Jebel
Kujur. Despite the obvious risks, cattle grazing, scrap recovery and waste dumping were routinely taking place in these areas. Plastic waste was being dumped directly on top of unexploded artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades, creating obvious serious hazards for site users and greatly increasing the future cost of de-mining and rehabilitation.
The removal of explosive remnants of war (ERW) from Jebel Kujur is a difficult but short-term activity. The greater challenges are sustainable solutions for waste management for the growing city and reforestation of the massif.
The dumping of waste on minefields and on top of unexploded ordnance creates a major safety problem (top); unexploded ordnance is loosely stacked and scattered across the area (bottom).