INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION - THE CASE OF MOZAMBICAN REFUGEES AND FOREST RESOURCES IN MALAWI

Considering the continuous influx of Mozambican refugees to Malawi as an external shock to the forest ecosystem, a dynamic model of optimizi ng the use of forest tree resources is developed in this paper. Land c learing for refugee camp sites, construction material, fuelwood and ag ricultural crop production constitute a major threat to forest resourc es in the refugee populated areas. The model presented in the paper pr ovides a framework for analysing various afforestation and technology policies to increase the sustainable use of forest tree resources. The optimal conditions for choosing the levels of land clearing for vario us uses of refugee population are derived. The model parameters are us ed to identify the optimal timing and rate of afforestation that will attain a dynamic equilibrium of forest tree resources. Several policy implications are derived from the model results for reducing the envir onmental degradation of forest resources due to the presence of refuge es. It is argued that the general environmental regulation policies ba sed on user-pay principles may not be appropriate under the refugee si tuation and that additional intervention is needed by the host governm ent and international relief agencies for reversing the trends in defo restation.