From refuge to refugee: The African case

Human security and environmental security, often reinforcing, can be at odd s. One instance arises when greenlining, the creation or expansion of relat ively exclusionary protected areas, leads to the mass displacement of local communities and the creation of a new variant of 'environmental refugees'. The present research employs several methods to estimate the magnitude of environmental refugees in Africa and suggests that they number in the milli ons. Country-specific case studies are offered to lend historical context t o these estimates. Environmentally oriented land reform is proposed as a pa rtial mitigation for the social side effects of greenlining, and is briefly described in African and other settings. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & S ons, Ltd.