IAPS/Bibalex Conference on Environment, Health and Sustainable Development Global Environment Issues and Sustainable Development Population Resettlement and Environmental Risks Alexandria, Egypt, 11-16 September 2006 Call for Papers.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (The Library of Alexandria) will host a special session on ‘Global Environment Issues and Sustainable Development: Population Resettlement and Environmental Risks’ as part the International Association for People-Environment Studies/Bibliotheca Alexandrina Conference on Environment, Health and Sustainable Development, at Alexandria, Egypt, from 11 to 16 September 2006. This special session will address a wide spectrum of issues related to social and environmental risks, inherent in the development process, that are affecting peoples around the world. The particular focus will be on exploring planning strategies to contain them. Development projects are often at the root of many risks to environment. Mining development projects, for example, are notorious for their devastating impact on surrounding natural environments. The World Commission on Dams emphasized the negative impacts on ecosystem as one of the most serious failings of existing dams. Environmental deterioration is, however, a direct consequence not only of the main project, but also of pressure exerted on the fragile local ecosystem from the resettlement of large population groups displaced by projects in other places. Conflict becomes unavoidable in host communities even where people are not overtly hostile towards resettlers, simply because now more people compete for the same limited land base, natural resources and employment opportunities. Moreover, much traditional ecological knowledge is lost when people are forced to relocate and in the process get detached from their natural environment. The large majority of those resettled faces grave risks of social and economic impoverishment including, landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, morbidity, social disarticulation, and loss of access to common property resources. The establishment of national parks and other conservation-related development activities disconnect the indigenous peoples from natural resources that they have relied on for their livelihoods for centuries. On relocation, these people face serious impoverishment risks as, lacking education and ignorant of laws and their rights, they are in no position to protect their interests. Urban environmental improvement programmes, especially those aimed at keeping a city clean and green, target slums and impoverish the most vulnerable people. Villages and farming communities in close proximity of growing cities often get displaced by their expansion plans, becoming more impoverished than before.
The following themes that were identified for discussion: Social and Environmental Impacts of Development Projects New Research on Involuntary Resettlement and Impoverishment Risks Issues Impoverishment Risks in Conservation-related Displacements Urban Environmental Improvement Projects and Population Resettlement Impoverishment Risks from Environmental Damage Displacement Risks from Mining Projects Large Projects and Indigenous Peoples Gender Concerns in Resettlement Planning Globalization, Displacement and Impoverishment Risks Policy/Management Response to Social and Environmental Risks The Conference website: www.iaps19-bibalex.com
Last Updated (Wednesday, 5 March 2014)