-Rania Masri, Ph.D.

Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of

Balamand, Lebanonrania.masri@balamand.edu.lb

March 2009

Environment and Security in the Mashreq

A quick glance

Population growth in Mashreq(actual and projected) (millions)

Source: UN Population Division. 2002 Revision. World Population Prospects

Population growth (actual and projected) (millions)

Source: UN Population Division. 2002 Revision. World Population Prospects

Rural to Urban Migration (1961-2003)

Source: World Bank data

Rural to Urban Migration (1961, 1980, 2003)

Population density (inhabitant per km2) (2006)

Economic cost of environmental degradationMean annual cost (US$ million)

Mean cost in % of GDP

Source: World Bank papers

Air pollution alone: 2.1% Egypt’s GDP

GDP structure by sector (2006)

Agriculture (% of total employment) 1996-2005

Source: ILO statistics

Main environmental challenges in the MashreqDesertification Land degradation (35.6 %)Limited water resourcesCoastal pollution (eg: the direct discharge

of untreated sewage on shores or through short outfalls into coastal waters is common practice)

The following environmental issues have been highlighted by different studies conducted by UNDP and others as priority issues

Country Environmental Priorities Emphasis

Egypt Environmental management, water and sanitation, sustainable energy and adaptation to climate change

Energy efficiency, clean energy and water management

Iraq Environmental management, water and sanitation, sustainable energy, land degradation,

Integrated Water Resources Management, access to energy services

Jordan Environmental management, sustainable energy and adaptation to climate change, water and sanitation, land degradation

Energy efficiency and clean energy, water resources management

Lebanon Environmental management, water, coastal zone management, solid waste management, sustainable energy

Environmental management and pollution cleanup, energy efficiency

OPT Environmental management, water and sanitation, land degradation, sustainable energy

Water and sanitation and energy efficiency

What is security?State security?Economic security?Human security?And all the interlinkages with the environment?

What is security?UNDP defines human security as consisting of freedom

from fear and freedom from want. Environmental security includes the degradation of local ecosystems, water scarcity, pressure on land, deforestation, desertification, salinization and air pollution.

Many studies and researchers further identify: environmental security as the state of human-environment damaged by military actions and amelioration of resource scarcities, environmental degradation and biological threats that could lead to social disorder and conflict.

Humanist view: concept of security is ‘people centered.’ Interested in the individual or the people, and not the state. The core values here are: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security.

Two overriding issues of ‘humanist view’ of environmental security in Mashreq

Water scarcityFood security

Food Sovereignty Index (FSI) Country FSI Description

4.5 >6 – high food sovereignty

Syria 3.1

Egypt 1.8 1 > 2.5 – low food sovereignty

Lebanon 0.3 0 > 1 – extremely low

Jordan 0.09

Why?: (1)Food production < population growth rates (eg: Egypt and Syria) (2)Highly erratic pattern of food production – due to high share of rain-fed agriculture(3)Binding environmental resource constraint of water(4)Decline of agricultural share in GDP output

Food security challenge: average of arable land (ha) per capita in the Mashreq

Source: World Bank data

Self-Sufficiency Ratio in MashreqFood “Commodity”

1982-1993 (%)

1993-2004 (%)

Cereals 52 59Dairy Products 60 71Fats and Oils 28 45Meats 81 80Sugar 42 47Vegetables 101 98Pulses 76 80Fish 74 70

more self sufficient in the food commodities that are more likely to be consumed by the rich (meats, fish, and vegetables)

Impact of food prices on the poor

Large numbers of vulnerable people who had managed to escape poverty in recent years may be unable to cope with the shock of rapidly rising food prices and may fall back into poverty.

Source: UNDP and LAS, 2009

Food prices

Syria: food prices rose by > 25 % from October 2007 – March 2008)

Lebanon: food prices rose by > 11 % in 2006 and 19 % in 2007

Iraq: food prices doubled from 2006/2007 – Mary 2008Impact on poor?The increase in food prices in 2008 resulted in projected

incidence of extreme poverty reaching 11.7% for Lebanon and 29% for Egypt.

Estimates from December 2006 to December 2007: the incidence of extreme poverty in Egypt increased from 19.6% to 23.3% and overall poverty rate increased from 40.5% to 45% as a result of food prices alone.

Human Poverty Index (2005)

Source: UNDP 2006

Human Poverty Index (2005)

Source: UNDP 2006

Poverty in the Mashreq

Poverty incidence (%)Number of poor (millions)

Source: LAS, 2009

High and Rising UnemploymentUnemployment among youth (%) 2005/2006

Youth’s share in total unemployment (%) 2005/2006

Source: ALO, 2008

Unemployment rates for for Arab women > Arab men (31.2% compared to 25%; highest in Jordan: 59%)

Only region where proportion of women in agriculture is increasing: 28.4% to 31 % in Mashreq

What is security?UNDP defines human security as consisting of freedom

from fear and freedom from want. Environmental security includes the degradation of local ecosystems, water scarcity, pressure on land, deforestation, desertification, salinization and air pollution.

Many studies and researchers further identify: environmental security as the state of human-environment damaged by military actions and amelioration of resource scarcities, environmental degradation and biological threats that could lead to social disorder and conflict.

Humanist view: concept of security is ‘people centered.’ Interested in the individual or the people, and not the state. The core values here are: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security.

Most than twice as many subminitions used by Coalition forced in Iraq in 2003. More than 15 times the number used by US in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. (Iraq is 40 x the size of Lebanon)

1.2 million cubic meters in debris, equivalent to 5 million tons - in southern suburbs of Beirut alone

And when again?

WB: 4.7 million cubic meters of sand and aggregate material needed for reconstruction

Occupied Palestinian Territories

Security in the OPT = Lebanon wars - reconstruction + siege

UN FAO: “Almost all of Gaza’s 13,000 families who depend on farming, herding and fishing have suffered damage to their assets during the recent conflict and many farms have been completely destroyed. … Owing to a limited agricultural production, people in Gaza are facing an acute shortage of nutritious, locally-produced and affordable food.”Direct losses to agriculture – US$218.2 millionDirect and indirect opportunity losses to the agricultural sector - US$228.6 million.Preliminary total = US$ 446.8 million

More environmental insecurity in Gaza“A combination of damage to fishing resources caused

by the Israeli offensive, and a restriction on the zone in which Gazans are allowed to fish is reducing catches and adversely affecting people’s diets in Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).”

“The lack of technical means to transport and process solid waste in Gaza is posing a severe risk to people’s health in the enclave. Many [Palestinians in Gaza], especially children, have developed breathing problems as a result of the stench emanating from rubbish dumps and the indiscriminate burning of waste; insects attracted to the rubbish tips and ground pollution pose further health risks

Security in Gaza? Situation tomorrow?

Matan Vilnai, the deputy Israeli defense minister under the newly-formed Israeli government, stated Sunday that he believes the Israeli military should re-occupy parts of the Gaza Strip with military force in order to stop the Palestinian resistance.

Palestinians Elsewhere?Denial of essential services, including running

water and electricity, to 83,000 Bedouin in the southern Negev desert,

45 Bedouin villages have been denied services as a way to pressure them to renounce their title to ancestral lands and their traditional pastoral way of life. Instead, it is hoped they will move into a handful of deprived and land-starved Bedouin townships specially built by the state.

(Source: Physicians for Human Rights in Israel’s latest report, Sentenced to Darkness)

And elsewhere?"The men, from Deir Istiya southwest of

Nablus, were on their way to tend lands west of the village that are sandwiched between two Israeli settlements, Ariel and Immanu’el. The men all had permits to access the land, but were accosted by a group of at least 15 armed Israeli settlers and prevented from passing into their land.

Israeli troops intervened in the settler-farmer standoff by forcing the Palestinians to remove their clothes, then turning them away from the land.

Destruction to Palestinian agriculture throughoutPalestinian olive trees

Since 1967, the Israeli military and illegal settlers have destroyed more than one million olive trees

Olive trees = 80% of cultivated land in the West Bank and Gaza

More than 100,000 families dependent on olive sales + cultural importance

Iraq?Depleted UraniumMarshlandsDirect and indirect through war, sanctions,

and occupation

But… let’s go back

What is security?UNDP defines human security as consisting of freedom

from fear and freedom from want. Environmental security includes the degradation of local ecosystems, water scarcity, pressure on land, deforestation, desertification, salinization and air pollution.

Many studies and researchers further identify: environmental security as the state of human-environment damaged by military actions and amelioration of resource scarcities, environmental degradation and biological threats that could lead to social disorder and conflict.

Humanist view: concept of security is ‘people centered.’ Interested in the individual or the people, and not the state. The core values here are: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security.

Economic restructuring: Economic GlobalizationWorld Trade Organization tenets: “deregulation,

privatization, ‘openness’ (to foreign investment, to imports), unrestricted movement of capital, and lower taxes.”

World Bank’s structural adjustment policy “the removal of restrictions on foreign investment, the abolition of public subsidies and labor rights, reduced state spending, deregulation, lower tariffs, tighter credit, the encouragement of export-oriented industries, lower marginal tax rates, currency devaluation, and the sale of major public enterprises.”

Beyond it all: Iraq

Severe economic transformation

Iraq’s corporate tax slashed from 45% to a flat tax of 15%

Public subsidies removed, & removal of any laws that differentiate between Iraqis and foreigners (and thus banning capital controls), a push for the sale of public enterprises and industries.

Allowance for foreigners to purchase 100% of any Iraqi economic sector (except oil), and remove 100% of the profits ‘without delay’

Iraq’s central bank forbidden from offering financing to state-owned enterprises

What didn’t change: State employees – who comprise the majority of employees –still banned from forming labor unions.

Agriculture in Iraq: 1990-2003

1990-2003: “total production of major grains estimated to

be down 50%” (USDA); Food for Oil (1996-2003): not allowed to

purchase local

Agriculture in Iraq: 2003 - ? Agricultural lands reached “stage of marginal

productivity” (UN News Service, 2007)Order 81, overriding Iraq’s patent law of 1970

prohibiting private ownership of biological resources“Plant Variety Protection” – seeds must be “new, distinct, uniform

and stable.”97% of Iraqi farmers used their own saved seed or bought seed from

local markets (FAO, 2002) “Iraq’s seed industry has collapsed and the country is currently not

able to meet farmers’ needs for improved crop varieties, seriously threatening its food security.” (FAO, 2005)

“Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety…”

Order 81 + distribution of ‘new seeds’ + possible patent + no domestic protection

Who benefits? Monsanto, Cargill and Dow. Who loses? Farmers and more

Iraq – an extreme example to the Mashreq?

Test case?May 9, 2003: Bush proposed the

establishment of a US-Middle East free trade area within a decade

“One major challenge facing Arab countries is that a policy mix based on protecting the local market and giving incentives to selected sectors to promote manufactured export-led growth is no longer a feasible option since all these strategies are now severely restricted under the WTO and other trade agreements” (Abu-Ismail et al, 2005)

Additional impact of all this ‘insecurity’ on the environment?

Living with the certainty of warLiving with insecurity

Environment and Security in the Mashreq•Environmental characteristics +•External factors (war and occupation) + •Internal factors (economic agendas, unrepresentative governments, mismanagement) = ?•The plus: human resources + need for change•‘Let’s save pessimism for better times.’