Final Report Summary - EACH-FOR (Environmental Change And Forced Migration Scenarios)
The overall objective of the EACH-FOR project was to extend European excellence in the provision to policy makers, researchers, educators and the civil sector of aggregated information on societal, especially forced migration-related, consequences of environmental degradation. The project's specific objectives were:
(1) to discover and describe in detail the causes of environmental migration and their associations with other social, political and economic phenomena in Europe and in the main countries of migration origin; and
(2) to provide plausible future scenarios of forced migration, with the main focus on environmentally forced migrants.
These specific objectives were achieved by:
- systematic overview and analysis of the relevant natural and human-made environment degradation processes in each relevant region;
- analysis of direct (e.g. desertification-triggered famine) and indirect (e.g. environmental scarcity-caused social conflicts and conflict-induced forced migration) environmental effects on lives and livelihoods;
- environmental migration scenarios for one country in each region; and
- support and upgrade of the existing research methodologies.
The EACH-FOR project has achieved the above overall and specific objectives by:
1. developing a systematic and detailed 'environmental degradation - environmental migration problem scanning' based on the state-of-the-art global and regional datasets, regional and local analyses, project results, reports, studies, field data and news. The main purpose of this is to serve as a well-structured framework of the problems of concern. The weight (or importance) of each environmental, social, economic or political factor within a problem-block differs regionally.
2. analysing and synthesising area, region or country level environmental degradation processes from the point of view of the importance of their direct and indirect effects on migration. It is important to emphasise that not all areas or geographical regions were analysed - but only the 'problematic' ones - with potential European relevance.
3. highlighting all of the environmental migration related long-term or emerging social, political and economic phenomena of the given area, region, country or geographical region. The main purpose of this activity was to identify direct interactions and indirect effects leading to environmental migration and producing a flow of environmentally forced migrants. The EACH-FOR project conducted neither primary environmental research nor primary economic or political research but implemented and integrated already existing results in these domains.
4. developing a number of scenarios on the basis of the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary analyses of local and regional environmental, social and political scenarios.
5. upgrading some conceptual elements and methodological approaches for better understanding environmentally forced migration, etc.
6. maximising the exploitation of the project results by linking the outputs of the project to a range of policy, research and educational applications.
The main achievements of the project are:
1) the elaboration of a research methodology for studying an emerging complex phenomenon;
2) the development of the general overview studies for the studied regions that are excellent bases for the fieldwork and of course for a continuing upgrading of the state of knowledge;
3) the development of 23 case studies and 6 sets of environmental migration scenarios. The case studies cover countries within regions showing environmental migration flows;
4) successful organisation of an international conference. The EFMSV Conference was the first conference to provide an academic platform for a dialogue between researchers, practitioners and policy makers on the interaction between migration, environmental and climate change and indicators of social vulnerability;
5) the publication of dozens of papers in different scientific journals.
The project results are adequately disseminated to support general European scientific and social progress. The main elements of dissemination activities were the following:
1) papers published in journals;
2) organisation of an international conference (EFMSV), including a follow up book of selected papers;
3) release of five EACH-FOR project newsletters;
4) research results presented at national, European and global level conferences; and
5) project website to disseminate results and all project reports.
All of the team members have participated in the dissemination and exploitation activities.
(1) to discover and describe in detail the causes of environmental migration and their associations with other social, political and economic phenomena in Europe and in the main countries of migration origin; and
(2) to provide plausible future scenarios of forced migration, with the main focus on environmentally forced migrants.
These specific objectives were achieved by:
- systematic overview and analysis of the relevant natural and human-made environment degradation processes in each relevant region;
- analysis of direct (e.g. desertification-triggered famine) and indirect (e.g. environmental scarcity-caused social conflicts and conflict-induced forced migration) environmental effects on lives and livelihoods;
- environmental migration scenarios for one country in each region; and
- support and upgrade of the existing research methodologies.
The EACH-FOR project has achieved the above overall and specific objectives by:
1. developing a systematic and detailed 'environmental degradation - environmental migration problem scanning' based on the state-of-the-art global and regional datasets, regional and local analyses, project results, reports, studies, field data and news. The main purpose of this is to serve as a well-structured framework of the problems of concern. The weight (or importance) of each environmental, social, economic or political factor within a problem-block differs regionally.
2. analysing and synthesising area, region or country level environmental degradation processes from the point of view of the importance of their direct and indirect effects on migration. It is important to emphasise that not all areas or geographical regions were analysed - but only the 'problematic' ones - with potential European relevance.
3. highlighting all of the environmental migration related long-term or emerging social, political and economic phenomena of the given area, region, country or geographical region. The main purpose of this activity was to identify direct interactions and indirect effects leading to environmental migration and producing a flow of environmentally forced migrants. The EACH-FOR project conducted neither primary environmental research nor primary economic or political research but implemented and integrated already existing results in these domains.
4. developing a number of scenarios on the basis of the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary analyses of local and regional environmental, social and political scenarios.
5. upgrading some conceptual elements and methodological approaches for better understanding environmentally forced migration, etc.
6. maximising the exploitation of the project results by linking the outputs of the project to a range of policy, research and educational applications.
The main achievements of the project are:
1) the elaboration of a research methodology for studying an emerging complex phenomenon;
2) the development of the general overview studies for the studied regions that are excellent bases for the fieldwork and of course for a continuing upgrading of the state of knowledge;
3) the development of 23 case studies and 6 sets of environmental migration scenarios. The case studies cover countries within regions showing environmental migration flows;
4) successful organisation of an international conference. The EFMSV Conference was the first conference to provide an academic platform for a dialogue between researchers, practitioners and policy makers on the interaction between migration, environmental and climate change and indicators of social vulnerability;
5) the publication of dozens of papers in different scientific journals.
The project results are adequately disseminated to support general European scientific and social progress. The main elements of dissemination activities were the following:
1) papers published in journals;
2) organisation of an international conference (EFMSV), including a follow up book of selected papers;
3) release of five EACH-FOR project newsletters;
4) research results presented at national, European and global level conferences; and
5) project website to disseminate results and all project reports.
All of the team members have participated in the dissemination and exploitation activities.
