Climate Change, Gender and Migration

Recently finished the first draft of a book chapter for UNESCO, collaboratively with Emmanuel David, a post-doc researcher with PhD from CU-Boulder. Our chapter explores the intersections of literature on gender/livelihoods/migration and disaster/gender. The intent is to consider the ways climate-change related migration may be differentially experienced by men and women. It was a fascinating project -- a hard one since there's little scholarship combining these factors. Much work remains to be done.

Click here for our working paper.

I hope to soon undertake original research making use of a gender lens to consider migration-environment connections.

Pop-Env at Colegio de Mexico

Certainly scholarly interest in the connection between demographic dynamics and environmental context is on the rise -- I can only hope it’s in response to the real need of solid research to inform policy response to critical issues such as climate change!

There are exciting new developments at Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. In Dec 2009, the Population Center at the “COLMEX”, in collaboration with UNFPA and CONAPO, organized an international workshop on “The Demographic Factor in the Contemporary Environmental Crisis.” Check out the program here!

The meeting was fascinating – covering a wide range of topics including theory linking demography-environment, health, inequality, livelihoods, and gender.

I contributed two presentations – the first representing more of a “think piece” based on a chapter drafted for UNESCO, in collaboration with Emmanuel David. The topic was “Climate Change, Migration, and Gender” and the work brings together several disparate, but complementary, bodies of literature to consider future research and policy needs.

The second presentation offered a summary of results from my collaborative several projects undertaken with Wayne Twine of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. These projects, focused on the natural resource implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, have been situated at the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance Site. In general, they reveal the importance of natural resources as a “safety net” among AIDS-impacted households

Carrying Capacity Dialogue at Steinbrenner Institute

In Nov 2009, I was honored to be an invited speaker as researchers at the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research, at Carnegie Mellon University, continue their consideration of research on population-environment topics. The two-day dialogue explored three main topics:

1) Measures of U.S. resource consumption, including rates, amounts and origins of the resources.

2) Measures of U.S. food production and implications of population growth.

3) Measures of impacts of population growth on resources and quality of life.

My own presentation encouraged CMU scholars to move past simplistic representations of population-environment associations and to include more nuanced consideration of demographic and social processes. As examples, more careful consideration of the environmental aspects of immigration could yield more fruitful policy response as compared to building yet-higher border walls. Also, culture and environmental values as forces shaping consumption deserve central attention in consideration of society's ecological footprint.

 

IUSSP: Journey to Marrakech

The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) held its meeting in Marrakech, Morocco this year. The union meets every four years and this was my second time in attendance. It’s a fascinating group of papers and people – one that’s far more international than the conferences of the U.S.-based Population Association of America. Because of that, population-environment scholarship tends to be far more represented at the IUSSP given its greater prominence within development inquiry.

IUSSP: http://www.iussp.org/

Population & Environment Session

Within a session on “Population Pressure, Resource Use and Environmental Degradation”, I presented recent results from my collaborative work with Wayne Twine (Wits, South Africa) and Laura Patterson (graduate student, CU-Boulder). The work is based at the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance Site

http://web.wits.ac.za/Academic/Health/PublicHealth/Agincourt/agincourthome.htm

and examines natural resource use as related to food security among AIDS-impacted households. The session’s papers were:

Population dynamics, future food requirements and environmental impacts in sub-Saharan Africa • Barbara Boyle Torrey, Population Reference Bureau (PRB)

HIV/AIDS, food security and the role of the natural environment: evidence from the Agincourt health and demographic surveillance site in rural South Africa • Lori M. Hunter, University of Colorado at Boulder; Laura Patterson, University of Colorado at Boulder; Wayne Twine, University of the Witwatersrand

Environmental degradation, population pressure and health in South India: elite capture or poor information? • Monica Das Gupta, World Bank Group; Vijayendra Rao, World Bank Group; Radu Ban, World Bank Group

Estimating carbon and methane footprints from demographic and health survey data • Shea Rutstein, Macro International Inc.

Environment and Health Session

I also had the opportunity to act as “discussant” for a session on Environment and Health. Here, I aimed to provide productive feedback for the authors and to bring the lessons learned within each paper together into a comprehensive contribution. The session’s papers were:

Environment & Health

Chair: Daniel Joseph Hogan, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
Discussant: Lori M. Hunter, University of Colorado at Boulder

Influence of community environment and sanitary conditions of households on diarrhoea morbidity in an urban setting in Cameroon: the case of Yaounde and Douala • Félicien Fomekong, Institut National de la Statistique du Cameroun

Do integrated population, health and environment programs work? Gathering evidence using a quasi-experimental design. • Eckhard Kleinau, Analysis, Information Management & Communications Activity (AIM); Odile Randriamananjara, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); Fred Rosensweig, Training Resources Group, Inc

Diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, and fever among children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) • Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala, University of Warwick

Urbanization, water and health in Brazil: aspects of dengue fever epidemics • Roberto Luiz do Carmo, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

Beyond the conference venue

Of course, when in Marrakech, one must explore!


I took two guided tours -- one to the "souks" (the central markets) and one to several local gardens -- and then explored on my own!

The Souks:

The gardens included a visit to Jardin Marjorelle:

http://www.jardinmajorelle.com/en/