Environmental challenges of international migration in East Asia
International migration has become one of the major trends that shape the highly urbanizing societies of East Asia, and in a broader sense Southeast Asia. Groups are drawn towards the newly established cities in these regions. Environmental change has also been one of the signifying elements on the global agenda. Even though the impact of international migration is already a usual suspect when it comes to environmental change, the cause and effect relationship is yet to be analyzed from a multidisciplinary perspective.
As part of the panel sessions presented at ICAS 11 on ‘Environmental Issues, Social Activism and Policy Challenges’, this study looks at the multiple dimensions of the causal relationship between migration and environmental change (environmental change can be the reason for migration, but it can also be caused by migration); the study aims to link the ‘environmental issues’ and ‘policy challenges’ of these panel sessions in order to set a new framework with which to consider the causal relationship between environmental change and migration and how they affect each other during people’s movements from one place to another. One result from this short survey, would be that these two processes, especially in East Asia, are on the verge of securitization (a situation in which they are pushed out of the arena of regular politics into becoming a matter of security). Clearly, regional responses for sustainable adaptation practices and better inclusion of immigrants in host communities are needed.
Recent dynamics of international migration
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 3.4% of the world’s population in 2018 (about 258 million people) live outside their country of birth. This percentage rose from about 2.7% in the early 2000s. Top destinations (host/receiving countries) have consistently included the USA, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UK, and UAE, while top origins (home/sending countries) are India, Mexico, Russia, China, Bangladesh and the Philippines, in terms of the total number of people in the migration lane. If we consider internal migration, it is even more striking in terms of environmental change: of the 68.5 million internally displaced people (due to conflicts and disasters), 18.8 million in 135 countries were displaced because of sudden environmental disasters (2017 data).1
Migration as a process is complicated enough as there are many reasons, push and pull factors, flows of emigration and immigration, difficulties in defining categories, and various dimensions while settling the migrant groups in their host countries, and potential outcomes in the host countries. This study aims to combine and present the causal relationship among all these segments of the whole migration process, in a comprehensive framework (table 1). As can be seen in this framework, environmental change issues are of course involved in the migration process from the very beginning. The framework starts with an initial separation of ‘internal’ and ‘external/international’ migration by focusing on the main drivers. Environmental degradation, economic necessities and hardships, conflicts/wars, political/social pressures and identity crisis in the home countries, might be some of the reasons for people to leave their original birth places, both internally and internationally.
Categories and dimensions of migrants could be endless, so too could the outcomes of migration in terms of policy or governance, but this study attempts to cover as many facets as possible in the table. It is crucial to differentiate between categories such as legal/regular vs. irregular/illegal/undocumented, permanent vs. temporary/seasonal, or voluntary vs. forced migration. Migrants and refugees should also be approached differently as their push and pull factors are entirely dissimilar. Governance policies within and between the host and home countries depend on whether these countries have sufficient economic, political, and sociocultural capacity to send and, more importantly, to welcome migrant groups. Most migrants experience a force to leave their home countries due to economic, political and/or security related issues, however, there is a small number of migrant communities of high-skilled experts and students who leave their home countries with none of these concerns, but who migrate voluntarily for career or educational aspirations. The duration of migration (short or long-term) also affects the nature, documentation, and outcome of migration flows. This overview hopefully helps to grasp the difficulties faced when drawing an overarching migration framework covering legal, economic, political, sociocultural, and environmental phases.
Environmental challenges and migration in East Asia
Although migration has many forms and definitions, natural disasters and other environmental changes have increasingly become some of the main motivators. The initial reason for the movement of people might be any sort of environmental change, but this movement leads to the securitization of environmental change issues with emerging environmental problems in the host countries as a result of the increasing number of residents. This process occurs similarly with internal migration, whereby the environment in particular areas of a country experience the direct effects of migration. The impact of migration on the environment leads to developments in the governance of migration, and the securitization of environmental changes.
When we look at the mention of ‘environment’ in migration history and literature, throughout the 20th century, primarily political-economic push and pull factors were at the core of the migration discourse. During the 1990s, the growing global environmental crisis was mostly considered to be a humanitarian disaster by media, politicians, and NGOs; the academic circles started to include it as one of the side-effects of migration. The unprecedented, repetitive, and large-scale natural disasters of the 2000s, as well as drastic environmental changes throughout the world, led ‘environmental concerns’ to be reintroduced into the migration literature.2 The increasing frequency and scale of natural disasters (both gradual changes to our ecosystems and sudden devastation of environment) led to the use of environmental concerns, frameworks, and solutions as adaptation strategies by international organizations, politicians, and migration and environmental scholars in the following years.3 As a result, ‘environmental migrants’ came to be defined by the IOM as “persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move within their country or abroad”.4
IOM’s definition garners various aspects of the migration framework in table 1. We can rewrite this framework from an environmental point of view, to produce a more environment-oriented migration scheme, as can be seen in table 2. This table shows how environment-driven causes of migration can, to start, be divided into two big groups: migration as a result of sudden environmental hazards, natural disasters, and industrial accidents (as a result of an environmental event), and migration happening as a result of gradual changes within the environmental conditions of one’s home country, such as climate change, ecosystem degradation, rise of sea-levels, infrastructural changes, and land grabbing. The lists are not exhaustive, but show the most common incidences we encounter. Depending on the sudden or gradual character of the environmental change, all push and pull factors, categories, and dimensions lead in different directions. The response and adaptation processes also change from short to mid- and long-term measures. As a result of these emerging drivers (both within the same country and across borders), migrant groups are usually considered within the forced migration category whereby categorization, legalization, and engagement mechanisms in the host communities (in the same country) and societies (in receiving countries) become increasingly difficult. Governance of both migration and environmental change faces security-related questions such as ‘how to cope with sudden events and gradual changes?’ and ‘How to respond and adapt appropriately, both in the immediate as well as the long run?’
Table 1: Migration (internal and international)
|
Internal and External/International drivers |
Emigration Push factors |
Immigration |
Mixing categories |
Dimensions |
Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Environmental degradation Economy Conflict/war Political/social pressure Identity/culture |
Economic reasons Population rise Threat to one's life Conflict/war Environmental degradation Threat from government Disasters |
Economy Betterment of lifestyles Family/relatives Culture/religion Environment |
Legal vs irregular (undocumented) Permanent vs seasonal/temporary Voluntary vs forced(Human trafficking vs migrant smuggling) Migrant vs refugees and asylum-seekers Developing vs developed countries Immigrants vs global migrants (highly skilled experts and students) Short vs long-term stay |
Men and women Old and young New and family lineages Home (sending) and host (receiving) country Images of sending and receiving societies |
Political Economic Demographic Environmental Social/cultural Legal Security |
Compiled by the author
Table 2: Environmental migration (internal and international)
|
Sudden outbreaks |
Gradual changes |
Push factors |
Pull factors |
Mixing categories |
Dimensions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Environmental hazards Natural disasters Industrial accidents |
Climate change Ecosystem degradation Sea-level rise Infrastructure Land grabbing |
Threat to one's life Conflict Mismanagement Population rise Ecomonic risks Health risks Segregation Insecurity |
Adaptation Betterment of lifestyles Environment Governmental policies Security |
Immediate vs gradualmigration Irregular vs legal Temporary vs permanent Forced vs voluntary Environmental refugees vs migrants Short vs long-term stay |
Men and women Old and young New and family lineages Home (sending) and host (receiving) country Country and IO regulations Images of sending and receiving societies |
Compiled by the author
How does East Asia (and in a broader sense this includes Southeast Asia) play a role in framing the processes of environmental change and migration? From a migration studies perspective, Asia receives and sends more than 40% of all international migrants and has a majority of the top sending countries.5 From an environmental viewpoint, Asia experiences the highest frequency of natural disasters (around 150 disasters in 2017) compared to the Americas, Africa, Europe and Oceania.6 According to the same resource, Asia saw 37% of all global natural disasters in the years 1998-2007, and even 41% during the following decade (2008-2017). The growing occurrence of environmental disasters is a crucial fact of our times. Compared to Asia, in the decade 2008-2017, the Americas experienced 24%, Africa 20%, Europe 11%, and Oceania 4%, of the global natural disasters. However, during that same time, the percentage of people actually affected by the disasters was about 80% in Asia, with only 11% in the Americas and 9% in Africa.
Natural disasters are some of the main causes of forced migration, leading environmental refugees to flee to other areas of their own country, or even into other countries in search of safety. The main disasters occurring in East Asia between 2008-2017 were floods (38%), storms (24%), earthquakes (12%), epidemics (10%) and extreme temperatures (3%).7 On 11 March 2011, the Tohoku Earthquake (9.0 magnitude) and the subsequent tsunami devastated the eastern prefectures (Tohoku region) of Japan, and even affected areas further away throughout the entire Pacific region. The earthquake and tsunami triggered the man-made disasters of a nuclear meltdown, hydrogen explosions, and radioactive contamination in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture, leading to the loss of 15,000 lives, a further 7,500 people missing, and 125,000 people displaced and forced to live in temporary shelters.8 The impact of these natural disasters on (inter)national migrants in both home and host countries ranges from the emergence of internally displaced people, increased vulnerability (alienation, sense of being forgotten, unplanned shocks for illegal migrant groups, or inability to reclaim the bodies of loved ones), lack of access to assistance (since illegal groups are usually invisible to governmental and international humanitarian aid schemes), unemployment, loss of assets, identity loss, psychological effects, political disempowerment, loss of communication with relatives in the home countries, and emergence of new refugees.9 Moving into urban areas is usually one of the first and foremost reactions by migrant groups, adding more pressure onto urban infrastructure and services.
Gradual changes of environmental conditions, or mid/long-term responses and adaptation mechanisms vis-à-vis environmental changes, have their own set of implications. Climate change, for example, is one of the most impactful factors affecting people’s living standards. The most vulnerable groups are those living in low-lying areas, landslide areas, and agrarian areas, as well as coastal communities and island communities. The effects of climate change are seen in coastal areas and low-lying areas, food production systems, movement of people towards cities, industry, infrastructure, human health, human security, livelihoods, and poverty. In fact, poverty and growing urbanization are the main consequences of climate change. Environmental (and other) drivers force people to move to cities in their home countries, or when moving across borders migrants tend to settle in urban areas in the host country. The urban population has already exceeded the rural population in Asia (in 2018), and the whole region (especially South and East Asia) has the fastest growth rate of urbanization (60% now live in cities); it is expected that more than two thirds of the population will live in cities by 2050.10 It is clear that unplanned or mismanaged urbanization will lead to further environmental and social problems, such as strained urban services (for example, sanitation and health care), poverty, growing urban-rural divide, worsening agricultural support for the cities, added discrimination among ethnic groups or against new settlers such as migrants.
Securitization of international environmental migration and potential regional responses
The classical understanding of ‘security’ was always a state-based one (national security), thanks to the long-lasting wars of most of the 20th century. The scope of the concept of security started to change with globalization, societies opening up to more inter-state interactions, economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and the emergence of new non-state actors.
The concept of ‘human security’ was initially framed by leading UN experts and various UN institutions, as well as their programs. The UN 1994 Human Development Report was devoted to the concept of human security, stating that security should refer to the safety of all human beings from the threats of hunger, disease, crime, repression, and protection from sudden disruptions of people’s daily lives.11 The seven pillars of human security include economic, political, food, health, personal, community, and environmental security. Here environmental security means both protecting people against the risks of environmental hazards and changes, and also protecting nature from man-made damages and threats. This two-way understanding of environmental security brings us to the recent framework of migration and environmental migration flows. As shown in the above examples, when lives and livelihoods are threatened by the risks associated with sudden or gradual environmental changes, forced migration is a very plausible outcome. When these threats are merged with the other pillars of human security, such as economic or political threats, then migration becomes even more likely and greater in number of people. The migration process leads to further problems, and additional threats to human security, leading to the even higher levels of securitization of the environmental migration processes.
East Asia presents a noticeable trend in international migration (with all its drivers) while occurrences of environmental changes (both sudden and gradual) have also increased dramatically in recent years. The most visible instance would again be in the cities where most migration movements happen, especially in developing countries. The sudden or gradual rise of population poses immediate or mid/long-term environmental risks for urban dwellers, including migrant communities. Some of the threats to people’s environmental security include increasing carbon emissions and deterioration of air quality in big or mega cities, water degradation, rise of urban surface temperature, heatwaves (especially during monsoon seasons and sub-tropical regions, and it is reality for most of the Southeast Asian countries), waste, lack of sanitation, and increasing health risks due to mismanagement of all these issues.
There are of course steps taken at both national and international levels. Governments and their agencies, especially those of sending and receiving countries, work on migration governance programs through bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements together with regional and international organizations, and trans-governmental tracks by including labor unions, migrant community representatives, migration-relation business groups, and non-governmental initiatives. In the meantime, there are also international initiatives focusing on the establishment of migration regimes between sending and receiving countries, multilateral forums, and regional initiatives. Among these, special attention is paid to regional organizations (like ASEAN in the Southeast Asian case), forums, and other inter-governmental, and non-governmental initiatives at the regional level. The most important reason for this is that those regional forums already have experience in dealing with regional economic, political, and sociocultural issues and they already have the organizational structures to launch the initiatives for these emerging issues of environmental migration and their outcomes. Though there are international migration regimes set by other international organizations, regional organizations know the realities, and especially the sociocultural dynamics and specifications of their own regions and sub-regions, and they have better means to implement those international migration and environmental systems in their regions. Indeed, ASEAN is a good example, in that it has been focusing on the Southeast Asian dynamics of migration and working hard to establish new and more plausible regimes to govern migration flows and the environmental impacts of the movement of people.
Conclusion
This short overview looks at the environmental migration processes in East Asia with an attempt to frame the migration agenda with a focus on environmental change issues. The recent dynamics of international migration and environmental changes have a cause and effect relation since the environment has become one of the main drivers of (inter)national migration in recent years. Sudden and gradual environmental changes have led to migration at an unprecedented scale. The new migration flows lead to the further securitization of environmental change issues and migration processes, as increased risks of substantial environmental changes in the receiving areas are very likely.
Governing mechanisms of international migration also lead to further securitization of environmental migration processes since they necessitate multi-actor and multi-level involvement. Governmental and non-governmental initiatives at the regional level could be among the more realistic platforms to communicate those migration governance regimes and environmental change agendas, and to recognize as well as put emphasis on the environmental aspects, drivers, and outcomes of recent migration trends.
Aysun Uyar Makibayashi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Global and Regional Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto auyar@mail.doshisha.ac.jp