Environmental refugees: Quickly spreading

Refugees are people who seek asylum for fear of political, racial or religious persecution or people who leave their homes because of war or civil strife. This traditional notion of refugees, however, leave out the new, growing and quickly spreading phenomenon of environmental refugees triggered by natural calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides resulting to forced displacement of people. (When people seek refuge within their own countries as environmental refugees, they are commonly referred to as internally displaced persons).

Recent scientific studies show that rising seas will supplant encroaching desserts and other forms of land degradation as the major threat to habitability of many places this century. The evacuation of 1,400 residents of Papua New Guinea’s Carteret Islands (the world’s first climate change refugees according to the UN) due to rising sea levels offers a sobering vision of the future for coastal populations.