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10/11/2005:

"Millions 'will flee degradation'"

There will be as many as 50 million environmental refugees in the world in five years' time.

That is the conclusion of experts at the United Nations University, who say that a new definition of "environmental refugee" is urgently needed.

They believe that already environmental degradation forces as many people away from their homes as political and social unrest.

The UNU issued its statement to mark UN Day for Disaster Reduction.

"There are many different environmental issues involved and there can be interactions between them," said Janos Bogardi, director of the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, Germany.

"In poorer rural areas especially, one of the biggest sources of refugees is land degradation and desertification, which may be caused by unsustainable land use interacting with climate change, amplified by population growth," he told the BBC News website.

"A second issue is flooding, caused I would say by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere super-imposed with probably some natural fluctuations."
bbc.co.uk