Human Tides
Submitted by ni-radio on June 11, 2008 - 12:00am.
An estimated one billion people will flee their homes by 2050...
What's the most urgent threat facing poor people in developing countries. War? Climate change? Mega-development? A recent report says it's the result of all three - that people are being forced from their homes. On current trends a staggering one billion people will flee their homes in the next 40 years - the majority because of climate change and the building of mega-projects like dams and mines. Today's co-host, John Davison - one of the authors of the report Human Tide: the real migration crisis - joins Radio New Internationalist's Chris Richards to visit some startling scenarios and meet the people who are affected:
• Ten years after Cyclone Mitch hit Honduras, Juan Almendares from Friends of the Earth reveals how displacement and disruption still endures.
• Development projects like dams displace 15 million people a year. Medha Patkar - the leader of the Save Narmada Movement - recounts how the World Bank helps fund them.
• Two hundred and fifty million people are going to be displaced because of climate-change through floods, droughts, famines and hurricanes between now and 2050. That's more than double the entire populations of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Ibrahim Togola - from the Mali Folke Center - explains how it's already happening in Africa.
• Professor Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, presents compelling reasons why the Rich World should pay to climate-proof the Poor World.
In today's CD - Urban Gypsy performed by the Romanian-born Shukar Collective - traditions of those perennial refugees - the gypsies - meet the electric sounds of modern musicians.
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