For many decades the world witnessed mass displacements. Migration can be either voluntary or forced depending on the reasons. Mass migration can be also due to climate changes that harden the living conditions. Since there is a bidirectional nexus between migration and environmental degradation, the dramatic increase of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants greatly affect the environment and conservation efforts. Globally, the movement of people has caused different types of ecosystem changes including deforestation, water, and air pollution, as well as increased waste. Furthermore, as a two-edged sword for conservation, urbanization and growing population cause increasing per capita demand for energy, goods, and services. In this chapter, migration and sudden-onset and slow-onset hazards, the correlation between migration and environmental degradation, environmental and economic effects on the destination, as well as the role of government during migration processes will be analyzed.
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In recent years, there has been massive displacement of people on a global scale. For many decades, global migration due to man-made and natural causes has been increasing and breaking records. While the number of immigrants was 60 million in 2000, it reached 82 million in 2013, 258 million in 2017, and 281 million in 2020 (IOM, 2020). Migration is a phenomenon that has links with economic, political, and social factors. Migration causes a deep transformation of the immigrants and has been transformative for societies and economies all over the world. Depending on the reasons for migration, it can be either voluntary or forced. In the forced migration, people can leave their countries for reasons such as widespread violence, political conflicts, violation of human rights, unemployment, worsening living and economic conditions, and lack of income and livelihood. Many studies indicated that people become forced refugees due to similar reasons such as famine, war, or poverty, and massive people movements cause unexpected problems in hosting countries. Besides, when immigrants reach to host country, they face problems such as sheltering, adaptation to the environment, earning for livelihood, and environmental issues (Adelman and Sorenson, 1994; Baker, 1994; Zetter, 1994; Kibreab 1996; Whitaker 1999; Ngai and Koehn, 2002). Forced migration and volunteer migration have different dynamics. The countries which have a high population with respect to their land cause population pressure. People of those countries mostly migrate to expand livelihood opportunities. Converting natural vegetation to agriculture increase the population pressure. Wrong environmental policies increase the pressure on the population and the volunteer migration turns into forced migration (Wageningen University, 2017). Also, as the world is more globalized, the circulation of capital, technology, goods, and services encourages volunteer migration. Due to mass migration, either because of force major reasons or selective reasons, different types of settlements have been formed such as migrant cities, slums, refugee camps, and regions that are occupied by displaced people and irregular migrants (Wageningen University, 2017b).
Migration within the same country and migration to different destinations have different outcomes. Migration in the same country causes regional population density and human capital loss in the sending region whereas international migration leads to more complicated drawbacks both for sending and receiving countries. For example, while sending country loses some part of its human capital, with an increasing number of people due to migration, the receiving country has a more concentrated population in certain regions. Overpopulation leads to overconsumption which causes more pollution and environmental degradation. In the long term, redistribution and reallocation of resources and more consumption may negatively affect the carrying capacity1 of the environment (O’Lear, 1997:607). Therefore, migration affects sustainability in environmental, demographic, social, and economic dimensions. Migration contributes to sustainability if it is wisely managed and increases well-being and reduces inequality and environmental degradation. Therefore, migration policies are critical for sustainable development incorporating migration. In this context, better integration of ecological, demographic, and sociological environments can lead to sustainable development.