IV. Environment and Conflict in History
The database of conflict and environment cases shows a broad variety if issues but at a
high level of inspection. This chapter intends to focus on a select set of cases for discussion and
expansion of themes. The plan is to provide a basic typology of major issues and to follow them
through time via selected case studies from the data set.
Human beings are now the most dominant creatures on the planet in their ability to
impact and alter the environment of localities, regions and the planet as a whole. A Brontosaurus
might have held this claim in an earlier era, but their cumulative impact on the planet was surely
far less than the modern human. This dominance needs context. First, our dominance is short
lived compared to other species in other historical time periods. Second, while humans are now
dominant, they are not the most populous of species by either number (behind flies and many
species) or mass volume (behind termites). This chapter attempts to place the ascendancy of
humanity – viewed from the prism of environment and conflict issues -- in a temporal
perspective.
Paul Shepard argues that human conflict was rare until the Agricultural Revolution. The
settlement of humans led to a type of social organization that translated into aggregated power.
This power resulted in the domestication of humans, by other humans. The size of such
communities was much larger than in earlier times and thus created a greater potential for
centralized control and power. The aggregate power became a means of expressing national
interest vis-à-vis other aggregates of urban humanity that were also emerging. Shepard would
not call the agricultural and food production breakthrough a triumph or a revolution. He would
regard it as devolution in the quality of human life and the beginnings of permanent conflict.
154
"Domestication changed means of production, altered social relationships, and increased
environmental destruction. From ecosystems at dynamic equilibrium ten thousand years
ago the farmers created subsystems with pests and weeds by the time of the first walled
towns five thousand years ago...Domestication would create a catastrophic biology of
nutritional deficiencies, alternating feast and famine, health and epidemic, peace and
social conflict, all set in millennial rhythms of slowing collapsing ecosystems."1
Shepard argues that the Agricultural Conjunction completed the subjugation of
environmental and human rights by the development of warrior kingdoms. Usually, these
kingdoms exhausted much of their own environmental resources and used war to make up for
that deficit. The warrior was originally the herder of domestic ungulates: the person who tended
the horses and oxen learned how to ride them in battle. The desire for the hunt combined with
the efficiency of modern social systems led to the growth of state organized military power. The
warrior restored the hunting ethos by changing the focus from animals to humans. These warrior
societies, often built on conquest and slavery, were essentially farming farmers. "The hero, the
warrior, and the cowboy are almost inextricable. For the most part of history they are all
connected to horses or boats, although the Indo-European tool looks especially to the horse."2
A.
The Cases in Context
The concept behind this historical section is not only to examine the evolution of
environment and conflict cases through time, but also to do so in some manner that focuses on
some of the key sub-issues that define this dimension of interaction. Three basic dimensions
1
2
Shepard, Coming Home to the Pleistocene, pp. 82-3.
Shepard, Coming Home to the Pleistocene, p. 115.
155
cover relationships involving environmental breadth, types and status. Each of these dimensions
will include two examples, included as points of comparison and contrast, representing two
major aspects of the dimension (as described earlier). In each time period, six cases are
examined according to the criteria set forward in the prior chapter. These criteria consist of
generic proto-types of behavior along three general dimensions that have dichotomous attributes.
Table IV-1 shows the cases organized by time and in a chronological order. The actual
discussion of the cases follows the chronological order. There are six issues selected: climate
change, forest resources, arable land, water, the environment as a weapon, and the environment
as a conflict boundary.
Table IV-2 shows the cases organized by dimensional issue on a horizontal basis with
temporal sub-sets shown on a vertical basis. The discussion of the cases follows the format in
this table, focusing on three types of issues for three historical periods. This produces a total of
18 case studies. Each issue is then analyzed for comparison and contrast.
156
Table IV-1
Key Cases in Environment and Conflict: Organized by Time
Ancient Cases
Case Name
NEANDERTHAL
CEDARS
MOHENJO
NILE
ASSYRIA
GREATWALL
Onset Year
35,000 BC
2,600 BC
1,700 BC
900 BC
600 BC
200 BC
Describe
The role of
humans in
Neanderthal
extinction
The Cedars of
Lebanon and
conflict over
wood
The decline of
Mohenjo-Daro
and loss of
cropland
Ancient and
modern
conflict over
Nile River
water
Assyrian use
of water as a
weapon
against
Babylonians
China's Great
Wall, Mongols
and the
environment
Type
Climate
Change
Forests
Arable Land Water
Weapons
Boundaries
Middle Cases
Case Name
HADRIAN
MAYA
VINELAND
ANASAZI
ROBIN
HOOD
BUFFALO
Onset Year
150 AD
800 AD
1000 AD
1200 AD
1450 AD
1870 AD
Describe
Hadrian's Wall, Soil, warfare, The Vikings,
Picts, and
and the decline Vineland, and
environmental of Mayas
Native
impact
Americans
Water
resources and
the decline of
the Anasazi
Forests rights The US war
in England with Native
and Robin Americans and
Hood
the buffalo
Type
Boundaries
Water
Forests
Weapons
Arable Land Climate
Change
Modern Cases
Case Name
DMZ
JORDAN
KUWAIT
KHMER
RWANDA
SAHEL
Onset Year
1953 AD
1967 AD
1991 AD
1992 AD
1994 AD
1997 AD
Describe
The Korean
DMZ,
environment
and conflict
Conflict over
the Jordan
River waters
Oil as a cause
and a weapon
in the Kuwait
War
Khmer Rouge
military
support and
timber sales
Population,
deforestation
and conflict
in Rwanda
The expansion
of the Sahel
and Niger
tribal conflict
Type
Boundaries
Water
Weapons
Forests
Arable Land Climate
Change
157
Table IV-2
Key Cases in Environment and Conflict: Organized by Issue
Environmental Environmental Social Type
Social Type
Dimension Breadth
Breadth
Category
Conflict over Conflict over Conflict over Conflict over
General
Specific
Source
Sinks
Resources
Resources
Resources
Conflict
Conflict
Dimension
Dimension
Non-Territory Territory
Type
Climate
Change
Forests
Arable Land Water
Weapons
Boundaries
Ancient
Cases
NEANDERTHAL
CEDARS
MOHENJO
NILE
ASSYRIA
GREATWALL
35,000 BC
2,600 BC
1,700 BC
900 BC
600 BC
200 BC
The role of
humans in
Neanderthal
extinction
VINELAND
The Cedars of
Lebanon and
conflict over
wood
ROBIN
HOOD
The decline of
Mohenjo-Daro
and loss of
cropland
MAYA
Ancient and
modern
conflict over
Nile River
ANASAZI
Assyrian use of China's Great
water as a
Wall, Mongols
weapon against and the
Babylonians environment
BUFFALO
HADRIAN
1000 AD
1450 AD
800 AD
1200 AD
1870 AD
150 AD
The Vikings,
Vineland, and
Native
Americans
SAHEL
Forests rights Soil, warfare, Water
in England and and the decline resources and
Robin Hood of Mayas
the decline of
the Anasazi
KHMER
RWANDA
JORDAN
The US war
with Native
Americans and
buffalo
KUWAIT
Hadrian's Wall,
Picts, and
environmental
impact
DMZ
1997 AD
1992 AD
1991 AD
1953 AD
Oil as a cause
and a weapon
in the Kuwait
War
The Korean
DMZ,
environment
and conflict
Middle
Cases
Modern
Cases
The expansion Khmer Rouge
of the Sahel
support and
and Niger
timber sales
tribal conflict
1994 AD
1967 AD
Population,
Conflict over
deforestation the Jordan
and conflict in River waters
Rwanda
158
The three epochal periods also signify changes in dominant technologies at a macrohistorical level, which in turn indicate changes in structural systems. These systems, in turn,
determine the mechanisms by which environment and conflict relate. Eventually, these changes
impact patterns that may change in direction, from supporting one another to causing conflict
between them.
The approach here is to identify key issues in environment and conflict that persist
throughout time and to follow that relationship to discern how it evolves. The discussion of
these critical issues through time follows a series of case studies illustrating how relationships
change to fit the structural configurations of the time.
B.
Environment and Conflict by Theme over Time
This section examines ancient cases that revolve around the environment and conflict
nexus. By “ancient”, the cases generally occurred before the year 0 in the modern calendar. Six
cases will provide the basis for discussion on differing dimensions of interaction between
conflict and environment. The point is not only to read the cases and their interaction across
places and typologies, but to trace these types of interactions with examples over time. Thus, the
results will combine an examination of both time and place in three historically consecutive case
studies examined through six dimensional issues. The cases from this period tend to focus on the
most basic resources required by early civilizations: land, water, and wood. These needs did not
vanish with time but persist today.
1.
Climate Change
159
The climate cases focus on three peoples -- Neanderthals, Vikings, and Fulani -- who
experienced climate change and conflict in ancient, middle and modern times. The climate
change cases are the oldest in the data set and help define the human experience. Climate change
has both micro- and macro-climate dimensions. The early causes for climate change were driven
solely by nature but in recent years humans have sharply accelerated the process.
There are only five climate change cases in the entire ICE data set.3 No doubt in actual
history there are many more cases. Further, many such cases are much older in time where
records are not sufficient to detail or establish this link.
This type of conflict system has a somewhat dichotomous nature. There are strong links
to short and long-term cases that is focused on a particular resource, eventually results in a
decisive victory, and is associated with habitat change. The average annual conflict deaths might
be few, but the long-time deaths add up to a major conflict (see Figure IV-1).
In ICE cases, this is captured by the attribute “Terra-forming Natural” under the category
“Trigger”.
3
160
Figure IV-1
The Climate Change Causal System (The Yellow Loop in the Conflict Sub-System)
Climate changes cases in ICE are few and diffuse over time. The historical cases then
can provide some insight as to how environmental change generates conflict. These cases have
extremely long-term durations in general, but periods of magnification or change may put this in
a short-term perspective, especially in micro-climates. It appears that this is the case today. The
first case -- regarding the Home Sapiens and Neanderthal wars -- is the longest term conflict
included in the data set and the oldest.
a.
An Ancient Case of Climate Change: The Neanderthal, Humans and the End of the Last
Ice Age
Time Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Environmental Breadth
General Resources
Climate Change
161
The first case study begins with the emergence of the modern human. It largely predates
large scale conflict between groups of humans. At this time, humans were in competition with
other species – as predator and as prey – but also in competition with other primates. This was
especially so since their economic subsistence patterns were quite similar. One of the most
important intra-humanoid disputes was over environment and conflict with human’s closest
ancestor – the Neanderthal.4 Theories about the end of the Neanderthal are controversial and
unresolved. There is, however, no question that human beings played a role in their demise. It is
also true that humans invaded lands that Neanderthals lived on for several hundred thousand
years. Neanderthals survived several ice ages during this period. They could not survive
humans.
Changing climates certainly creates the conditions for conflict as people, their
technologies, and their subsistence patterns all tend to intersect. In some cases, these
technologies and patterns change and adapt as well over time. In other cases, people simply
moved from the changed climate to one that more or less resembles the old climate and therefore
the technologies and economic patterns need not change. Or, the people were displaced, killed
or integrated into other groups.
The conflict over environmental resources is of course inimical to human nature. Clear
evidence for organized human warfare dates back more than nine thousand years, to the early
Neolithic Age.5 It surely existed in the war against the Neanderthals and environment was a key
4
The Neanderthal was first discovered in August 1856 by Dr. Johan Karl Fuhlrott, a
schoolteacher from the town of Elberfed, near the Dussel River in the western part of Germany.
Technically, this was not the first Neanderthal skull ever found. Researchers did not realize until
the 1860s, that a skull found in 1848 at Gibraltar was of a Neanderthal. Fuhlrott's find was in a
valley called Neander (Tal or Thal means valley in German) that produced the name. Thus, the
site and the creature are known as Neanderthal.
5
Ferrill, 1985, p. 20 and Roper, 1975, p. 304.
162
factor in that war at the end of the last Ice Age. Humans spread into Europe during this warming
period, in many instances coming into conflict and ultimately displacing Neanderthals.
Anthropologists generally agree that our species began in Africa and migrated from there
to the other parts of the planet. The general belief is that humans came upon areas uninhabited,
but in fact, these areas often did have other primate competitors who would and did compete
over hunting grounds that provided economic subsistence. The conflict between two primate
species occurred through direct warfare and through indirect warfare. The direct conflict was
probably a draw – with the greater Neanderthal physical attributes matched by the higher
technologies of the humans. Indirect warfare was probably a greater factor as humans proved
more adept hunters than the Neanderthals and took more of the game. This led to larger human
populations and less food for competitors.
Anthropologists and geneticists disagree on the genetic relation of the human to the
Neanderthal. Some believe that Neanderthal was simply another race of humans, perhaps most
similar to aborigines from Australia. Most scholars believe Neanderthals were a completely
separate species. The earliest human remains found in Europe date back 35,000 years.
According to anthropologist Eric Trinkhaus the bones suggest interbreeding between humans
and Neanderthals. Other researchers assert that on the whole there was little or no contribution
to the human gene pool. Human are not directly related to Neanderthals, but they do emerge
from a common tree hundred of thousands of years earlier.6
Neanderthals existed between 350,000 and 30,000 years ago. Perhaps as far back as
100,000 years ago they encountered the first human beings , probably in the Middle East. By
45,000 years ago, humans (Cro-magnons) invaded Europe and Asia and the Neanderthals were
Bob Beale, “Euro jawbone rattles Neanderthal debate”, ABC Science Online, September
24, 2003, News in Science (online). http://www.abc.net/science/news/stories/s952446.htm
6
163
gone in 15,000 years. But this is a long time for two people to co-exist without serious conflict
(or attempted mating), as noted in James Shreeve’s “The Neanderthal Peace”.7 Moreover, they
met differing groups of humans over time, and perhaps they too were in conflict with one group
but at peace with another.
These first humans, the Aurignacians, entered into west Europe but retreated during a
cooling period. They were followed by the Gravettians, who possessed more advanced
technology in weapons and warmer clothing to protect them from the cold. While Neanderthals
only had thrusting spears for close range fighting with animals, the Gravettians threw spears and
other projectiles.8 Neanderthals were intelligent primates with customs and rituals and probably
systems of communication. They were not the mindless brutes depicted in earlier "scientific"
tracts and grade B movies, nor the muscle-bound hulks with hairy backs.
Neanderthal had a long, narrow skull, with a large brain and a bony protrusion over each
eye. Physically, the people were stout and strong, with short limbs and digits, and women had
birth canals that were similar in size to modern human females. Ine find, in modern day Israel,
was discovered at the Kabara Cave in Israel by a joint French-Israeli team. The team found a
hyoid bone, which links muscles of lower jaw and neck, critical to speaking. This find led some
to believe that Neanderthal had language abilities perhaps equal to modern humans.
Neanderthals were beyond humans in physical capabilities, being much stronger and more agile.
It would be wrong to stereotype about Neanderthals because they were a heterogonous
group. The various finds from East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe show great diversity in
form and feature, just as would be found in humans. Neanderthals ranged over a large area and
James Shreeve, “The Neanderthal Peace, Discover Vol. 16 No. 09, September 1995.
Jennifer Viegas, “Neanderthals couldn’t cope with the cold”, News in Science:
Environment and Nature, January 8, 2004, accessed July 31, 2004,
http://www.aabc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1033326.htm.
7
8
164
experienced a wide range of climatic variations that influenced the development of their physical
features and culture. The image of Neanderthal as the brute is slowly being replaced, at least in
the scientific world, by a more sophisticated and advanced creature with social ties, cultural
relations and a people who buried their dead.
Neanderthals were intelligent hominids nearly equal to humans in intelligence. Perhaps
some humans had Neanderthals as acquaintances or as trading partners over their long periods of
co-existence. The human relation and reaction to the Neanderthal is perhaps also a cautionary
tale for how humans might greet aliens from another planet.
This was not the first time the two groups had met. The initial encounters between
human and Neanderthal are thought to have taken place somewhere in the Middle East. It was
probably near present day sites in Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq as both groups expanded
during the warming period. There was a gradual process of displacement and replacement.
Similar to today, this narrow stretch of greenery (the Fertile Crescent) was a corridor for
interaction between Asia, Africa and Europe and a sought after territory. Over time, humans
pushed Neanderthals back into the less hospitable parts of Europe. The Neanderthal retreats
often forced them onto lands where game was not as abundant and temperatures much colder.
This deterioration in access to resources no doubt led to long term pressures on survival (see
Figure IV-2).
Figure IV-2
The Extent of the Neanderthal
165
The in-migration of humans into long-standing Neanderthal resource areas (hunting
grounds) was an early conflict with environment causes. This inter-humanoid conflict is perhaps
like forms of intra-human ethnic conflict, with of course broader differences. Researchers
document a great die-off of certain mega-fauna after human arrival in the Eurasia and the
Americas and perhaps the demise of the Neanderthal is evidence of other extinctions associated
with our past.
Perhaps the Neanderthals did not completely die out. Perhaps they live on in the human
gene pool. During the thousands of years that humans and Neanderthals lived in close proximity
to one another, there were no doubt raids that took females captives as spoils of war (by both
166
sides). Rapes as part of conflict also no doubt occurred. Perhaps children were born to humans
that had some Neanderthal genes or vice-versa. Anthropologist Wolpott believes that intermarriage or at least inter-breeding was common between humans and Neanderthal.
Neanderthal hunting technology was inferior to that of humans and more dangerous. Eric
Trinkhaus notes that animals killed by the Neanderthal would have involved close contact using
little refined, stone implements. Daniel Lieberman and John Shea suggest two other advantages
in economic survival that humans held. First, humans migrated, sometimes over great distances,
and took advantage of seasonality and animal migrations. Neanderthals were much more
sedentary and this in a climate with extremely limited resources. Second, humans were not only
better hunters they were also better gatherers. In the end, it may have been a long-gradual war of
technology and adaptation.
Neanderthals spent far more time hunting for sustenance compared to humans and thus
had less leisure time for developing new tools. Both groups used a basic set of tools known as
Mousterian technology, but the level of refinement by the humans was far superior. They no
doubt adopted some Neanderthal techniques and exceeded them. Neanderthals also were able to
control fire, but not to the extent of humans who used it to make pottery and weapons, for
example.
The evolving view of Neanderthals says little about them, but of course says a lot about
humans. Neanderthals have not changed, human tolerance has, and this change mirrors a new
look at how we view our nearest relatives. Thomas Henry Huxley believed the real measure of
humanity is evident in our relation to other apes and other primates.
167
After the humans finished their conflict with the Neanderthals they apparently started
turning against each other in ancient times. Two recent finds demonstrate this: one in Oregon
and the other in Italy.
The first example is from North America. In 1996 two hikers found a skeleton known as
Kennewick Man near the town of Kennewick, Washington, along the banks of the Columbia
River, just prior to the point where it meets up with the Snake River. (They said they had gone
in a back entrance to an event with a cover charge, which they wished to avoid). The hikers
stumbled upon the bones that only later were found to be ancient, dating back 9,200 years. Little
is known about Kennewick Man because of a dispute over who owns the bones. His remains are
a matter of dispute between scientists who want to study him and Native Americans who claim
him under U.S. Federal Law. There is great debate about his characteristics. There is some
preliminary evidence that he was shot with an arrow. His death may be related to territorial
hunting claims.
On February 4, 2004, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that scientists may study
the 9,200 year old body. The decision was the lack of existing connections between the modern
tribes and the people of that time. His characteristics are alleged to be different from modern
Native Americans who filed the case (the Umatilla, Yakama, Colville and Nez Perce tribes).9
The second example is from Europe. A couple from Germany, hiking in the Otzal Alps,
happened upon bones later found to be about 5,000 years old. The area was near the Italian and
Austrian border, in fact within 101 yards. The bones belonged to a man they called “Otzi” and
were found a close distance within the Italian border. Belonging to Neolithic culture, he was part
of a sophisticated socio-economy and technology, as shown by the artifacts with him. He was
9
Washington Post, “Kennewick Man Can be Studied, Court Rules”, February 5, 2004,
A19.
168
likely a trader whose ancient path later became Roman roads and the main highways and routes
for north south trade in Europe. “The copper in the ax probably came from the mountains,
which, as the source of valuable metals used to make tools, were worshiped by miners
throughout the world.” 10
Otzi’s best weapon was his bow-stave made of yew for its flexibility and workability.
Many prehistoric bow and arrow systems in Europe relied on the wood of the yew tree. There
was also an axe with a yew handle and a copper blade. The bow of the Iceman was made of
yew, as were most ancient bows, due to its pliability.
b.
A Middle Case of Climate Change: The Vikings, Climate and the North American
Experience
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Environmental Breadth
General Resources
Climate Change
After the invasion of Britain, Rome grew weary of continuous war and built Hadrian’
Wall (more on this later). The wall separated conquered Roman lands to the south from the Picts
and Scots to the north, which were difficult peoples to conquer. The lands the Scots inhabited
were marginal in terms of agricultural productivity and the value of victory seemed little. Over
several hundred years, two distinct systems emerged on each side of the wall. To the north was a
tribal based system still reliant on herding and grazing of animals for subsistence. To the south,
a more market based system grew and increases in population created large sedentary
10
Did "Iceman" of Alps Die as Human Sacrifice? National Geographic News, January 15,
2002. www.nationalgeographic.com
169
populations reliant on cultivating agricultural crops. The social stability provided by the wall
allowed the development of settled lifestyles, power structures and the acquisition of wealth.
These differences grew and accumulated over time and two differing environments and
economies emerged on each side of the wall (see the later story of Robin Hood).
An unpredictable change in climate propelled events. The warming climate around 1000
AD made northern lands hospitable. Viking population surged in Scandinavia and they began
move out to settle more distant lands. After invading Britain, to raid and in some cases settle, the
Vikings traveled to Greenland and later on to North America.
The word Viking comes from the Old Norse “vik”, a bay or harbor. The Viking lifestyle
was a reaction to the lack of arable lands and limited alternative means to survive. Fishing was
not a major occupation for them until the Middle Ages.11 Vikings also included men from
Scandinavia who ventured out to acquire new lands, as well as those who looted and robbed as
an occupation. The Vikings really came into being as a distinct group around 780 AD and
rapidly spread in many directions. To the east, they conquered and traded throughout Russia and
into the Ukraine.
“The Vikings were infamous raiders and looters, but they were also farmers and herders
at home and no less sophisticated in arts and invention than other medieval
Europeans…They were successful ship builders who engaged in ever-widening trade,
east to Russia and south to Rome and Baghdad. In their Iceland colony at the end of the
10th century, these people created the first democratic parliament. Their further western
expansion brought about the first tenuous contact between the Old World and the New."12
11
12
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 14.
Wilford, 2000.
170
There are many explanations for the Viking migrations that include political,
demographic, or religious factors. No doubt the truth is a blend of these many causal instruments
and played differing purposes for the differing Viking groups that migrated..
"Many theories have been advanced to explain the events that propelled Vikings outward
from their northern homelands: developments in ship construction and seafaring skills;
internal stress from population growth and scarce land; loss of personal freedom as
political and economic centralization progressed; and the rise of Christianity over
traditional pagan belief have all been cited. Probably all are correct in degrees; but the
overriding factor was the awareness of opportunities for advancement abroad that lured
Norsemen to leave their home farms."13
What was remarkable about the journey of the Vikings was that their voyages to the New
World, from the East, effectively made the reach of human beings a global one for the first time
in history. “Our ancestors left Africa between 100,000 and 120,000 years ago. Coming up out
of the Middle East, some of them turned left at Europe, and others turned right into the farther
reaches of Asia. Their descendants would not meet until 100,000 years later, at the Strait of
Belle Island [in New Foundland, Canada].”14 This first global encounter did not have a peaceful
outcome.
“It’s a pity that the first contact between the descendants of the People Who Turned Left
and the People Who Turned Right should have ended in killing. Nevertheless, it is not
surprising. The Vikings were a warrior culture with an in-built contempt for non-farming
peoples and a major problem with impulse control. But frankly, it might well have ended
13
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 17. Norse artifacts are found in many parts of northeastern North
America, on Greenland and other sites such as Ellesmere and Baffin Islands in Canada.
14
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle: First Contact: Vikings and Skraelings in
Newfoundland and Labrador, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Newfoundland Museum, 2000, p. 8.
171
in fighting no matter who they were, because anybody including another group’s
traditional land is likely to run into trouble.” 15
Why did this convergence occur? “The answer has mostly to do with the climate,”16 but
also the chaos of events that often propels history. "The motivating force for the Norwegians
sailing west, the colonization of the lesser Atlantic islands, and thereafter of Iceland and
Greenland, and the attempted settlement of America, was a need for land and pasture."17
The Vikings controlled large parts of France, Britain, Scotland, the Shetland Islands and
Ireland by 700 AD. Irish priests came to the Faeroe Island around 700 AD and Iceland was
discovered and settled between 860 and 870. The period of expansion was actually quite shortlived and suitable land taken by 930.18 In 962, Eric the Red, kicked out of Norway and two
places in Iceland for murder, was banished and headed west where he happened to find
Greenland. He called it "Greenland", but even with relatively warmer conditions then, this was
quite an exaggeration or a public relations stunt to attract settlers. By 986, he returned with 450
people that later grew to 4,000, all emigrants from Iceland. Later, Leif Ericson, his son, would
venture from Greenland in search of lands to the west.
The Vikings thought the lands they found would be as hospitable as Scandinavia – they
were not. In the northern latitudes, the western edges of continents have better warmer climate
conditions for human settlements, owing to the circulation of winds on the planet and the
Atlantic Gulf Stream. “This explains why 20 million Scandinavians can live at latitudes north of
Goose Bay [Canada] today. It also explains why even 1,000 years ago there were at least a
15
16
17
18
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 21.
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 14.
Jones, p. 269.
Jones, p. 277.
172
million farmers in Scandinavia, but fewer than 10,000 hunter-gatherers in Newfoundland and
Labrador.” 19
The westward migration of the Vikings was driven by a warming period around 1,0001,500 AD. A “Little Ice Age” followed and lasted from about 1500-1700. The cooling led to an
eventual cooling of the planet's northern extremes and thus rendering uninhabitable many of the
places the Vikings had settled.
Climate research reinforces the sagas. “During the eleventh and twelfth centuries ice was
virtually unknown in the waters between Iceland and the Viking settlements in Greenland, and
the temperature in these settled areas was 2 degrees centigrade to 4 degrees warmer than at
present. From the beginning of the 13th century a mini-ice age affected the northern hemisphere,
plunging the seawater temperature to between 3 degrees centigrade and 7 degrees (about 23
degrees below the present day temperature). This change was enough to bring the ice further and
further south. Seasonal ice floes began to appear in the sailing lanes and near the settlements;
their quantity increased, the ice season lengthened, and the ice floes were followed by ice
bergs."20
This period of Viking expansion was different from earlier ones. Earlier expansions reenforced a plundering lifestyle. This occupation changed as the Vikings became agriculturalists
and adopted settled lifestyles. "The era of Viking marauding had long since passed. To some
scholars the Norman invasion of England in 1066 was the last great Viking raid; many Normans
were descended from helmeted Vikings who had earlier seized their land."21
19
20
21
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 15.
Logan, p. 78.
Wilford, 2000.
173
This new lifestyle marked a dramatic change in the socio-economic context of the
Vikings. The lifestyle was context-based in a narrow niche of survival in the mostly northerly
lands inhabited by Lapplanders, Eskimos, etc. This required a stable environment. ”The
[Viking] style of living they developed is called crafting: growing some vegetables, catching
some fish, keeping sheep for wool and meat, raising cattle for milk and meat, and growing
enough hay to see the animals through the winter.” 22 This lifestyle required a fairly static type
of environmental climate.
“During the 13th century the climate appears to have deteriorated, though the facts
regarding this are not fully agreed upon. Climatic tables indicate, after a level,
comparatively ice-free period 860-1200, a sharply rising level of marine ice in the years
around 1260, declining thereafter only to rise again after 1300."23
After 1200, the northern Arctic regions of the planet grew colder, and by the middle of
the fifteenth century, the climate reverted to its earlier state, if not even colder. Over much of
Europe the glaciers advanced, the tree line crept south, and the alpine passes used for trade and
travel were often impassable. “The northern coast of Iceland grew increasingly beleaguered by
drift ice; and off Greenland as the sea temperatures sank there was a disabling increase in the ice
which comes south from the East Greenland Current to Cape Farewell, and then swings north to
enclose first the Eastern and then the Western settlement."24
The Vikings found artifacts in Greenland and Northeast Canada, and as they sailed south
along the coast they could see plumes of smokes that indicated human presence.25 Bjarni
Bardarson accidentally reached North America 986 where he was on a voyage to Greenland but
22
23
24
25
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 12.
Wahlgren, pp. 24-5.
Jones, p. 308.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p.11.
174
lost his way. Leif Ericsson took an expedition further south in 1002 into Vineland and continued
periodic trips for hundreds of years. "It has been suggested that the motive for such voyages [to
North America in 1347] was more likely for the acquisition of timber for Greenland's
construction needs."26 There were at this time virtually no forest resources on the entire island of
Greenland. "In Greenland, emigration may have be abetted by the fact that "the Norse
population reached the carrying capacity of the habitat, which may itself have been
decreasing."27
"According to the sagas, Ericson's party first headed northwest across Baffin Bay and
came upon a rocky coast they called Helluland, present-day Baffin Island. Then they
sailed south, hugging the shore, to the wooded place they named Markland, probably
Labrador. Finally, they entered a shallow bay and waited for high tide to bring them
ashore to a green meadow. Here at L'Anse aux Meadows, they established a base camp,
their beachhead in Vinland."28
In Newfoundland the Vikings settled in a place known as Vineland, because the early
explorers found wild grapes. (Later accounts verify these events. Adam of Bremen wrote in
1070 that in Vinland "there grow grapes.”) The grapes are further evidence of a warmer climatic
period, compared to today, since these areas are now too cold and wild grapes do not grow there
but have moved further south.
Battling the changes in weather was not the only difficulty the Vikings faced. The
Vikings interacted with the Native Americans who lived there, in terms of both commerce and
conflict. The conflict, though relatively rare, proved fatal for the expedition. "The outbreak of
26
27
28
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 241.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 291.
Wilford, 2000.
175
hostilities between Skraelings [the name the Norse gave them] and Norsemen was decisive for
the Vineland venture. The Norsemen had no marked superiority of weapons, their lines of
communication were thin and overlong, and there was an insufficient reservoir of manpower
back in Greenland."29 The attempt at colonization of Vineland probably lasted only until about
1020.
Soon after the arrivals of the Viking in Greenland, the few trees of birch, willow and
elder were soon depleted and replaced with sorrel, yarrow and wild tansy. When the Greenland
colony disappeared the trees soon returned. Both a cooling climate and human overuse of
resources hurt the Viking chances for survival. As domesticated animals started to die off (cattle
and sheep) "the colonists grew more dependent upon seal for subsistence." 30 In Greenland,
"animals were even more destructive than people in changing local vegetation and ultimately
whole landscapes, reducing forest and shrub lands, and through time, by overgrazing, converting
grasslands to wastelands. These ecological stresses grew more difficult to manage in the harsher
climates to the northwest and accumulated over time, more rapidly as the climate deteriorated
generally after 1350." 31
The demise of Greenlanders probably took a very long time. Some suggest that
Europeans lived there into the early 1500s. Toward the end, the Eskimos massacred many
Greenlanders. (In 1492, ironically, Columbus arrived in North America and announced its
discovery just as the Greenland colony was dieing out.) A combination of forces led to the
demise of the Greenlanders and related to the changing climate and the arrival of too many
people on the island. "I propose, therefore, that there was thus a conjunction of debilitating
29
30
31
Jones, p. 303.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 74.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 19.
176
forces, environmental (the waxing cold), economic (increasing denudation of the soil, the
wasting away of cattle and the few crops, the dwindling supply of fuel, the pressing competition
with the Eskimos for marine game), psychological (a gradual reduction in the birth rate) and
spiritual (religious deprivation and lack of cultural stimulus)." 32
Climate was only one of many factors that led to the demise of the Greenland colony.
"An explanation that stresses climatic changes and plays down politico-economic factors
probably lies as near to the truth as we can get at the moment. In 1261, this small, self-governing
land came under the control of the King of Norway, who, it is often said, restricted trade. Since
much of Greenland's livelihood depended on the export of goods such as homespun clothe, skins
of oxen, sheep and seals, walrus rope, walrus tusks, and polar bears as well as the importation of
timber, iron, and grain, in particular. Such trade restrictions, it is argued, made life difficult."33
Trade was the only way that the colony could survive.
In Greenland, "the Western Settlement was the first to be deserted. After 1349, the time
of the Black Death, the Eastern Settlement' ties were hard-pressed." 34 The role of the church
grew stronger. "Submitting to the nominal authority of Norway's Kind Hakon the Old in 1261,
the Greenlanders were now subject of special clerical concern. Records show that a large part of
the best land owned by the Greenlanders had gradually come into the possession of the
church."35 Norway eventually abandoned Greenland and it remained uninhabited, at least by
Europeans, for hundreds of years. The church played a key role in the process of recolonization
many years later. Europeans re-colonized Greenland with the help of the cleric Hans Egede,
who traveled from Copenhagen in 1721 to the island.
32
33
34
35
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 176.
Logan, p. 77.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 97.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 12.
177
Unlike Iceland and Greenland, people were living in North America when the Vikings
arrived. The people living there also changed over time as the climate changed. The Thules,
ancestors of today’s Inuits, began move eastward from the Bering Sea in Alaska. The fortuitous
climate played an inviting role to many peoples. "The Norse arrived in the new world in A.D.
1000, a time of diverse social and political landscapes for the peoples living on the western
shores of the North Atlantic. Members of several different ethnic groups -- the Dorset people of
the eastern Canadian Arctic and northern Greenland, the ancestors of the Labrador Innu, the
Newfoundland Beothuk, and the Maliseet and Micmac of the southern Gulf of Saint Lawrence
and Nova Scotia -- had divided this territory into a multicultural region of discrete homelands
where their ancestors lived for many generations. After A.D. 1200 and during the height of the
warming, the Thule-ancestors of the Inuit---would also arrive on the scene."36
The Dorsets, in turn, had displaced Maritime Archaic peoples, the latter who had been
there since 6,000 BC. It is also possible they interacted with Algonquin peoples who generally
lived south of the Saint Lawrence River. The Thule displaced the Dorsets under similar
conditions to the conflicts with the Norse: they had superior technology for surviving in the
environment. "Armed with lances and with bows powered by a cable of twisted sinew, as well
as with warlike traditions developed in the large competing communities of coastal Alaska, such
a band of warriors would have been a formidable enemy. They could have easily displaced the
small and poorly armed communities of Dorset people from prime hunting localities, forcing
them to retreat to more marginal areas." 37 By the period 1200-1400 AD, the Inuit began to
replace the older Dorset culture that had arrived earlier.
36
37
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 193.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 243.
178
The Norsemen encountered both peoples known as Native Americans and Eskimos. The
Eskimos came to North America during the 11th century, much later than the Native Americans
did. The Native Americans were "probably Beothuk, related to the Algonquians who occupied
the coastal regions of Newfoundland during the summer, fishing and hunting sea mammals and
birds - these would be puffins, gannets and related species - from birch bark canoes."38 The
Eskimos were of the Thule culture.
When the chance meeting of east and west took place, who was more surprised – the
Norse or the Inuit? The Norse had seen "Karelians" (Northeast Russia from the Karelian
Peninsula) or Laplanders in the Artic who were seemingly more Asiatic in ancestry. The Native
American, however, had probably never encountered anyone like these tall, blond, blue-eyed
people. The Norse military technology was somewhat superior to those of the Native
Americans.39 However, there is clear evidence of trade between the two. Norse products wound
up in the hands of the Native Americans with the appearance of metal arrowhead points
sometime replacing stone.40
By 1350, the Vikings abandoned the Western settlement of Greenland, which the
Skraeling or Eskimos soon took over, and retreated to the Eastern Settlement. The Vikings
survived until 1500 where the Skraelings killed off most of the Norse Greenlanders, save for a
few they kept as few slaves.
The plague was a consequence of trade. It was also a vehicle for introducing disease and
illness by bringing eco-environmental systems into a relationship. “Between 1339 and 1351 AD,
a pandemic of plague traveled from China to Europe, known in Western history as The Black
38
39
40
Wahlgren, p. 16.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 11.
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 21.
179
Death. Carried by rats and fleas along the Silk Road Caravan routes and Spice trading sea
routes, the Black Death reached the Mediterranean Basin in 1347, and was rapidly carried
throughout Europe from what was then the center of European trade.”41 The plague hit Viking
settlements in Greenland and this had a direct impact on its ability to expand. By 1351, 25 to 50
percent of Europe people were dead, as well as the Middle East and south and East Asia.42
Theories of contact and migration to the Americas are undergoing a fundamental
revision. Rather than a single entry point through the Bering Straits, it is now believed that there
were probably multiple sources of migration in populating the hemisphere.43 In addition, some
see the meeting of peoples as an important event. "Thanks to recent advances in archaeology,
history and natural sciences, the Norse discoveries in the North Atlantic can now be seen as the
first step in the process by which human populations became reconnected into a single global
system. After two million years of cultural diversification and cultural dispersal, humanity has
finally come full circle."44
c.
A Modern Case of Climate Change: Conflict between Fulani and Zarma and the Role of
Desertification
Time
Class
Category
Modern
Environmental Breadth
General Resources
Richard Thomas, “The Role of Trade in Transmitting the Black Death”, TED Case
Studies, No. 414, May 1997, p. 1, http://www.american.edu/TED/bubonic.htm.
42
Gottfried, Robert. The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe,
New York, Free Press, 1983.
43
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 11.
44
Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 12.
41
180
Type
Climate Change
Climate change is an ongoing factor in the relationship between environment and
conflict. It was largely responsible for the war that lasted for 20,000 years or more between
Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Climate change was an essential element in the later conflict
between European Vikings and Native Americans in North America.
Climate change creates new ecotones or areas of habitation by differing groups with
differing technologies and economic subsistence patterns. The conflict in Niger is a classic case
of ecotone shift. The Sahara desert, the largest arid area on the planet, moves periodically in a
north-south line and has so over millennia. This ebb and flow of desertification brought differing
people into confrontation. This line between habitable and inhabitable moves not only through
Niger, but also the countries of Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Mauritania, Chad,
Sudan and other parts of Africa (see Figure IV-3).
Climate change today is magnified with the precarious balances between environmental
supply and demand in some parts of the modern world. This is especially the case in Africa.
There are changes in long-term cycles, as was the case with the end of the last Ice Age 50,000
years ago. These long-term cycles may involve changes in ecotones that involve large portions
of the planet. There are also shorter ecotones that occur, such as the cooling in the North
Hemisphere in the 1500-1700 AD Period. Climate and weather conditions in fragile zones over
the short-term can have extreme consequences for inhabitants used to seasonal and yearly
migration patterns.
Climate change is decomposable by time and geography. There are long-term climate
patterns but there are also shorter-term patterns that people ordinarily refer to as “weather”.
Weather is the cycles of climate change limited to the lifespan of an individual and perhaps some
181
stories from parents and grandparents, or perhaps a span of 100 years. Within certain climates
and micro-climates changes in weather can be significant over the short-term.
Figure IV-3
Africa and the Approximate Limit of the Sahara and the Beginning of the Sahel
182
The southward drift of the Sahel during a dry period pushed Fulani tribe nomadic herders
south towards greener pastures. Unfortunately, this encroached on lands of the Zarma, who were
sedentary agriculturalists. These two groups clashed over diminishing pasture and water
resources for economic and food subsistence.
In 1997 in Niger seven people were killed and 43 wounded in separate clashes between
Fulani herders and Zarma farmers in the sectors Téra and Birni N'Gaouré. State radio (La Voix
du Sahel) reported seven deaths occurred near the village of Falmaye (Birni N'Gaouré), southeast
of the capital Niamey.45 Zarma villagers allegedly attacked a Fulani camp, seeking revenge for
the death of a Zarma in an earlier fight with Fulani herders. At least three of the victims were
burned to death inside their straw huts. Later, there was fighting between Fulani herders and
Zarma farmers in the Téra region, northwest of Niamey. There were no deaths, but 35 people
were wounded, 19 seriously.46
The problem spread beyond Niger. “Water comes next to grazing land in importance
among the pastoralists in Nigeria. The Fulani see the provision of water as an antidote against
the predicaments of marginal environment.” Water rights accrue to the people who “dig the
well, make a path to it, or rid the site of predator animals and harmful objects.”47 Sedentary
groups do not recognize these rights.
Niger’s people have dealt with climate change in both the short and the long term. In
ancient times the climate in Niger was temperate. “During the Holocene period of the past
10,000 years there was a ‘warm’ climatic optimum roughly 5,000 years ago. At that time, more
See Andrew H. Furber, “Desertification in Niger”, ICE Case Study Number 29, June,
1997, Case Name: NIGER. http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/niger.htm.
46
Mayer, Joel, ed. "Ethnic Violence Kills Seven." Source: AFP via Camel Express
Telematique. May 16, 1997. Available http://www.txdirect.net/~jmayer/cet.html (online).
47
“Scarcity of Water as an Impediment to Pastoral Fulani Development”, Ismail Iro,
http://www.gamji.com/fulani6.htm. Accessed January 5, 2006.
45
183
humid conditions generally were markedly contracted. Lakes existed even in parts of the central
Sahara. The current state of climate was reached roughly 3,000 years ago.”48
The movement of the Sahel shows alternating patterns of global warming in the middleterm. “Observational records show the continent of Africa is warmer than it was 100 years
ago…The 5 warmest years in Africa have all occurred since 1988, with 1988 and 1995 the
warmest years. This rate of warming is not dissimilar to that experienced globally, and the
periods of the most warming – the 1910s to the 1930s and the post-`1970s --- occur
simultaneously in Africa and the world.” Africa’s precipitation patterns also show longer-term
variations. The period 1800-50 was relatively dry, similar to today, 1850-1895 was much wetter
and then another drier period ensued.49
Several diverse ethnic groups in Niger live in three different climactic zones in Niger.
The three zones are divided by latitude and degree of intersection with the Sahara. The northern
part of the country is the Sahara desert. To the south is a transition zone (the Sahel)
characterized by a combination of desert and scrub. Nomads and sedentary groups inhabit the
Sahel. Herding and animal husbandry characterize the livelihood of nomads. As animal stocks
increase, grazing demands on the fragile ecosystem near the desert exhaust grassland supplies.
These extra stresses on the vegetation, in addition to the changes in climate, can heighten
impacts.
The Zarma are farmers who live in the Sahel. They live primarily in Western Niger, but
there are also some pockets in Burkina Faso and Nigeria. The Zarma grow subsistence crops,
IPCC, “Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, 10.2.3.3.
Paleoclimate of Africa,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/tar/wg2/381.htm, accessed May 5, 2002.
49
IPCC, “Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, 10.2.3.3.
Paleoclimate of Africa,” Integovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/tar/wg2/381.htm, accessed May 5, 2002.
48
184
such as millet, sorghum, rice, corn and tobacco and cash crops, such as cotton and peanuts. This
production mode requires some irrigation.
Milk is an important part of their diet and culture of both the Zarma and Fulani. The
Zarma own cattle, but it is the Fulani or Tuareg people who tend the animals. This complex
rental system is an outcome of both economy and culture. When mature, cattle are driven to
coastal cities of West Africa for processing and trade. The Zarma were once skilled with horses,
but this skill has been lost. They now specialize in raising cattle.50
Animal husbandry remains one on the main economic activities of Niger. Livestock
products include cattle sheep goats and dromedaries. The Fulani, also called Peul or Fulbe, are a
primarily Muslim people found in many parts of West Africa, ranging from Lake Chad to the
Atlantic coast, with concentrations in Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Senegal, and Niger.
The typical Fulani are nomads, but after many years of integration with other cultures, and the
depletion of their herds to environmental conditions, they now rely on farming for livelihood.
The nomads make temporary camps of portable huts, exchanging dairy produce for cereal foods.
The Fulani rarely kill cattle for meat. “Because animals need water, the demand for it among the
Fulani exceeds that of the rural people.”51
Archeologists believe there is a tendency of the Sahara desert to “move” according to a
prescribed model -- the pulse model -- and result in waves oscillating over thousands of years,
leaving socio-economic impacts on the peoples living in its path. Archeologists found evidence
of social clusters of communities that are grouped around Timbuktu but were not an integrated
community. Archaeological findings combined with geological dating techniques suggest a
50
"Zarma." Encyclopedia Britannica. Internet Search June, 1997, http://bastion.eb.com.
“Scarcity of Water as an Impediment to Pastoral Fulani Development”, Ismail Iro,
http://www.gamji.com/fulani6.htm
51
185
"pulse" pattern to Sahara desertification. Every time a pulse period occurred, settled societies
were uprooted.
Research shows pulses of climate and weather changes occurring 10,000 years ago.
Oscillations correspond to apparent changes in the archeological findings and societal identity of
Late Stone Age people. The longer a community stays in one place, the more sedentary it
becomes. The more sedentary the society the more traditions it develops. When forced to move,
traditions are upset or lost and specialization diminishes.
Today, there are a declining number of "microenvironments" that provide for safe haven
during periods of weather shifts. French colonization of Niger in the 1920's led to an increase in
grazing intensity and cash crop intensity in the Sahel. Change in the use of the environment
effectively initiated a socio-economic correlation between human impact and desertification.
Niger's agricultural policy is to achieve food self-sufficiency regardless of climate
changes. There are several alternatives, including dry-cropping in rural areas; hydro-agricultural
projects including the use of depressions and water-points to increase cultivation; and soil needs
that apply nitrogen based fertilizers and manure.
There is some recognition of problems caused by small-scale climate change and efforts
to react to these problems. “Over 300 representatives of national, international, and nongovernmental organizations have expressed today full commitment to support Niger’s
Programme to combat desertification and drought. Participants at the First National Forum to
Validate the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification and Drought (6-8
September), evaluated and finalized the document presented by the National Council on
Environment and Sustainable Development, that coordinated consultations since 1995.”52
52
Niamey, 8 September 2000, UNCCD, www.unccd.org.
186
There have been attempts at conflict resolution. “The positive aspects of water extraction
include cooperation between the Fulani and the farmers. Mutual benefits accrue when the
farmers agree to let the Fulani use the water facilities in exchange for milk or dung.” Sometimes
these efforts also fail. “It is not uncommon to find the competing groups or individuals going to
the extreme of sabotaging the very public water supplies, so as to monopolize the facility.”53
The Niger government and multilateral aid agencies have been attempting to increase
water supplies (small dams and deeper wells, for example) but some warn that the increase in
water without the increase in grazing land is a recipe for disaster.” More water attracts more
farmers to the arid lands of the Fulani. “Fulani herdsmen around the Tiga Lake and the Kainij
Dam in northern Nigeria complain against transient farmers who are building permanent camps
around the marshy areas and taking way the grazing land.”54
Is desertification in part a result or a consequence of cultural and subsistence practices?
Some point to the long-standing cultural practices as a problem. Fees required to keep facilities
operating are usually ignored because of favoritism to kin or a basic belief in the sharing of the
resource. Bribery is quite common in obtaining water.
Some blame government policies for the conflict because recognition of Fulani water
needs is a recent event. Others blame government policies for unintended consequences.
Irrigation and water diversion projects centralize water demand, usually at the expense of the
pastoralists. This will also disadvantage wildlife or domestic animals. The competition extends
not only to water but also to the grazing lands nearby.”55
53
54
55
“Scarcity of Watert”, Ismail Iro.
“Scarcity of Water”, Ismail Iro.
“Scarcity of Water”, Ismail Iro.
187
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Climate Cases
There will be more focus on climate change cases in the future. Today there appears to
be a relatively high rate of climate change, with people being in part responsible. Climate
change impacts people most rooted in the environment and in low-level technological means of
subsistence. These are often aboriginal peoples.
Aboriginal (or original) peoples constitute a general term indicating humans who were
the original inhabitants of a place. Aboriginal people, generally and specifically, survive in
small pockets in many countries. There is some irony in that the oldest people in the place are
the most impacted by changes in climate. It is the rapid pace of change which has created this
situation.
In the “ancient cases”, the climate change case focused on the historic conflict between
humans and Neanderthals that was the result of significant changes in climate extended over
extremely long time periods. This was largely the result of the pull factor. The end of the Ice
Age brought on an expanded ecotone that invited conflict between competing, though related,
species. Humans proved more adept than Neanderthals at changing with the evolution of the
climate. The physical re-alignment also requires a social re-alignment, which is then a source of
conflict.
A slight change in history might have created a different view on environment and
conflict among human species. Aboriginal peoples in Australia, Native Americans in North
America, and the Ainu (a Caucasian people living on the island of Hokkaido in Japan) have often
survived because of their isolation. What if a small population of Neanderthals survived?
188
Imagine if Neanderthals had been able to establish a stronghold in an isolated part of
Siberia and learn some of the human technologies they no doubt encountered. It is thought that
Neanderthal weapons were incapable of killing a mammoth, and this was a great advantage for
the humans, especially weapons such as the Clovis-point spear. Perhaps if the Neanderthal
survived in this area under their control, so too would the mammoths. Eventually, Neanderthal
technology would have advanced.
Perhaps the Ice Age lasted somewhat longer or a disease set back human advance.
Perhaps over time Neanderthals might have adopted some basic human tool and agricultural
technologies. Siberia has been relatively unpopulated until modern times. For millennia,
Neanderthals would have faced limited contact all but Aboriginal Sinoid peoples. As Russia
grew as a nation and spread east towards Vladivostok, the tsar’s troops would have encountered
them and would no doubt be militarily superior.
After a few violent encounters in which the Neanderthals would lose badly, they may
send a representative to sue for peace and the Neanderthal’s swore allegiance to the tsar. The
Neanderthals would begin learning more from humans and began moving out of their
autonomous region to other parts of Russia. They would eventually learn to wear modern
clothes and groom by modern standards.
The Neanderthals might have been protected under the Communist rule which may have
regarded them as the ultimate proletariat. When the Soviet Union broke up, the region like
others could declare independence. The country of perhaps “Neanderthalia” would emerge and
seek admittance to the United Nations.
Current discussion about climate change and the potential for conflict is set on the time
horizon of decades. Many researchers acknowledge this is an insufficient time horizon for
189
analysis. The role of climate change in the Viking story is an epic that stretched out over 500
years. This case certainly gives pause to conceiving of such problems over time and the range of
impacts and complexities that occur along the way. Such a focus on mega-trends of environment
and conflict interaction also becomes more complex. This complexity has a multi-disciplinary
flavor and involves considerable feedback between the differing parts of the complexity.
Micro-trends will have less of this complexity and breadth and tend to focus on a small
set of key variables. Such problems are decomposable or related to other problems. That is, key
cases of environment and conflict can be grouped by the time horizon of the problem, especially
if we start from a mega-trend issues that spans 500 years. First, as the findings indicate, there
were macro-level climate changes trends even within that larger period, that could be broken
down into cycles of 100, 50 or even 25 years.
Second, the macro-level changes in climate no doubt included many micro-level impacts
where the differential impact would reveal differing implications for humans. These impacts can
be either beneficial or detrimental in terms of human subsistence and economic value. For
example, warmer weather in Greenland no doubt meant more trees could grow, which is a
benefit as a key building and fuel material. On the other hand, warmer weather may well have
caused the walrus to move further north, since it enjoys the colder weather, and no longer
available as a food source. There movement would remove a potential food source and force
social and technological change.
In the end, the Vikings had little impact on the course of events in North America. With
the exception of some limited technology transfer, the epochal meetings of these two peoples, the
uniting of humanity once again, the actual connection of east to west would take another 500
years to really compete. “In summary, the Norse Sagas indicate that the Aboriginal People
190
whom the Vikings met in Vinland wished to trade, but that violence ensued as a result of Norse
attacks. There is no evidence that the Norse had any recognizable effect on the aboriginal groups
they encountered in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Vikings were simply too few to deal with
the people who resisted the invasion for their homeland. Non-metal weaponry was not
significantly superior to the arrows that used stone.”56
Imagine if events had been different. When the Vikings came to Newfoundland, the
weather was warmer and was not to turn cold until several hundred years later. There was ample
time to move further south, to build up systems of transportation, food production and
infrastructure, and to survive the mini-Ice Age around 1500. At that time, Europe’s population
was rapidly growing, and their level of technology was increasing.
At this time, the military technology of the two was about the same. This technological
growth is evident from the disparity in military technology at the time of Columbus between the
two. “The Vikings looked pretty fierce but they really had no technological advantage at all in
military terms.” 57 All of this suggests that the Vikings needed new waves of emigrants to
sustain their colonies.
Europe too was weakened by the Dark Ages and the Plague. It took several hundred
years but Europeans populations recovered and technology started to become ascendant in the
society. “By the 14th Century, things had changed. Due to technological innovations in
agriculture, such as the three-field planting system, the population of Europe had risen to a level
that it had not seen in millennia, during the Roman Empire. This growth is despite the "Little Ice
56
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Newfoundland Museum,
2000, p. 47.
57
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 21.
191
Age," a period of climactic deterioration and generally colder weather, which would not end
until the mid-18th Century.”58
“The irony about the fate of the Greenland Vikings is that if they could just have hung on
for another 80 years, they would have probably been all right.” 59 European technology,
especially military, made enormous advances in this period and this technology would naturally
“escape” to them from other Europeans. Their linkage to this group of nations who were
undergoing a Renaissance of change would have given them an enormous advantage over the
native peoples of North America. This advantage would have become clear long before 1492.
Viking expansion may have advanced down the eastern sea board of the United States and
voyages to South America would not be out of the question.
The development of a Norse society in North America in the year 1000 could have
produced a different history. An influx of settlers armed with these new technologies would
have created Norse colonies of culture and life style, somewhat of a cross between the Old and
New Europeans. Imagine a series of Norse colonies along the east coast of North America
already in place when Columbus arrived to the south. If things were only slightly different, the
United States and Canada might be speaking Norwegian or Swedish today.
The conflict with the Neanderthals was a global cycle of climate change that spanned
perhaps at least 10,000 years. The Viking expansion and contraction occurred within a smaller
scope of change and thus a smaller cycle of history, perhaps 500 years. This case of the shift in
the Sahel is an even smaller cycle of perhaps 20 years. This telescoping of the event (in the
number of years it takes) and matching it to the consequence (the changes to an area and the
58
59
Gottfried.
Kevin McAleese, ed., Full Circle, p. 27.
192
people in it as a result) can be a useful lens from which to judge a variety of environment and
conflict issues
These “modern cases” evoke issues that have roots in thousands of years of conflict
between human beings over resources. Whether it is general conflict, resource conflict, or used
to wage war, the environment is a constantly recurring theme. A similar case involves the
Tuareg in a region near the Fulani-Zarma dispute.60 They came into conflict with a farming
people, the Gada koi, who were supported by the government of Mali.
The Fulani live in the Sahel but the Tuareg live in the even drier climate of the Sahara.
The Tuareg, a people related to the Berbers, played an important historic role as traders between
Arab and African worlds, but also were pastoralists. Tuareg independence was only lost to the
French in Mali and Niger in the late 19th and early 20th century. Land reform programs in Mail
in the 1960s encroached on traditional Tuareg lands and a guerilla war ensured with a severe
government reaction. Many Tuareg fled to other parts of the Sahara. A peace treaty was signed
in 1991 and violence generally stopped around 1996.
A drought -- a seeming contradiction in a dry land -- between 1968 and 1974 worsened
the situation for the Tuareg. Over-grazing of fragile Sahel lands exacerbated the problem.
Animosity continued to simmer and conflict broke out again in the early 1990s. The patterns are
periodic in nature, and related to the “harmattan”, a period from May to September that brings
strong winds that move sand and lead to soil erosion.
2.
Arable Land
Ann Hershkowitz, “The Tuareg in Mali and Niger: The Role of Desertification in Violent
Conflict “, ICE Case Studies, Number 151, August 2005.
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/tuareg.htm.
60
193
Arable land has been in great demand since the Agricultural Revolution. The cases of the
abandonment of Mohenjo-Daro, the decline of the Mayan Empire and the genocide in Rwanda
reveal instances over time where the struggle for control of arable land was exacerbated by
ethnic and sectarian strife.
Arable land cases fall under the attribute “territory” is the context of the conflict link in
the ICE data base. The arable land cases have a significant relational factor and are part of longstanding tension. The causal representation of these cases is best represented by the red loop in
the conflict sub-system. The dominance of the stalemate outcome in this loop is extremely
central to behavior. The stalemate is intrusive because it lasts an extremely long period and
revolves around long-standing territorial disputes.
The disputes are accompanied by demographic shifts that gradually increase the tension
in the cases as the arable land resources become limited. These cases are more medium term in
duration, focused on tropical habitats and changes in them, and involve demarcation of border
issues. This variable also has a key role in the environment sub-system noted in the causal
system (refer back to Figure III-1 and Figure III-2). This loop of causality includes border
conflict issues, temperate areas, and stalemate outcomes.
194
Figure IV-4
Arable Land Causal System (the Red Loop in the Conflict Sub-System)
a.
Mohenjo-Daro’s Decline, the Loss of Arable Land and Aryan Invasions
Time Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Environmental Breadth
General Resources
Climate Change
The end of the Ice Age and the extraordinary period of global warming about 10,000
years ago produced social impacts in South Asia, as it had in other parts of the world. As in the
Middle East, “the melting of ice from the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas began ten
195
thousand years ago. The trickling flow of clean and pure water merged into streams and currents
and turned into confluence of streams that turned into rivers flowing down the slopes into the
plains of northwest India. The fertile area came to be other “edens” that emerged with early
urban settlement patterns along the banks of lush and fertile rivers. This is especially true in
South Asia where the Saraswati, Indus, Yamuna, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, and Ganges are a few rivers
that can be named as having formed out of this melting of ice caps.”61 (This was also the case in
the Middle East.) As the ice receded, humans advanced.
“With the ending of the Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, Himalayan glaciers melted
and flowed into the rivers of South Asia. One recipient was the Saraswati River, now a lost river
that at one time supported many early city-states. Due to earthquakes and great floods it changed
its course over six times.” With the end of glacier melt and a drying climate the river began to
dry up and no longer flowed into the Arabian Sea. The many cities that developed along the
river eventually expired. The only cities to develop outside of this region were Harappa and
Mohenjo-daro. 62
From 8,000 BC, the Mesolithic age began and spread into the Indian sub-continent
around 4,000 BC. During this time, hunters used sharp and pointed tools for hunting and killing
fast-moving animals. The beginning of plant cultivation appeared. The Chotanagpur Plateau,
central India and south of the Krishna River are various Mesolithic sites on the sub-continent.
Neolithic (New Stone Age) settlements date back to 4,000 BC. 63 These cultures evolved into the
Indus Valley or Harappan civilization. These were the Dravidian people.
Dr. CS Shah August 5, 2001, “Indo-Aryans and Their History”, Copyright bojoli.com,
Accessed Dec. 29, 2001
62
BJP Today, June 1-15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 11, Basudeb Ghose, “Redisovering Vedic
Era”, http://www.bjp.org/today/june_0103/june_2_p_10.htm, accessed August 5, 2004.
63
Copyright © 1998 by Frank E. Smith. All rights reserved. (See on the web)
61
196
Urban settlements began in South Asia as they had in the Middle East, originating in river
valleys. There was considerable technology transfer over a long period of time that included
ideas of social organization. “Sometime around 6000 BCE a nomadic herding people settled into
villages in the mountainous region just west of the Indus River. There they grew barley and
wheat using sickles with flint blades, and they lived in small houses built with adobe bricks.
After 5000 BCE [Before the Common Era], the climate in their region changed, bringing more
rainfall, and apparently, they were able to grow more food, for they grew in population. They
began domesticating sheep, goats and cows and then water buffalo. After 4000 BCE they began
to trade beads and shells with distant areas in central Asia and areas west of the Khyber Pass and
they began using bronze and working metals.”64
A wet period of climate followed and produced a myriad of environmental impacts. “The
climate changed again, bringing still more rainfall, and on the nearby plains, through which ran
the Indus River, grew jungles inhabited by crocodiles, rhinoceros, tigers, buffalo and elephants.
By around 2600 B.C., a civilization as sophisticated as Mesopotamia and Egypt had begun on the
Indus Plain and surrounding areas...Along the Indus and other major rivers in South Asia, there
were seventy or more cities. The composition or peoples of cities varied with specialty.”65
The arrival of cities coincided with the arrival of new building techniques and the
creation of houses (that replaced tents which had replaced caves). The invention of building
technologies allowed humans to create their own personalized caves at locations nearby to food
sources. “One of these cities was Mohenjo-Daro, on the Indus River some 250 miles north of the
Arabian Sea, and another city was Harappa, 350 miles to the north on a tributary river, the Ravi.
“Antiquity”, Chapter 6, India, Hinduism, and Religious Rebellion, to 480 BCE: The Lost
Civilization of Mohenjo-Daro.
65
“Antiquity”, Chapter 6, India, Hinduism, and Religious Rebellion, to 480 BCE: The Lost
Civilization of Mohenjo-Daro.
64
197
Each of these two cities had populations as high as around 40,000.”66 The infrastructure of the
city used of the newest building technology – bricks. Most buildings in these early cities were
constructed with manufactured, standardized, baked bricks. Over the centuries, the need for
wood for brick making (for making a fire to bake the bricks) denuded the countryside and may
have contributed to the downfall of the cities (through a declining energy supply). The
Harappans used the same size bricks and standard weights as the people of Mohenjo-Daro,
indicating some degree of technology transfer and standardization.”67
The technology of agricultural production that began along the Tigris-Euphrates River
spread more rapidly to the east than the west. South Asian, Southeast Asian and East Asian
cities arose and adopted similar subsistence production systems based on large, fertile river
valleys that enjoyed seasonal fluctuations of flooding. Specialization led to surpluses and trade
and thus the development of external relations. “Wheat, barley and the date palm were
cultivated; animals were domesticated; and the cotton textiles, ivory and copper were exported to
Mesopotamia, and possibly China and Burma in exchange for silver and other commodities.
Production of several metals such as copper, bronze, lead and tin also began.” 68
The Aryan peoples began moving westward from their home in steppes of Eurasia
sometime around 2000 BC. Their lifestyle was nomadic, based on raising cattle. Aryan peoples
entered the Punjab about 1500 BC from the grasslands and steppes of central Asia and conquered
the darker-skinned Dravidian peoples (and others). Over time, the Aryans drove further into the
subcontinent and pushed the dark-skinned Dravidians to the south. The Aryans were illiterate,
“Antiquity”, Chapter 6, India, Hinduism, and Religious Rebellion, to 480 BCE: The Lost
Civilization of Mohenjo-Daro.
67
HARP - Harappa Archaeological Research Project. http://www.harappa.com/.
68
HARP - Harappa Archaeological Research Project. http://www.harappa.com/.
66
198
pastoral, spoke an Indo-European language. The Aryans created the basis for India’s caste
system that favored them over the Dravidians.
Aryans were mostly herders of animals and had little in the way of settled city areas. The
Aryans replaced or melded with the earlier Dravidian cultures and imposed a new society.
Extensive excavations at the key cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro suggest that Dravidian
culture was fully in place by 2500 BC. The Dravidians were among the first people to enter
India in the Indus River valley and found huge forests. “Clearing the forests over the centuries
was an epic project and one that is still preserved in Indian literature.”69
“Mohenjo-Daro was a city located on the south of Modern Pakistan in the Sind Province,
on the right bank of the Indus River.” Meaning “mound of the dead”, it was one of the major
cities of the Harappan civilization. The city was abandoned around 1700 BC around the time of
the Aryan invasions. It is thought that the underlying cause was a change in the course of the
Indus River.70 There is little indication to show an integration of the cultures but this fact is
disputed. Some scholars believe “Harappa was more or less a dead end (at least as far as we
know); the Aryans adopted almost nothing of Harappan culture.”71
Was there some catastrophic event that destroyed the city more suddenly? Geologists
suggest that earthquakes in southern Pakistan, through rock slides, could have dammed the Indus
River and prevented it from running down to the Indian Ocean. The Indus River would have
“Ancient India: The Aryans”, accessed August 6, 2004.
”Mohenjo-Daro”,
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/middle_east/mohenjo_daro.html,
accessed August 5, 2004.
71
“Ancient India: The Aryans”, http://www.wsu.edu/`dee/ANCINDIA/ARYANS.HTM,
accessed August 6, 2004.
69
70
199
broken its banks and flooded the surrounding plains, submerging many of the fields.” 72 It may
have also drowned the city and people of Mohenjo-Daro.
Mahenjo-Daro was a key Dravidian center and built with conflict in mind. “Defensively
Mohenjo-daro was a well fortified city. Though it did not have city walls it did have towers to
the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south.”73 The city was built to
be a military and commercial center.
The early Rigvedic period last from roughly 1700 to 1000 BC and spawned the earliest
literature in the region according to the Rig Veda poems. This period also initiated the caste
systems. The Aryans started with only two classes, noble and common. After conquering the
darker skinned Dravidians they “added a third: the Dasas, or “darks” and a fourth for the priests
of the new religion.74 In the Later Vedic Period that lasted from 1000 to 500 BC, the Aryans cut
through the forests and reached the Ganges River.
During this time the great epics, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, were written.
The Indus Valley civilization of the Dravidians lasted from about 2500 BC to 1700 BC
and the invasion of the Aryans. The Aryans were aided by other factors. “It is possible that the
periodic shifts in the courses of the major rivers of the valley may have deprived the cities of
flood waters necessary for their surrounding agricultural lands.” The food shortage led to
structural weakness and vulnerability to Aryans raiders.75 Perhaps the wound was self inflicted.
“People dammed the water along the lower portion of the Indus River without realizing
the consequences: temporary but ruinous flooding up river, flooding that would explain
“History & Culture, Moen-Jo-Daro”, http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/
Meghan A Porter.
74
“Ancient India: The Aryans”, accessed 8/6/2004.
75
Encyclopedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/India_history.asp,
“From the Indus Valley to the Fall of the Mughal Empire”. Accessed August 8, 2004,
72
73
200
the thick layers of silt thirty feet above the level of the river at the site of Mohenjo-Daro.
Another suspected cause is a decline in rainfall and an accompanying drop off in the
abundance of food. This could also indicate an insufficient military strength and will to
secure food supplies from distant areas. Whatever the causes, people abandoned the city
in search of food. Later, a few people of a different culture settled in some of the
abandoned cities such as Mohenjo-Daro, in what archaeologists call a "squatter period."
Then the squatters disappeared. Knowledge of the Mohenjo-Daro civilization died -until archaeologists discovered the civilization in the twentieth century.”
The changing environmental periods produced substantial impacts on the society.
“Nearing the end of the Indus Valley Civilization, the cities began to wither and the strong
economy slowly deteriorated. Most likely the intermittent floods put an end to this civilization.
Floods wiped out the irrigation system that supplied water to the crops, and many of the
buildings were smothered.”76
Mohenjo-daro may have been a victim of its own success. “Another theory suggests that
the decline was led by population boom. Houses became increasingly overcrowded;
increasingly, buildings and even courtyards were sub-divided. Space available for occupation
diminished due to the steadily rising levels of the Indus.”77
The domestication of the horse in Eurasia provided a critical step in both political and
technological development in South Asia and may have been the force behind Aryan military
power. Originating in the steppes of Asia, the horse with a stirrup provided a considerable
economic and military advantage. Some scholars believe that the horse was the key to the
76
See on the web also Economics of the Indus Valley Civilization, by Chad Greenwood
and Wheeler 1966: pp. 76-9.”
77
“History & Culture”, Moen-Jo-Daro, http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/
201
Mongol’s ability to create the largest empire in human history around the 13th century. Much of
the later military domination of the New World by the Old World is attributable to the
differential natural endowments of the Middle Eastern and American eco-systems. This is
especially true in the case of the horse. The extinction of potential animal domesticates among
the Pleistocene mega fauna rendered the American Indians vulnerable to military conquest by
European adventurers mounted on horseback.78
Drawing from rather mundane inventions such as the stirrup and the animal-driven plow,
the chariot was the next great military invention. One factor in the fall of Mohenjo-Daro was the
vast migrations of chariot peoples in the 2nd millennium BC. These people’s possessed superior
military resources and technology compared to the Dravidians. This technology gradually
spread through trade. For example, during King Solomon's reign over Israel (970-931 B.C.),
chariots and horses were imported from Egypt and exported to Asia Minor.79
The Bharatiya Janata Part (BJP) became the opposition leader in India in 1991 and “took
power in four key Indian states. The BJP-led opposition ordered the rewriting of history
textbooks so that they refer to a glorious Hindi past and denigrate Muslim kings.”80 The BJP
believe that it was the Dravidians who civilized the nomadic Aryans. “Hence, our alternative
explanation is that Barbarians came to India from outside and established Aryan civilization by
coming in contact with Indian or Hindu Aryans.”81
78
Harris, Culture, People, Nature, p. 177.
Bible, 'They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse
for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the
Arameans,” 1 Kings 10:29 (NIV).
80
Ajay Singh, “A Real Textbook Case: The BJP has begun to rewrite India’s history”,
Asiaweek online, http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/99/0326/natt7.html, accessed August 5,
2004.
81
BJP Today, June 1-15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 11, Basudeb Ghose, “Redisovering Vedic
Era”, http://www.bjp.org/today/june_0103/june_2_p_10.htm, accessed August 5, 2004.
79
202
“The BJP contends Aryans were the original inhabitants of the entire country and they
were the founders of the two main Hindu cultures, Vedic and Harappian.” Archaeological finds
suggest that Aryans were related only to the Vedic culture. The BJP perspective intends to
provide a unified history of all Indians, both north and south (generally Aryans versus Dravidian
peoples). This is currently aimed at identifying Indian Muslims as foreigners and latter day
invaders. This view would be diluted if their origins were from Aryans, who themselves were
foreigners.82
The understanding of migration into the Indian sub-continent has a long history and a
long period of debate. “British, Germans, Europeans as a whole, and interestingly Indian
intellectuals in British ruled India as well, believed that about 1500 BC a nomadic people, called
Aryans, invaded northwest frontiers of India, coming from the Central Asia or some part of
Europe through the passes like Khyber in Hindu Kush range and defeated and drove away the
local inferior Dravidians.”83 To some extent, the British saw themselves as the inheritors of the
Aryan tradition.
b.
The Decline of the Mayans
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Social Type
Source Resources
Arable Land
Ajay Singh, “A Real Textbook Case: The BJP has begun to rewrite India’s history”,
Asiaweek online, http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/99/0326/natt7.html, accessed August 5,
2004.
83
Dr. C.S. Shah August 5, 2001, “Indo-Aryans and Their History”, bojoli.com, accessed
December 29, 2001.
82
203
Climates change and the societies that survive in them develop quite calibrated survival
instruments. If the climate changes or if the society does, as in increases in population or
technology, the system of balance is easily upset. Jared Diamond uses microclimate impacts on
societal development in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel to illustrate the consequences.84 These
microclimates may often represent desired ecotones. Diamond’s work is similar to that of
archaeologist Carole Crumley’s. She finds that ecotones correspond to behavioral limits of
certain cultural and ethnic groups. For example, Bantu groups in Southern Africa were able to
thrive in areas with heavy summer rains, but further south with the Mediterranean-like climates,
their agricultural techniques were quite ineffective. Technologies fit the climate. As climates
change, these technologies and economic subsistence systems may fail or are forced to undergo
change.
Several scholars have discussed the role of climate in history including Durant and
Durant and Braudel.85 Climatic regimes or “ecotones” define not only environmental systems
but also the cultural systems that accompany them, especially those based on agriculture.
Crumley examined changes in Europe’s major ecotone regimes (oceanic, continental and
Mediterranean) from 1200 to 500 BC. The oceanic climates favored the Celts and tribes of
northern Europe while the Mediterranean climates regimes favored the Romans. Their cultural
and agricultural systems could effectively operate in one regime but not the other. Crumley
points out that change in political boundaries mirrored change in climate.
People moved to the Mayan lowlands about 8,000 BC and farming began around 2,000
BC. Researchers put the range of population from four to 14 million, rather large centers of
84
85
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Durant and Durant (1968) and Braudel (1973).
204
civilization for that time in history. Around 800 AD, prolonged drought hit the region and within
100 years, the area was for the most part depopulated.86
The shift in climate that occurred over the last portion of the first millennium (700 to
1,000 A.D.) led to a warming trend especially in the Northern Hemisphere. This allowed the
Vikings to move to Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland in the New World. But the warming
up north saw a parallel warming in the south. This warming was not beneficial to humans (and
other beings that rely on water), and periods of heat and drought settled in across Central
American. Due to the shift in climate to a drier pattern, there was an overexploitation of the rainforest ecosystem, on which the Maya depended for food.
The changing temperature patterns during this period in the Yucatan were part of a
widespread shift. The period 790-950 AD was characterized by “widespread cold throughout the
Northern Hemisphere and drought in the Mayan lowlands. California tree rings from the White
Mountains show a sharp drop in temperatures from AD 790 to 950.” 87 This evidence mirrors
other findings in Sweden and Greenland. Thus, the climate changes produce entirely different
kinds of behavior for Vikings and Mayans (see earlier Viking and later Anasazi case studies).
Hansen points to an earlier such collapse of civilizations in the area around 150-200 AD,
and others such as Bruce Dahlin and Richard Adams support this view. Perhaps these long-term
changes in climate, which alter ecotone types and boundaries resonate differently in different
parts of the world, also resonate across time.
The Mayan civilization stretched though the Mexican Yucatan, Guatemala, Belize, and
into portions of El Salvador and Honduras. By the year 500 AD they had developed advanced
writing, agricultural, astronomy, and other breakthroughs during a time when Europe was in the
86
87
Culbert, p. 3.
Drennan, 1984, pp. 288-289.
205
Dark Ages. But the civilization abruptly collapsed long before the Spaniards arrived in the
Americas. The Mayan case is a classic example of overshoot and collapse, where the
technology, size of population and intensity of agriculture overwhelmed the capacity of the land
to hold its arability. Declining agricultural yields, coupled with dry climactic conditions,
precipitated the collapse of the human system. It was not only a collapse of human but also of
plants and animals in the system as it went through a transition phase. Richardson Gill believes
that the “collapse occurred of external natural circumstances that the Mayans neither controlled
nor caused.” 88
In both the priesthood and the ruling class, nepotism was apparently the prevailing
system for institutional power of the Maya. Primogeniture (the choosing of a first born son as an
heir) was the form for choosing new kings. After the birth of an heir, the kings performed a
sacrifice by drawing blood from his own body as an offering to his ancestors. A human sacrifice
marked the new king's installation in office. To be a king, one must have taken a captive to serve
as victim in the accession ceremony. The ritual killing was part of nature’s cycle. The religious
explanation that upheld the institution of kingship and the basis for authority was that Maya
rulers were necessary for continuance of the “Universe”.89
External and internal warfare was a key factor in Mayan civilization. There were
ongoing wars between peoples; torture and human sacrifice were a regular part of social
practices, including religious holidays, sporting events and building dedications.90 Blood was a
constant part of Mayan society. To start a war, the king would impale himself (usually through
the penis) with a sharp object (like the stinger of the sting ray) and show his blood to the troops.
88
89
90
Culbert, p. 4.
Glenn Welker, http://www.indians.org/welker/natlit.htm.
Glenn Welker, earthlink.net, http://www.indians.org/welker/natlit.htm.
206
Captured enemies were decapitated and their heads used to play a ball-like play sport. It was the
captain of the victorious team however that was the sacrifice. Ritual execution was a norm if the
crops failed or to counter a variety of other societal maladies.
Blood letting was partly a means to control population, but it was also symbolic of a
society with endemic, ongoing violence. Uncontrolled warfare was probably one of the main
consequences of the decline in soil arability. In the centuries after 250 AD, the start of the
Classic period of Mayan civilization, the occasional skirmishes grew into vicious wars
accompanied by scorched earth polices, where the total existence of the enemy was burnt and
destroyed.
Arthur Demarest's Mayan excavations suggested two distinct periods: before 761 AD and
after. Before then, wars were well-orchestrated battles to seize dynastic power and procure royal
captives for very public and ornate executions. But after 761, he notes, "wars led to wholesale
destruction of property and people, reflecting a breakdown of social order comparable to modern
Somalia." In that year, the king and warriors of nearby Tamarindito and Arroyo de Piedra
besieged Dos Pilas. "They defeated the king of Dos Pilas and probably dragged him back to
Tamarindito to sacrifice him."91 One explanation for the abrupt change was the intense rivalries
for power among its members. These rivalries, alongside shrinking food resources, perhaps
exploded into civil war and triggered the social collapse and state failure.
Archaeologist T. Patrick Culbert reported that pollen found in underground debris
suggests there were almost no tropical forest left at the time of the Mayan collapse. A sediment
sample taken from the Cariaco Basin off Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea shows a series of three
91
Demarest.
207
massive droughts led to the decimation of the Mayan civilization.92 Mayan communities relied
on a system of canals and artificial reservoirs. This provided them with power and control over
the people, as water is almost the only source of life for a farming community.
Sediment cores taken last year from the bottom of a lake on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula
indicate that a series of extended droughts coincided with major cultural upheavals among the
Maya inhabitants of the area.93 Between 500 B.C. and A.D. 1000, major dry spells occurred
about every 200 years, including a decades-long drought that coincided with the collapse of socalled Classic Maya civilization in the 9th century. Water shortages played a role in the
collapse: Vernon Scarborough found evidence of sophisticated reservoir systems in Tikal and
other landlocked Maya cities. Since those cities depended on stored rainfall during the four dry
months of the year, they would have been extremely vulnerable to a prolonged drought.
Richardson Gill believes there was more to the collapse than simple drought. In fact, it was a
sustained period of a dry climate. "Sunny days, in and of themselves, don't kill people…but
when people run out of food and water, they die."94
Overpopulation was another problem. Based on data collected from about 20 sites,
Culbert estimates that there were perhaps 200 people per sq km in the southern lowlands of
Central America. "This is an astonishingly high figure; it ranks up there with the most heavily
Gerald H. Haug, Detlef Günther, Larry C. Peterson, Daniel M. Sigman, Konrad A.
Hughen, and Beat Aeschlimann, [need title], Science Magazine (Volume 299, Number 5613,
Issue 14, Mar 2003, pp. 1731-1735.
93
“Lake sediment tells of Maya droughts”, Science News, January 6, 2001, Vol. 159 Issue
1, p. 15.
94
Richardson B. Gill, The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death , 2000, University
of New Mexico Press.
92
208
populated parts of the pre-industrial world. And the north may have been even more densely
populated."95 These urban areas were reliant on a few major sources of fresh water.
Was the socio-economic system that developed the cause of the society success and
eventual failure? “One of the most elegant solutions attributes the Maya collapse to a collapse of
the environment’s carrying capacity due to population pressure in a swidden subsistence system:
an expanding population leads to decreasing fallow times which in turn produce decreased yields
per hectare and increased grass invasion.” 96 Some however question this theory because, with
climate change, grass invasion is very short-term and the habitat quickly reverts to a forest.
Second, the Mayans had a much more complicated system of economic exchange and
subsistence strategies than just simple swidden techniques would suggest.97
One inevitable consequence of overpopulation and a disintegrating agricultural system
would be malnutrition--and in fact, some researchers have preliminary evidence of
undernourishment in children's skeletons from the late Classic period. Given all the stresses on
Maya society, Culbert believes that what ultimately sent it over the edge "could have been
something totally trivial--two bad hurricane seasons, say, or a crazy king. An enormously
strained system like this could have been pushed over in a million ways."
Christopher Jones says that “at Tikal, the collapse appears to have occurred over many
decades…Tikal was weakened by the shifting of trade from inland rivers and trails it controlled
95
Culbert.
John W. G. Lowe, The Dynamics of Apocalypse: A Systems Simulation of the Classic
Maya Collapse, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985, p. 46.
97
John W. G. Lowe, The Dynamics of Apocalypse, 1985, p. 46.
96
209
to maritime routes dominated by rivals on the coast of what is now southern Mexico. Drought,
warfare, and environmental degradation may slowly have finished it off.”98
Dry conditions beginning about 760 AD are evident in the Cariaco Ti record by two large
inferred rainfall minima. Over the next 40 years, there appears to have been a slight long-term
drying trend. This culminated in roughly a decade of more intense aridity that, within the limits
of the present chronology, began at about 810. Drought again began about 860, indicating a
short but apparently severe event. Finally, low contents in the Cariaco Basin sequence indicate
the onset of yet another drought at about 910.
We suggest that the rapid expansion of Maya civilization from 550 to 750 A.D. during
climatically favorable (relatively wet) times resulted in a population operating at the
limits of the environment's carrying capacity, leaving Maya society especially vulnerable
to multiyear droughts…The control of artificial water reservoirs by Maya rulers may also
have played a role in both the florescence and the collapse of Maya civilization. Noting
that the scale of artificial water control seems to correlate with the degree of political
power of Maya cities, it has been suggested.99
Chichen Itza (“the mouth of the Itza’s well”) was a Mayan city is located in the Yucatan
region of modern Mexico. The city evolved in two stages. There was a classic Mayan period
that lasted from about 400 to 850 AD. The old city was built in part because of a fresh water
cavern nearby (a cenote) and the culture was based on Chaac the rain god. With the decline of
the Mayan Empire this city too was gradually abandoned, although visited for religious
ceremonies and burials, by its former inhabitants and their descendants. .
Colin Woodard, “Unraveling the lost world of the Maya”, Christian Science Monitor,
October 26, 2000, Vol. 92 Issue 234, p. 13.
99
L.J. Lecero, “The collapse of the Classic Maya: A case for the role of water control”,
American Anthropologist 104 (3): 814-826 September 2002.
98
210
The city had a rebirth and was rebuilt after the invasion in 850 by the Toltec, a people
from central Mexico. The Toltec introduced new technology and architecture styles and a new
culture based on Kukulcan, the serpent. A second of invaders wave ruled the city in 1150, a
dynasty which lasted until 1300. The city of Mayapan took over Chichen Itza and ruled until
1400 when it was abandoned.
The Pyramid of Kukulcan sits at the center of Chichen Itza. It is four sided structure each
with 91 steps. A structure at the top represents a single day and the total together is of course
365 days. (The Mayan calendar has special short “month” to deal with leap years.) Certain
dates such as the equinox illuminate the inner chamber of the pyramid and the serpent carved
into the rock (see Figure-IV-5).
211
Figure IV-5
Chichen Itza and the Kukulcan Pyramid
Without the large domestic fauna in the New World, such as oxen, horses, or camels, that
were abundant and domesticated in the Old World, the Mayans had no animals to provide for
bulk transport. This had a crucial impact on the economics of food trade during the drought.
Robert Drennan calculates that, with some overhead and profit taken into consideration it was
not worthwhile to trade over distances exceeding 165 miles, using human transportation power.
Assuming a round-trip basis, at that point the transporter -- a person – would need to eat most of
the food that he or she carried simply to survive.100
Not only were there these longer-term changes in temperature patterns, there are also a
great amount of variation in precipitation within the Yucatan regime ecotone. This created
“haves” and “have nots” and a powerful push factor that led people to move to other far-off
lands. “It would appear, then, that the severe drought was coincident with the final abandonment
100
Drennan, 1984, p. 107.
212
of Teotihuacan and, as we have seen, conflict, famine, and drought often go hand in hand. A
severe drought, then, does not rule out the possibility that conflict may also have occurred as part
of the complex of effects driven by drought.”101
State failure was not the cause for famine or the social collapse. There were several
Mayan states during this period and the states were never a monolithic empire or system.102
Following Morton Kaplan’s classification, they included examples of both bipolar and multipolar
systems of international relations. The causes no doubt are similar to causes for state failure in
the modern era.103
Arthur Demarest was able to head a team to translate the some recovered glyphs, and he
found that "Rather than being an independent actor, as previously thought, it now appears that
Dos Pilas was a pawn in a much bigger battle," said Demarest. "In today's terms, Dos Pilas was
the … Vietnam of the Maya world [at the time close to its collapse], used in a war that was
actually between two superpowers." The two superpowers at this time were Tikal (northern
Guaremala) and Calakmul (southern Mexico), separated from each other by about 60 miles. The
inscriptions indicated that Dos Pilas was a “puppet” state for years.
Most experts point to the environmental aspects of the decline. Culbert believes that "the
Maya were overpopulated and they overexploited their environment and millions of them died.”
Scholars differ on how far one can generalize about the Mayan experience and its lessons for
today. Culbert adds that “knowledge isn't going to solve the modern world situation, but it's silly
to ignore it and say it has nothing to do with us.” Stephen Houston, on the other hand, says that
101
Million: 1993, pp. 32-33 in Gill p. 293.
T. Patrick Culbert (ed.), The Classic Maya Collapse, Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1973, pp. 318-19.
103
Dan Esty, et asl, State Failure article.
102
213
one should be “careful of finding too many lessons in the Maya. They were a different society,
and the glue that held them together was different."104
c.
Conflict and Deforestation in Rwanda
Time
Class
Category
Type
Modern
Environmental Breadth
General Resources
Arable Land
In Mohenjo-Daro and the Maya cities there were wars to control arable land during times
of decline. This control involved elements of internal and external power struggles. One reason
was over-population and over-exploitation of the land. Relative imbalances in supply and
demand invite conflict when the carrying capacity is too little or when it is too much demand put
on it.
In Rwanda, over population and the decline in the quality of the soil are the results of
both overuse of the land, deforestation and population growth. The resulting internecine warfare
is Rwanda eerily reminiscent of what happened to the Mayas. In both instances, peoples that
were from the same general ethnic group fought against one another. Is the Rwanda case the
beginning of a new period or is it a continuation of what has been underway for many years?
During three months in 1994, about 500,000-800,000 people died as a result of ethnic
civil war and genocide in Rwanda.105 Rwanda’s population at the time was about 7.5 million and
had a population growth rate of 3.7 percent per year. At this rate the population would double
104
Stephen Houston
See Tara Mitchell,” Rwanda and Conflict”, ICE Case Studies, Spring 1997,
http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/rwanda.htm. Accessed January 6, 2006.
105
214
every 18.9 years. It also had one of the highest population densities in Africa. Rwanda's
geography and demography makes it susceptible to certain types of environmental problems.
The degradation of Rwanda's natural resource base is a direct result of the limited arable
land under stress from a rapidly growing population, where 90 percent are engaged in
agriculture. Environmental scarcity was just one of the many reasons for the conflict in Rwanda
and a problem that extends throughout central Africa into neighboring countries of Burundi,
Uganda, Congo, among others.
Rwanda's population lives and farms at elevations between 1300 and 2300 meters above
sea level, which makes one think of Switzerland rather than tropical Africa. The mountain
ranges and highland plateaus create the headland waters of the great Nile and Congo River
basins. The land is fully used and every slope is intensively cultivated, even those with more
than a 50 degree gradient.
Intensive culture is especially prevalent where farms were subdivided several times, as
they pass from one generation to another.106 In many cases, inherited farm lots are too small to
support a family, averaging less than 1.2 hectares on average. This situation is reminiscent of the
situation of the Irish just prior to the potato famine. In the early 19th century, a similar system
created smaller and smaller land holdings for each generation Reliance on the potato for
sustenance became so overwhelming that the famine killed and dispossessed millions. Both Irish
and Rwandan farmers attempted to compensate by growing more than one crop on the same land
in very short cycles, often without adding natural fertilizers to enrich the soil.
Fragmentation of family holdings through generational transfers has led to a severe
decline in agricultural production, resulting in malnutrition and soil exhaustion. Over population
106 See Theresa Purcell, “Irish Potato Famine and Trade”, TED Case Studies,
http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/potato.htm
215
in Rwanda affects agricultural cycles by shortening fallow periods and an increasing intensity of
soil use. With declining acreage, farms replaced ranches and the conversion of pastureland into
cropland has decreased the production of animal manure, therefore decreasing soil fertility.
Most land in Rwanda is already being used with exception of two sub-regions, the Nyabarngo
Valley and Akagera Park, which are protected areas.
Rwanda's remaining natural forests, the Nyungwe Forest, the Gishwati Forest and the
Mukara Forest have a high degree of biological diversity and contain many animals, including
mountain gorillas, ruwenzori colobus monkeys and golden chimpanzees. The natural forests in
Rwanda fell from approximately 30 percent of the country around 1900 to 7 percent today.
Before the 1990 civil war, Rwanda was annually importing 2.3 million cubic meters of wood and
91 percent of wood consumption was for domestic use.
Rwanda's remaining natural forests have a high degree of biodiversity and rare animal
species are threatened by the encroachment of refugees fleeing conflict. In the Nyungwe
National Forest Reserve, where there are more than 190 species of trees, 275 species of birds,
and 12 species of primates, is particularly vulnerable. Poaching has wiped out all the buffalo and
most of the forest antelopes known as duikers. There are perhaps six elephants left in the
Nyungwe Forest, although ironically Rwanda remains a leading exporter of elephant ivory. The
difference is its role at a trans-shipment for ivory originating in other African countries.
Rwanda is unique among African nations in terms of its basic character as a nation-state.
Most African states were created based on artificial boundaries that were imposed as part of
colonialism and most often these limits combined rather than isolated national ethnic groups and
contiguous geographic boundaries. The people of Rwanda speak a single language, Kiyarwanda,
and comprise a single nationality, Banyarwanda. Among them, there are three major groups: the
216
Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. In 1994, 90.4 percent were Hutu, 8.2 percent Tutsi, and 0.4 percent Twa.
This monogenetic population is more similar to European rather than African countries.
Belgium colonized Rwanda (as well as the Congo) and under colonial rule ethnic status
defined occupation. (This tactic was adopted worldwide in creating colonial systems of
governance. It is similar to the roles of Tamils and Sinhalese under the British rule in Sri
Lanka.) In Rwanda, the Tutsis were generally ranchers or herders and the Hutus farmers.
Belgium’s policy favored the minority Tutsi’s who were taller and lighter in color than the
Hutus. The minority Tutsi became the haves and the majority Hutu became the have-nots.
Resentment toward the Tutsi resulted in the Social Revolution of 1959, in which 150,000
Tutsi were either killed or fled to nearby Uganda, Burundi, Zaire, or Tanzania. The Belgians
shifted support from the Tutsi ruling class to the majority Hutu at the time of Rwanda's
independence in 1961. The new Hutu government installed a hierarchical administrative systems
once again modeled after Rwanda's pre-independence system of government. Many of the same
discriminatory practices from pre-independence were put into place against the Tutsi, including
ethnic identity cards.
In an attempt to ease social tensions and legitimize Hutu supremacy, the government
resettled Hutu’s into new lands during the 1960's and 1970s under a program known as the
“payasannat”. This program relocated over 80,000 farmers and their families and led to a mass
exodus westward into both unsettled areas and Tutsi grazing lands. The government sponsored
conversion of pastures into cultivated lands, further decreasing soil fertility. Tutsi grazing lands
gradually became Hutu farming lands. Hutus advocated a policy promoting agricultural
production needed to cope with the rapid population pressure and social unrest.
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In 1990, the Hutu controlled government of President Habryarimana was under intense
pressure. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), comprised mainly of Tutsi refugees from Zaire,
invaded the country from Uganda. The Rwandan government based its legitimacy on its ability
to provide for the basic needs of its population. But the economic situation in the country was
deteriorating. A dramatic decrease in coffee and tea prices led to a downturn in the Rwandan
economy. Ninety percent of export earnings came from 7 percent of the land where coffee and
tea was grown.
The state of the Rwandan economy in 1990 contributed to onset of the civil war. Rural
poverty and environmental degradation were important factors in the eventual collapse of the
Habryarimana regime. The regime ignored the many warning signs. Rwanda received sizeable
foreign assistance, but the Habyarimana government channeled most of the aid into the
northwest, the president's home region, further aggravating ethnic tensions with opposition
parties mainly centered in the south.
Tropical moist forests in Central Africa, home to both people and wildlife, are
disappearing at the rate of nearly 2 million hectares each year. Farmers desperate for arable land
enter protected forests to farm or to hunt animals. The demand to convert more land to
agriculture led to the destruction of many habitats including Rwanda's wetlands (marais). The
loss of these natural “sponges” resulted in flooding, loss of wildlife habitats and oversedimentation. Demographic pressures led to overuse of marginal land, shortened fallow
periods, and conversion of pasture and natural forests into cropland.
In April 1994, President Habyarimana's plane exploded shortly after take-off, an event
that plunged the country into chaos. The resulting violence killed over 1 million people and
displaced over 2 million. Evidence suggests that Hutus in the government were responsible for
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the president's death. The Hutus feared the reforms called for in the Arusha Accords, which
provided for a transitional government until scheduled elections in 1994, because they threatened
the Hutu elite’s position of power within Rwanda. The death of Habaryimana was the spark that
ignited the civil war. Environmental scarcity was used as a political tool to engage the rural
population for violent purposes.
A decade later the war still persists. Laurent Kabila led a rebellion in east Congo,
supported by the Ugandans and Rwandans. Kabila had a long history as an insurrectionist. In
1960 Kabila aligned himself with the first president of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba whose left
wing government won both friends and enemies. Lumumba’s government was overthrown by an
officer, Colonel Mobutu, and Lumumba was later assassinated. In 1964, Kabila led one of three
groups that launched counter-insurgencies in support of restoring Lumumba. His effort was
supported by an Argentine doctor called Ernesto “Che” Guevara who quickly grew disillusioned
with Lumumba. They were defeated the following year by Mobutu.
More than 30 years later in 1996-97 the two old antagonists meet again. Kabila,
supported by Rwanda and Uganda launched another rebellion. Kabila’s forces spread west
rapidly and in a short period overthrew Mobutu. Kabila was allied with the Ugandans and
Rwandans. A split among the victorious parties and a new rebellion threatened to unseat Kabila,
who then allied with Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia and forced a stalemate, with perhaps the
eastern one-half the country outside his control. Kabila was assassinated by a body guard and
was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.
That Rwandan and Congolese civil wars was combined into a single, larger struggle.
Rwanda sought to eliminate the Hutu rebels (the Interhawame) who continued to operate from
the Congo. Both Rwanda and Uganda sent military forces into the Congo and this led to a larger
219
regional conflict. Part of the conflict is ethnic but part is also the access to resources.
Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia have military forces in the country in support of the Congo
government. “Everywhere you look, the DRC is being plundered of its natural resources. The
Rwandan army seized many of the region's tantalite mines. Tantalite is used in the production of
gun barrels.”107
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Arable Land Cases
The relevant “ancient case” is that of Mohenjo-Daro and how shifting water
resources led to an end of that society and how conflict was a culminating part of the process.
The resources shift in turn with macro-level forces, such as climate. Similarities between the
three cases are quite compelling. They illustrate situations involving healthy and growing human
societies that were confronted by their own success, a threshold level of water availability, and
climate changes that altered the honed economic survival equation. This is a classic model of an
“overshoot” and “collapse” system models where human needs exceed the carrying capacity of
the environment.
The finds at Mohenjo-Daro and other archaeological sites across Pakistan and India are
part of another debate that challenges this view of history. The BJP party in India, now the
ruling party, has been rewriting school textbooks to downplay the importance and even the
existence of the Aryan invaders from Afghanistan. They argue that the early inhabitants and
creators of the modern civilization were native to the area. Modern battles are being fought in the
interpretation of the history of environment and conflict. Controlling the past controls the future.
Jamie Doward, “Mineral Riches Fuel War, Not the Poor”, The Observer, June 18, 2000.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/docs/resourc1.htm
107
220
The end of the Ice Age spurred the growth of civilization in South Asia. The Indus
culture followed the traditions of other great river basin peoples such as in Egypt and
Mesopotamia. The system was based on irrigation and natural, silt-bearing floods that were
annual and predictable.108 Cities were a triumph of idea and humanity over nature and
represented the victory of humans over nature. A relic from Mohenjo-Daro has a seal that
“shows a Gilgamesh-like figure standing between two upreared tigers and another man tackling a
buffalo with a barbed spear".109
Lifestyles of the Mayans today and millennia ago are quite different. In southern
Mexico, an area with generally good soil, it is now more profitable to loot ancient Mayan
artifacts rather than to farm. This trend is also in part due to the availability of cheap corn
imports from the United States after the signing of the NAFTA agreement. A large proportion of
the stolen artifacts make their way to the United States and Europe via Cancun, Mexico. It is “a
huge market and very well developed. Because of television and the Internet, more people are
realizing the true value of these artifacts. And looting is a lot more profitable than subsistence
farming."110 The past now has more value in the present, so there is a race between progress and
history. At sites such as Chichen Itza, more is to be made from selling faux artifacts to tourists
than from tilling the fields.
Perhaps there was no huge collapse after all. By 930 AD, Mayan populations had fallen
by an incredible 95 percent. Surely people would have begun migration from the area long
before these levels of fatality were reached. New evidence shows that “drought spikes” hit the
108
Hawkes, 1973, p. 267. See on the web also Economics of the Indus Valley Civilization,
by Chad Greenwood.
109
Hawkes, 1973, p. 268.
110
Colin Woodard, “Unraveling the lost world of the Maya”, The Christian Science
Monitor, October 26, 2000, Vol. 92 Issue 234, p. 13.
221
area around 810, 860 and 910 AD. However, given that this occurred over many centuries, many
scholars now believe that there was no collapse of the Mayans. Rather, “they simply moved:
north to Yucatan and Mexico, eastward to Belize and to highland settlements on the edges of the
rain forest.”111 They may have traveled and established new cities in new places, perhaps even
heading north to the relatively less populated plains.
The desire for arable land is a relative calculation, insofar as limited numbers of humans
could survive in areas even where there was no arable land (assuming they could still engage in
hunting and gathering). In both Mohenjo-Daro and in Mayan-ruled lands, growing populations
so overwhelmed the amount of available land and conflict was a natural outcome. Given the
invention of irrigation, the amount of arable land is also a function of the availability of fresh
water. Irrigation was a means that humans in fact were able to exceed natural rainfall limitations
on the amount of arable land and thus the natural limits to the size of population.
Controlling the flow of water was a key part of the conflict. The Mohenjo-Daro case was
one in which environmental changes led to human conflict. This was not unnatural, since part of
the problem was the natural meandering of the Indus River that moved water supplies away from
the urban center.
The cases of Rwanda and the Mayans are instructive in a different manner: too much
natural rain coupled with deforestation led to soil erosion and the decline in the fertility of the
soil. In other words, the one natural advantage of the land became a disadvantage without the
proper vegetative cover. In both cases, there was a domestic violence factor, which later became
an international factor and thus had a type of cascading affect.
Guy Gugliotta, “No Cataclysm Brought Down Mayans”, Washington Post, March 14,
2003, p. A13.
111
222
The events echo across the region as the historical ebb and flow of peoples overwhelms
the relatively recent creation of national boundaries. The Rwandan civil war was the spark for
not one but many conflicts. It marked a war between differing ethnic peoples that ignored
boundaries. The collapsing eco-systems were not only limited to Rwanda. Environmental
problems in one area exacerbated problems in other areas.
3.
Forests
With population growth brought on by the Agricultural Revolution, cities grew and the
demand for wood resources became enormous. Wood was not only the main building material
for houses, bridges, boats and or structures, it was also the basis for creating and using tools.
The clearing of forests also opened new lands for agricultural development and thus there was a
positive incentive to cut the forests. The cases that follow show three differing aspects of the
role of forests and conflict: the Cedars of Lebanon, Robin Hood, and the Khmer Rouge.
The role of forests in the analysis is closely tied to habitat change which is also part of the
stalemate outcome. This is a sub-loop within the environmental sub-system and a feedback loop
(red) that relates to tropical areas in particular, suggesting these are somewhat modern cases (see
Figure IV-6). Deforestation cases are highly centralized in longer-term time durations,
especially the 8-16 year period. Tropical cases of deforestation account for about 75 percent of
the total. These cases are long-term stalemates with gradually building casualties and an end
result where one human population wins, but does not alter the patterns of environmental
degradation. There is certain inevitability with forest use. The forest needs only to be cut down
once to disappear.
223
Figure IV-6
The Forest Causal System (the Red Loop in the Environmental Sub-System)
a.
The Cedars of Lebanon and Conflict
Time Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Environmental Breadth
Specific Resources
Wood
Ralph Solecki made a remarkable discovery in a cave near Shamidar, Iraq. Between
1953 and 1960 he found 9 Neanderthal skeletons. Not only were they buried, showing signs of
culture, they were buried with flowers as part of a custom or ritual. One male individual died of
a recent wound, possibly by a spear, meaning they cared for him for some time. The bones are
thought to be 60,000 years old. Only casts of the bones survive in the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C., because the real bones disappeared somewhere in Iraq. Located in the Zagros
Mountains near the borders with Iran and Turkey, it is now an area with a largely Kurdish
population and a place of continuing conflict.
224
Shamidar is also home to some of the earliest human settlements that have been found,
dating back to 10,000 BC. Over time, the general demands for resources became more specific
and particular as human lifestyles and economies became more sophisticated and developed.
Thus, the types of environmental conflicts and the causes for them also changed with time.
As the climate continued to change, the lush, fertile areas of the Middle East became
much drier and the vegetation changed from forests to dry grasslands. As villages spread south
from the Shamidar region and grew into urban centers grew along the Euphrates River, the
supply of wood for warmth, for cooking and for building purposes was soon exhausted.
Securing abundant and reliable sources of wood, and the transportation of them, became a key
strategic interest of growing city-states.
Trees may have been the first domesticated plant and as a result, they have long been
important aspects of human subsistence strategy. Trees important to human diet are often
cultivated. Trees for other purposes are often taken from the wild. How cultivation began is a
matter of conjecture. One theory is that some person ate a fruit or a nut and threw the seed
outside the cave door that served as the tribal compost pit. Compost provided great fertilizer and
when a tree grew and bore the same fruit or nut, someone made the connection.
Wild trees are not cultivated but are conquered (along with the land they sit upon). Some
trees have been especially critical to national strategy and one is the cedar. The cedar is a key
forest resource whose value is noted early in human history, as far back as the Babylonian Epic
of Gilgamesh, which pre-dates even the Bible. Written about 2,600 B.C., the earliest stories in
the Gilgamesh tale occurred not long after the advent of the Agricultural Conjunction and the
invention of writing (about 3,000 B.C.). Many historical writings, including those of
Theophrastus, Homer, Pliny and Plato as well as the Old Testament of the Bible, document the
225
(once) rich and luxuriant cedar forests of Lebanon. In fact, the cedar grew widespread
throughout the region. The Epic of Gilgamesh, written on a series of tablets found in modernday Iraq, is a story of the conflict between humans and the environment, the opening of trade,
and the incorporation of these events into culture via mythology. Forest use is a long standing
source of conflict.
Gilgamesh is a "modern" man by the standards of 2,600 B.C. and the King of Uruk, a
city-state that existed along the Tigris-Euphrates River in the Middle East. He is a super-human
(two-thirds god and one-third human), the result of gods mating with mortals. There was no
person in Uruk who could match his strength and power. Gilgamesh was a cruel king who stole
from and subjugated his people. He commanded, for example, that every bride have sex with
him before her husband on their wedding night.
The people of Uruk cried out to the gods for relief from the harsh rule of Gilgamesh. The
god Anu answers their plea by creating Gilgamesh's doppelganger, Enkidu. Anu hoped Enkidu
could match both wits and strength with Gilgamesh and therefore occupy him and lessen the
suffering of the people of Uruk.
Enkidu was a forest creature, but nonetheless human, living like and with animals
(Tarzan may be a comparable image) with the strength of twelve men. The son of a trapper
discovers him because Enkidu had been freeing the animals in the traps. The trapper’s father
brings a priestess/prostitute called Shamhat from Uruk to lure Enkidu out of the forest and
domesticate him. She seduces Enkidu and gradually civilizes him during six days and seven
nights of lovemaking. After this period of human socialization, his animal friends will have
nothing to do with him. Adam and Eve are sent out of Eden for biting into the apple and so too
226
is Enkidu, expelled for tasting human pleasure. The forest creatures also symbolically expel him
from the forest “Eden”.
Shamhat brings Enkidu to Uruk. As they enter the city, they find Gilgamesh on his way
to interrupt another bride and bridegroom. Enkidu is enraged at the behavior of Gilgamesh.
Enkidu confronts him and stands in the doorway of the house, blocking Gilgamesh’s path and
literally standing in the way of his abuses. The two enter into a terrible battle that goes back and
forth. Gilgamesh eventually gets the upper hand, but no man before dared to fight Gilgamesh
and fought him to a virtual draw. Because of their match in abilities, Gilgamesh and Enkidu
become great friends.
To cement their friendship the two comrades agree to challenge a formidable foe to test
their friendship. They travel to the great cedar forest to the west (modern day Lebanon and
Syria) to kill the protector of the cedar forest--Humbaba in Akkadian texts and Huwawa in
Sumer, Hittite and Assyrian texts--and take the mighty cedars. This is, of course, a symbolic
event. The defeat of the guardian of the forest may cast in mythic form an historical event, the
capturing of valuable woodlands or the establishing of trade involving wood--a precious
commodity almost totally lacking in the plain that constitutes Sumer (southern Iraq).112
From 2,600 B.C. to 138 A.D., Canaanites, Aegeans, Armenians and Phoenicians
populated the Middle East. During this time, these peoples gradually finished the destruction of
the famed Cedars of Lebanon that Gilgamesh earlier had begun. Perhaps most conspicuous in
this role were the Phoenicians. To build their thallasocracy (maritime empire), the Phoenicians
constructed enormous sea-faring fleets for exploration, conquest and trade. For nearly three
millennia, cedar and other timbers from Lebanon served a variety of needs: fuel, ship material,
John Gardner and John Maier, Gilgamesh: Translated from the Sin-leqi-unnunni version,
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984, p. 16.
112
227
building material and household usage. Through cities such as Sidon and Tyre, wood exports
went to Palestine and Egypt, areas with large populations and relatively little forest cover. The
result was large-scale deforestation. The scarcity of trees was so noticeable that, over time, the
few remaining tall trees became objects of worship. Cedar was also the most prized wood
because of geography, none more than the unsurpassed Cedars of Lebanon (see Figure III-7)
228
Demand from outside
Figure IV-7 Phoenician Soldier, Photograph, Natural
History Museum, Washington DC
Phoenicia increased the pace of
cedar deforestation. By 3,000 B.C.,
Babylonia, along with Egypt,
imported cedars and required it as a
tribute of conquest. Egyptian and
Mesopotamian records of military
campaigns include information on
"captured" timber, along with
“captured” slaves and gold.
However, neither was as critical as
cedar wood. "Cedar was thought to
be the prize which all states of the
Near East coveted, and for which
the empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia were prepared to fight."113
King Solomon of Israel contracted for the delivery of cedar logs from the Lebanon
Mountains (as well as for some pine). The wood was for the reconstruction of the First Temple
that was destroyed by the Babylonians about 2,500 years ago. David’s transaction is noted in the
Bible [II Chronicles, ii.3]: "as you dealt with David my father and sent him cedar to build
himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me." Solomon also sent forced laborers to Phoenicia to
113
See Lee for citation and source.
229
help cut and transport the cedar. Historian C.A. Meiggs surmises that Solomon’s effort to obtain
cedar for the Temple was a show of extravagance for internal political reasons.
Ship builders revered Lebanese cedar for its strength, size, beauty and workability. For
Pliny, cedar was the standard by which to measure all other timbers and Diodorus documented
its relative strength and beauty. Around the time of Plato, deforestation was widespread in
Greece and Athens began importing extensive amounts of Phoenician timber. Athenian timber
imports thus contributed to the expansion of their city-state's naval capacity against the Persians.
Both combatants in the war used wood from the cedars for building battleships. Phoenician
timber was also central to the construction of the Persian fleet that battled the Greeks during the
fifth century B.C. Some suggest the motive for the Phoenician invasion of Cyprus (11th century
B.C.) was to preserve forest resources at home. However, shipbuilding was the primary, but not
the sole use of cedar.
Fuel for producing specialty products was another use for the cedar. Theophrastus, the
Greek historian, noted that cedar can burn at a sufficiently high temperature to make mortar or
pitch from mined limestone. Temple builders used cedar to make lime. In Sidon and Tyre, the
burning of cedar made possible bronze manufacturing. Sidon was renowned for its glass crafts,
which required great quantities of wood fuel.
With the eventual loss of the cedars, the soils that lay underneath the trees washed away
and there was a drop in biological richness. This led to the decline of many other native plants
and animals in the ecosystem. Grazing sheep and goats destroyed ground level plants, new
seedlings, and saplings. Eventually, the entire topography became to a semi-arid climate with
the loss of the cedars and the entire forest eco-system.114
114
See Ben Kasoff, TED Case Studies, http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/cedars.htm.
230
The demand for all products of resinous woods was relatively greater in antiquity than
now. They were employed for the preservation of ship wood and all ship equipments, for
coating the interior of earthenware wine jars, and for the preparation of volatile oils, salves and
ointments, which were almost universally used in ancient times. Resin and tar were the chief
basis for cough medicines prepared by Greek physicians, and were ingredients for salves for
external use.
Civilization's struggle with nature (epitomized in Humbaba the forest monster) portrays a
battle of good against evil. Humbaba lacks the civility of humans: he lives in the wild in a giant
cedar house and had never been seduced. Humbaba's death, the two thought, would not only
impress the gods (despite the fact that the god Enil appointed Humbaba as forest guardian,
something which would later haunt the two friends), but also open the way for Gilgamesh to take
the precious cedars and open trade routes. Upon reaching the forest, Gilgamesh and Enkidu
eventually lure Humbaba to a confrontation with an act of environmental destruction.
Gilgamesh took the axe in his hand
[and] felled the cedar,
[When Huwawa] heard the noise
he became angry. "Who has come
and slighted the trees grown on my mountain
and has felled the cedar?"115
115
Gardner and Maier, Gilgamesh, p. 146. This particular quotation comes from a Hittite
account and contained in E.A. Speiser and A. K. Grayson, in ed. James B. Pritchard (ed.),
Ancient Near Eastern Text Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
pp. 76-83 and pp. 503-507.
231
After felling seven cedars, and a not-so-epic battle with Humbaba, the god Shamash
intervenes on the side of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Humbaba sues for peace, offering all the trees
in the forest and to become the servant of Gilgamesh. Enkidu argues that Humbaba will not keep
his word (he can never be civilized) and an unfinished battle cannot lead to peace. Convinced,
Gilgamesh strikes Humbaba with his axe and Enkidu follows suit and eventually beheads the
beast. With Humbaba dead, the taming of nature was complete and the cedar forest and its
riches were for the taking. Humbaba cries out as he dies: “Of you two, may Enkidu not live the
longer, may Enkidu not find any peace in this world."
The two then commence to cutting down the cedars, especially the tallest trees, and float
them down the Euphrates River on cedar rafts, returning to Uruk triumphant. The people use the
cedar to build a huge wooden gate to the city. Gilgamesh is a hero and the gate is his monument.
This is only the beginning of the struggle of economy, environment and culture for the
city of Uruk and Gilgamesh. The goddess Ishtar, hearing of his exploits as the conqueror of
Humbaba, offers to become the lover of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh rejects her entreaty, in part
because of the bad habit of her previous lovers all being dead. His mistake is that he also insults
her. She then has her father, who happens to be the god Anu, let loose the Bull of Heaven on the
city of Uruk. Gilgamesh and Enkidu battle the giant bull and eventually slay it. This would be
their last great victory. The gods eventually have their revenge and Enkidu later dies due to the
“paralysis demon”. Humbaba cried bitter tears.
Gilgamesh was not alone in the practice of basing ancient construction projects on stolen
resources. It also involved bribery and conscription of labor. “Esarhaddon II (680-669), king of
Assyria, whose stele is seen at Nahr al-Kalb [near Beruit] to this day, undertook a vast building
232
program. He forced the tributary kings of ancient Lebanon, including Milkiashapa of Byblos, to
produce cedar and pine timber for him and to transport the logs to Nineveh.” 116
Other ancient monarchs, such as the Egyptian kings Thut-Mose III and Ramses III, as
well as Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, also describe the taking of cedar as part of conquest.
Nebuchadnezzar described his efforts as follows.
I cut through steep mountains, I split rocks, opened passages and [thus] constructed a
straight road for the [transport of the] cedars. I made the Arahtu [the trees] float and
carry to Marduk, my lord, mighty cedars, high and strong, of precious beauty and of
excellent dark quality, the abundant yield of Lebanon, as [if they be] reed stalks carried
by the river.117
Contemporary writers of that time recognized and rued Nebuchadnezzar's exploits as a
pillager of wood and destroyer of forests. In the Old Testament of the Bible, the book of Isaiah
is quite clear on the subject of Nebuchadnezzar's role in causing deforestation, noting on his
death in 562 B.C. that:
The whole world has rest and is at peace,
it breaks into cries of joy,
The pines themselves and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you,
Since you have been laid low, they say,
no man comes to fell us.120
b.
Conflict over Specific Resources (Wood): Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest Rights
Nina Jidejian, “Cedars of Lebanon, September 28, 2004.
As quoted in Marvin W. Mikesell, "The Deforestation of Mount Lebanon," The
Geographical Review, Volume LIX, Number 1 (January, 1969), p. 13.
116
117
233
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Social Type
Source Resources
Forest
The building of Hadrian’s Wall ended the expansion of the Roman Empire. Its decayed
status today belies the important role in history it played. The wall provided stability for a long
period that allowed agriculture and settled communities to develop on the south side of the wall.
North of the wall, the Pict or Scot tradition of herding and grazing continued to dominate.
Stability led to population growth and this led to the cutting of forests for agricultural production.
This system of agricultural production survived over centuries and expanded as populations grew
even after the departure of the Romans.
More than one thousand years later, around 1400, substantial portions of the forests of
England had been cut down. Large portions of the land were used for subsistence agriculture by
peasants. The remaining resources, both flora and fauna, of the forests found their way into elite
hands. The pockets of forests lay largely unused except for the royal hunts. The hunts
themselves were more a type of sport and were a kind of bonding experience for the elite. The
elites sought wild game, especially deer, for royal feasts.
While the elites enjoyed their fine hunts and cuisine the situation for the peasants living
near the forest was quite different. Locals were forbidden to take food or wood from these
forests and in times of hunger this became a bitter controversy. A dispute over environmental
right to access the forest resources set the stage for conflict.
Robin Hood is remembered as a thief who stole from the rich and gave to the poor but his
background, and the context of the time, is much more complex. He lived in Britain in Middle
234
Ages around the area of Nottingham and the Sherwood Forest.118 The locale was closer to
Hadrian’s Wall than it was to London. Robin did rob the elite who transported goods or traveled
through the forest and probably was involved in some kidnappings.
At the heart of the dispute is the forest itself and its resources. Robin and other
vagabonds lived in and hunted in the royal forest. This lifestyle was forbidden. The Sheriff of
Nottingham was in charge of enforcing local royal law and thus became Robin’s antagonist. The
deer of the forest became rarer as their habitat shrunk. By this time, Britain’s forest cover was
mostly converted to pasture or agricultural land. This meant that deer, which lived in the forests
for cover and left to browse on grasses, became rare. Sherwood Forest was a sort of medieval
theme park.
The written record related to Robin Hood took place later. “Actual Robin Hood texts
first appear in the fifteenth century, initially as fragments of verse, then in a handful of complete
tales.”119 Robin Hood was invented out of several personas of myth and reality. He was
probably an amalgamation of many Cumbrian outlaws who lived in the 1400s with elements of
Celtic mythology mixed in. Robin Hood’s emergence as a myth in this time is also surely the
offspring of the larger social movements and discontents of the time. The Peasant’s revolt of
1381 “held that the discontent expressed was that of the lower stratum of the gentry, petty
landholders who were affected by rising labour costs and other economic changes in the
118
The name "Sherwood" derives from the term "shire wood", meaning the forest local to a
shire or region. As such, it is a generic term. Rather than being a single physical place,
Sherwood is more likely an abstraction, representing "the wilderness" as a whole.
119
Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend, Westport and London:
Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 5.
235
fourteenth century.” 120 Robin Hood games, fetes of archery to support public causes, lasted
from the 1500s to about 1600. With time, the commemorations invigorated the myth of Robin
Hood. This spread to the personalities of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marion and Friar
Tuck and the development of a group of disciples similar to the Bible.
Robin the poacher preceded Robin the robber and he was likely more a criminal early on
a social activist later. “Interpretations of Robin Hood’s greenwood have focused heavily on the
Forest Laws and royal ownership of the forest. These elements are present in the legend, yet
they are ultimately a structural feature. Robin is undeniably a bold poacher of venison, and
doubtless his violation of the Forest Laws colored the audience response to his adventures, yet
his infringements of the royal prerogative is very rarely mentioned in the ballads. The
significance thus is not legal but practical.”121 Robin demands social rights and a type of social
contract. “His poaching of deer likewise impinges on royal prerogatives, and his antipathy to the
Sheriff sets him at odds with the enforcement of royal policy.122
Robin’s pagan origins are clear. He wears green clothes because he is an incarnation of
the Green Man, Cernunnos. Cernunnos is the god of vegetation and fertility, the Lord of the
Trees (perhaps similar to Humbaba, the forest protector in the Epic of Gilgamesh). In the Celtic
pagan tradition, the Green Man is the consort of the May Queen. The Green Man has a human
face camouflaged by leaves and is able to blend in with the forest surroundings. He wore a
perfect camouflage. In his element he became invisible to his opponents. Robin may also be a
manifestation of the Celtic horned god Herne, Lord of the Deer, a being that ate only venison. It
120
Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw, Oxford and
Cambridge: Blackwell, 1998, p. 51. Also, see J.C. Holt, in “Past and Present” (Hilton, ed.,
1976).
121
Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend, p. 146.
122
Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend, p. 44.
236
is said that Robin wears a cap to hide his horns. Robin Hood’s Merry Band was collectively
known as the “Foresters” which says something about the ultimate philosophy. They were selfproclaimed stewards of the forest.
The forest itself provided a cover that allowed Robin Hood’s guerilla movement to
continue and flourish. An army moving through a forest has fewer resources to draw on
compared to agricultural communities and they are susceptible to ambush. This use of the forest
as an element of warfare is not so different from the use of forest covers in warfare that occurred
in other cases in other middle and modern eras.
In the U.S. Revolutionary War (roughly 1776-1783) Americans forces lost control of
many larger coastal cities. Forces retreated inland and were able to develop systems of supply
along the Appalachian Trail. The trail was originally a trading system created by Native
Americans long before the arrival of Europeans and followed the eastern side an ancient
mountain range in the eastern United States. The trail became vital for supply and movement of
American troops.
In the Vietnam War the Ho Chi Minh Trail served a similar role. U.S. and South
Vietnamese forces controlled the coastal cities and the trail was beyond the reach of these lines
of control. The fact the trail had spurs that ran through the neighboring countries of Laos and
Cambodia complicated the extent of the conflict. The trail in part brought these countries into
the conflict but like the Apppalachian Trail, was a vital transportation conduit during the conflict.
While one strategy of warfare related to environment uses trees to hide forces and
movements another focuses on tree removal to avoid that threat. Mughal armies in India cut
down forests around cities they were about to siege. This form of warfare emerged long after the
Aryan invasions. This tactic also was used in Europe by armies who attempted to storm castles.
237
The lines of transportation in these environments run through heavily forested areas. Abilities to
destroy these supply lines are often hindered by the forest. Robin Hood used the forest as cover
to raid the supply lines of the royalty.
The royal right to the forest and its resources often imposed great hardships on the people
who lived in or near the areas. Robin Hood is known for his crime of stealing deer. This was
only one part of his complaints. There were also bans in differing places on hunting boars and
even smaller animals such as birds and rabbits. Felling of timber was also restricted in some
places by locals. This would have depressed home building and energy use by the local
population.
Ballads were the first way that stories of a man named “Robyn Hod” spread among the
people of England. The high rate of illiteracy brought about the oral tradition of passing on
stories and history. Because the wandering minstrel would sing in different areas to different
audiences, the lyrics of the ballads would change to reflect the type of audience and their
interests, and the story grew and changed over time. There grew a variety of myths about Robin
Hood depending on the part of the country.
Robin uses a longbow as his weapon. His bow was made of the English “ewe" or “yew”,
the same wood used by Otzi the Iceman many millennia earlier. It was a pliable but strong wood
and the technology was well-developed. It was important to be skilled at the bow and arrow in
the 13th and 14th centuries because it was the means of hunting and survival. The weapon was
also a means of protection, perhaps similar to the gun in the American west of the 1800s. The
legend of Zorro in California in many ways evokes the myth of Robin Hood.
238
Robin became a mythical legend. Similar to William Tell, he was the greatest archer of
all. The bow and arrow still reigned as the dominant weapon of warfare as well as for hunting
subsistence. Prowess in the skill of archery was much revered.
One story that demonstrates Robin’s archery skill is the Golden Arrow contest set up by
the Sheriff to bring him out of hiding. “The myth of yeomanry is reflected symbolically in the
outlaws’ choice of weapons. One of the most consistent elements in the legends is Robin’s
prowess as an archer, and the practice of archery figures prominently in many of the early
ballads.” 123 British excellence at archery was one of their advantages over the French in the
Hundred Years War. 124
Robin Hood was a figure in society for several hundred years. The myth of Robin
receded with the growth of the British Empire and the growth of Empire. It was revived during
the Industrial Revolution when lives were not necessarily improving and class distinctions were
at their height. At this time, some thought that taking from the rich through progressive taxation,
should be state policy.
“Robin Hood the national fiction is not a simple product; like all the other versions of the
outlaw, from local play-game leader to renaissance pastoral figurehead, he is contrasted
in a set of interlinked sometimes contradictory maneuvers across a range of places and
times. The process starts around 1800 in a context of raised socio-cultural awareness,
when political and industrial revolutions are in the forefront of the minds of writers.”125
123
Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend, Westport and London:
Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 38.
124
Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood, p. 39.
125
Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw, Oxford and
Cambridge: Blackwell, 1998, p. 142.
239
c.
Khmer Rouge and Forest Resources
Time
Class
Category
Type
Modern
Environmental Breadth
Specific Resources
Wood
Forests have long had a role in conflict as a means of camouflage, defense and escape for
guerilla armies. This was the case in ancient India, the American Revolution, and a host of other
conflicts. Beyond a venue for conflict, wood is an object of desire and conquest in the Cedars of
Lebanon case as an economic resource with high value more than 2,000 years ago. The
economic value of forests has grown stronger today, through both the huge increase in human
population and the huge decrease in the area of forestland. The Khmer Rouge military effort in
Cambodia relied on wood exports and the granting of concessions to harvest the wood.
Wood is one of the oldest of prized commodities that used to fund conflict, but today it is
one of many. The list of commodities used to support conflict today includes: diamonds
(Liberia), oil (Sudan), tantalum (Congo), uranium (Libya), gold (Brazil), guano (Peru) and
others. Wood however is perhaps the commodity that has one of the longest records of conflict
related to it. The ancient case on the Cedars of Lebanon and the middle-era case of Robin Hood
both illustrate the endurance of conflict over the use of wood and forest resources.
The Khmer Rouge, (an extreme Maoist guerrilla faction), took over control of Cambodia
in the 1970s and launched a program of savagery that left 2 million dead until the Vietnamese
overthrew them. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight after their fall from power. One chief
means of acquiring funding was through exported timber to Thailand. Thailand banned logging
in its own territory following severe flooding in 1988. The impact was to redirect demand to
240
Cambodia for wood resources. This moratorium brought about a dispute regarding the relation
between trade, environment, and politics in Cambodia.
Cambodia's forests were devastated by a decade of conflict. Funds for raising armies also
came through trade in raw and finished gem exports, especially to Thailand. It was not only the
Khmer Rouge that adopted this tactic. Until the ban on log exports, the three guerrilla factions
(FUNCINPEC, KPNLF, and Khmer Rouge) and the Cambodian government were involved in
logging to finance war.126 While the government exported mostly to Japan and Vietnam, the
three guerrilla groups (mostly Khmer Rouge) sent logs over the border into Thailand from their
territory in western and northern Cambodia.
For reasons of both deforestation and funding of civil insurgency, in 1992 Cambodia's
provisional national council agreed to a moratorium on log exports. The moratorium was in
response to intensive deforestation that led to massive flooding. The flooding that damaged the
rice crop led to food shortages. The moratorium had a political goal as well: to deprive the
Khmer Rouge access to funding from sales of timber. Khmer Rouge guerrillas benefited from
uncontrolled deforestation.
The loss of Cambodian forest cover has had consequences and has led to more rain
drainage and flooding. Cambodian floods of 1995 in the northwest killed two people and cut the
country's main supply line to areas threatened by food shortages. In Battambang province, two
children and 77 cows were swept away.127 Severe flooding in the west central province of Pursat
126
The conflict involves four factions Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Independent,
Neutre, Pacifique et Coop ratif (FUNCINPEC), Khmer People's National liberation Front
(KPNLF), the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (DK or so-called Khmer Rouge), and the State of
Cambodia (SOC).
127
"Two die as northwest area is hit by severe flooding," The Cambodia Times, October
22-28, 1995.
241
killed eight people, which included seven children, devastated 421 homes, and destroyed 36,235
hectares of rice fields, and killing at least 80 farm animals.128
After the Cambodian ban, Thailand switched to wood imports from Burma and Laos. In
the case of Burma, the trade was with both government and other rebel groups, creating an odd
patchwork of alliances. Conflict desperation also can produce a new means of resource
acquisition. In an attempt to save what remains of Thailand's devastated forests, many Thai
companies (some linked to Thai military) imported wood from Cambodia by purchasing
concessions from the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge controlled a huge part of the ThaiCambodia border zone.129
The Cambodian conflict and massive logging was intended to end when four factions
signed the cease-fire agreement in France. In October 1991, the Paris Agreements provided for a
comprehensive political settlement of the Cambodian conflict that included: (a) establishment of
a transitional authority, (b) creation of conditions for a lasting peace; and (c) the holding of free
and democratic elections. The 1992 UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
recognized the Supreme National Council of Cambodia (SNC) as the legitimate governing body
during the transition period.
Sale of forest resources continued to support anti-government forces that came to the
knowledge of both government and non-government groups. “Global Witness's accusations and
the new U.S. sanctions caused the Thai government to close most of its land border crossings to
log imports by the dry season of 1996, and pushed the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to seriously
investigate the border trade. Global Witness estimated that the resulting economic squeeze on
128
"Paddy fields damaged, eight killed in severe flooding," The Cambodia Times, October
29 - November 4, 1995.
129
"Paddy fields damaged, eight killed in severe flooding," The Cambodia Times, 29
October 29 - November 4, 1995.
242
the Khmer Rouge substantially contributed to the first large-scale defection to the Cambodian
government in September 1996.”130
Top grade Cambodian timber is worth $80 per one cubic meter (35 cubic feet).131 Thai
officials estimate the Khmer Rouge earned about $1 million per month from both wood and
precious and gems.132 The types of trees in Cambodia are pine, rosewood, and teak. Timber
exports, estimated to be worth between $40-50 million a year is one of Cambodia's biggest
income earner.133 “The logs are being sold off cheap – for “a mere $740,000”, according to
Patrick Alley but are worth $3–10 million. What’s more, we know that the total exports were
scheduled to be 100,000 cubic meters, so Military Region 1 stood to gain $3.7 million. ” Global
Witness estimates that such illegal timber sales deprive the Cambodian treasury of $157–337
million per annum, compared with the annual national budget of c. $400 m.”134
One estimate put forest cover at 10.4 million hectares, including 3.5 million hectares in
national parks, out of the country's total area of about 18 million hectares (data for 1992-93).
Total forestation has fallen to 30-35 percent of overall area.135 “Between 1973 and 1993, 3.6
million acres of the country's forest were lost and much of the remaining area was negatively
Katherine Knight, “War, Politics and the Environment”, Conservation Law Foundation,
www.clf.org/pubs/war.htm.
131
Sutin Wannabovorn, "Logging Profits Fuel Cambodian Fighting," Reuter News
Service, March 7, 1994.
132
Angus MacSwan, "Cambodian to Ban Log Exports," The Reuter Library Report,
September 23, 1992.
133
Maja Wallengren, "Cambodia's Sihanouk Calls For Log Export Ban,"Reuter News
Service, October 18, 1994.
134
“Last Cambodia rainforests under threat from loggers”, Plant Talk On-Line #16,
published January 19, accessed May 2, 2002, http://www.plant-talk.org/Pages/16cambod.html.
135
"King Sihanouk Alarmed at the Rate of Rampant Deforestation," The Cambodia Times,
29 Oct-4 Nov. 1995.
130
243
affected, says a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).”136
King Norodom Sihanouk warned about the rate of rampant deforestation in the country and
called on foreign companies to plant three trees for every one felled. King Sihanouk said that
"since the 1980's until now some foreign countries and companies as well as illegal groups and
individuals, have destroyed or are destroying Cambodia's forests, so vital for agriculture and the
survival of the Cambodian people”.137 Further, there had been a marked increase in deforestation
and at this rate the country would become a desert in the 21st century.
The Tonle Sap Lake, a huge body of water created by the Mekong River’s monsoon
overloads, may turn into a vast mudflat. “The biggest threat is to Cambodia's Tonle Sap (Great
Lake), which has been described as one of the richest freshwater fishing grounds in the world.
Because of deforestation, the lake is silting up. Cambodian Environment Minister Mok Mareth
warned that at the present rate, the lake could disappear within 25 years.” Thai loggers take
advantage of a loophole in the ban by setting up sawmills in Cambodia to ship timber across the
border as "processed" wood. “138 The water problem may become even more critical as China
continues its plans for a system of dams to capture the upstream waters of the Mekong in Yunan
province.
Even though the Khmer Rouge often violated the cease-fire agreement, in 1992 the SNC
activated the moratorium on log exports. The UN Security Council then adopted the September
22 moratorium (the UN Security Council resolution 792). The UN resolution did not mandate
but rather “urged” importing countries to cooperate. Under the resolution, UNTAC was to take
“Loggers Use Loophole to Decimate Cambodia's Disappearing Forests”, Christian
Science Monitor, May 1, 1997.
137
“Loggers Use Loophole to Decimate Cambodia's Disappearing Forests”, Christian
Science Monitor, May 1, 1997.
138
Loggers Use Loophole”, Christian Science Monitor, May 1, 1997
136
244
measures to implement a moratorium on the export of logs from Cambodia and was enacted on
January 1, 1993.
Despite the agreement, the Khmer Rouge earned about $20 million per year by selling
timber to Thai government and military officials. The Khmer Rouge also sold sapphires and
rubies mined near its stronghold in Pailin. “The Cambodian government, during the latter half of
the last decade, signed secret illegal deals to allow Vietnamese loggers to fell Cambodian timber,
much of which was subsequently made into garden furniture and sold across Europe under bogus
'environment-friendly' labels. The money found its way into the pockets of key military officials
who were instrumental in establishing a coup d'etat in 1997.” Global Witness reported that in
1996 the Cambodian government earned $100 million per year from selling timber
concessions.139
To protest the UN Security Council resolution 792, Thailand barred UN flights before the
enactment of the ban. The Thai parliament's House Committee for Foreign Affairs agreed to
seek measures to minimize the effect of a UN Security Council ban on oil exports to end timber
imports from Khmer Rouge controlled areas in Cambodia. Illegal timber trade nonetheless
continued, although there was a reduction in Cambodia log exports.
The ban made timber trade between Thailand and the Khmer Rouge illegal, but with only
limited success. Illegal logging exports to Thailand also came from Royal Cambodian military,
which were handed jurisdiction. Under pressure from the IMF, there was a transfer of
jurisdiction regarding timber sales from the defense ministry to finance ministry.140
Jamie Doward, “Mineral Riches Fuel War, Not the Poor”, The Observer, June 18, 2000.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/docs/resourc1.htm
140
Maja Wallengren, "Government Scraps Controversial Timber Deal," Reuters World
Service, 12 Aug. 1994.
139
245
The Thai government occasionally cracks down on the movement of logs from Khmer
Rouge to comply with provisions in the US 1997 Foreign Operations Act that prohibits aid to the
military of any country which "is not acting vigorously" to stop the logging trade.141 “During
1997 and into early 1998 at least 250,000 cubic meters of Cambodian timber, all felled illegally,
was exported to Vietnam. The World Bank estimates that Cambodia’s commercial forests will
be soon exhausted. The timber is refined and re-exported, both as timber and sawn
wood…Manufacturers use timber from adjacent countries, notably Cambodia, as the law
prohibits the export of Vietnamese timber. Global Witness believes this furniture trade, worth
more than $70 million annually, to be fully sanctioned by the government of Vietnam.”142
Cambodia's co-Premiers, Prince Norodom Ranarriddh and Hun Sen authorized a logging
contract with a Malaysian company (Samling Corporation) in February 1995.143 The deal
provides for a 60 year logging concession covering 800,000 hectares or 4 percent of the entire
country. The Royal Government also approved a massive logging deal with an Indonesian
timber company (Panin Banking and Property Group). The 50-year contract allowed the
Indonesian company to harvest logs on 1.4 million hectares, roughly 15 percent of the
Kingdom's remaining forest. Together, almost 20 percent of the future revenues from forest
resources have been sold.
“The Khmer Rouge had gained control of 20% of Cambodia as a benefit of initial
cooperation with the peace process, and they controlled much of the densest hardwood
forest as well as its rare gem deposits.” Thai gem traders and logging companies were
Loggers Use Loophole to Decimate Cambodia's Disappearing Forests”, Christian Science
Monitor, May 1, 1997.
142
“Last Cambodia rainforests under threat from loggers”, Plant Talk On-Line #16,
Published January 19, Accessed May 2, 2002, http://ww.plant-talk.org/Pages/16cambod.html.
143
"Cambodia's Sihanouk Warns About Logging," Reuter News Service, 20 Feb. 1995.
141
246
given access to the area and began trading an estimated $300 million annually in
resources with concessionary payments to the Khmer Rouge. A logging ban was begun
on January 1, 1993 by the U.N. interim government, but this had little impact…Analysts
observed that Pol Pot’s ability to continue his ‘low-intensity’ guerilla operations now
relied on resulting cash pouring into his Thai bank accounts.” 144
With declining forests, international sanctions, and cooption, the Khmer Rouge has
largely disappeared. Pol Pot died in 1998 and with him the Khmer Rouge.
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Forest Cases
It is evident that human populations were becoming of sufficient size and advancement to
have large-scale impact on plants, just as they had on animals. Securing the necessary biomass
for the population and their domesticated animals became a key aspect of the national interest.
Securing wood in treeless landscapes was essential to building structures, creating military
defense, and in constructing military weapons. This “push” factor was met by the “pull” of the
resources in some other geographical space.
The need to secure biomass required another key ingredient -- water. Water availability
in a water-stressed region also became an issue in the national interest. Most water use then and
now was for crop irrigation. With the growth of populations the need for more area under crop
cultivation grew and thus the need for irrigation water.
As technology grew the focus was not only on trees but on certain tree types. The yew is
a favored wood for making a bow. “Why were the cedars of Lebanon so coveted by all the
Katherine Knight, “War, Politics, and the Environment”, Conservation Law Foundation,
accessed May 2, 2002. http://www.clf.org/pubs/war.htm
144
247
conquerors in the old world? Because the cedar tree provided the long beams necessary for masts
for building ships and its wood did not decay.”145 This was especially important to the
Phoenicians in building their ships that spread out over vast distances. Certain trees were either
extinguished due to its value or standardized from mom-culture farming.
Despite the importance of the wood there was little attempt to protect it. The critical role
of the cedar in ship building and naval supremacy did not go unnoticed to all. “Only one man,
the Roman Emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century of our era, made an attempt to restrict logging in
the mountains of Lebanon. He however restricted the cutting of trees in the forests for use by the
Roman state and considered they were the private domain of the Emperor.” 146
The commercial and military reach of Rome, like Phoenicia, was quite dependent on sea
transportation for commerce and sea power for maintaining control over conquered areas. Thus,
cedars were important part of its military-industrial complex. “The Roman fleet was moored off
the Phoenician coast. Timber was necessary for maintenance of the fleet and building new ships.
In Hadrian's time the northern mountain ranges of Lebanon were covered by cedars and other
species of coniferous trees. Over a period of seven millennia not once was thought given to
replanting trees which were cut down. It was only Hadrian who thought of setting up forest
markers to define the boundaries of the Roman state forest reserves.” 147
After Hadrian, the cutting of cedar resumed and its territory continued to shrink. A once
massive resource of importance to state-of-the-art technology in ancient times had become an
Nina Jidejian, “Cedars of Lebanon: the backbone of ancient traditions and culture”,
Dailey Star, September 28, 2004, accessed March 18, 2005.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=8782&categ_id=4
146
Nina Jidejian, “Cedars of Lebanon: the backbone of ancient traditions and culture”,
Dailey Star, September 28, 2004, accessed March 18, 2005.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=8782&categ_id=4
147
Nina Jidejian, “Cedars of Lebanon”.
145
248
isolated curiosity. “The mass cutting of cedars, pines and cypresses for trade, naval and building
purposes allowed the inevitable process of erosion to set in. After Hadrian no competent
measures were taken to protect the forests that remained. Today the few cedars that majestically
stand at Bsharri are testimony to the ruthless exploitation through the ages by state and
individual of the magnificent coniferous cedar forests of Lebanon.”
Hadrian had a perspective on conflict that was extremely environment based. He
protected the cedars in Lebanon, built a huge stone wall across the north England, used the Rhine
and Danube Rivers as a boundary markers, and built timber fortifications that connected the
boundaries of the two rivers. He used the environment to create the boundaries and extent of the
Roman Empire.
There is a clear parallel between the myth of Robin Hood and that of Humbaba from the
Epic of Gilgamesh. The viewpoint on the two stories of wood and forest resources takes on
opposite perspectives. Gilgamesh needs to slay Humbaba so he can take the forest resources
while Robin avoids being slain by the Sheriff of Nottingham so he can also protect them. The
perspectives reflect the reality of times when forests were plentiful and when they were scarce.
Within these Middle cases, there are also clear links to the cases on Hadrian’s Wall and
the expansion and contraction of the Vikings. The Vikings settled in this area -- and raided it
beforehand -- and added to the growth of population. Hadrian’s Wall was effective at dividing
the island of England into two distinct parts with two different economic systems. The wall
permitted relative security for those to the south under Roman rule and thus populations steadily
grew over time. Perhaps the forests would not have been quite as depleted if not for the wall.
249
Owning forests and acquiring their wood was essential for the continued growth of citystates such as Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Similar to the Khmer Rouge, Gilgamesh used war
to fund his economy and economic expansion. It was the basis for the building of cities.
Transport of the logs also involved the environment. “A report to the U.N. Conference
on Environment and Development in 1992 described Cambodian forests as ‘the lungs of
Southeast Asia.’ But aerial surveys showed a 30 percent drop in forest cover in the course of
only 20 years. Moreover, during 1992, an estimated 620,000 acres were deforested since the
Khmer Rouge granted six Thai companies concessions to cut wide swaths of Cambodian
forest.”148
Owning the forest meant owning the animals, such as deer that lived there, during the
time of Robin Hood in the 1400s. In the case of the Khmer Rouge, owning the wood was useful
because it could be sold and in return, weapons could be acquired in order to further their
conflict. Owning forest resources have also been used to fund civil conflict movements in many
species that are trafficked.
4.
Water
With the growth of population, agricultural lands expanded, cities were built out of
forests, and water was the key resource that allowed the places to survive in generally dry
climates. With time even this resource, once so abundant, became scarce and thus a cause for
conflict. Three cases describe the relations between water and conflict in three different places:
Katherine Knight, “War, Politics and the Environment”, Conservation Law Foundation,
http://www.clf.org/pubs/war.htm.
148
250
the Nile River, along the Jordan River, and in the land of the Anasazi. These cases represent
large, medium and small rivers and differing types of dependencies.
Water cases show up significantly in the ICE dataset, especially in relation to conflict in
the Middle East. These Dry habitat cases are related to conflicts that do have definitive
outcomes since the stakes are so high. These conflicts are also often based on overtly political
decisions. The cases also show examples of compromise and sharing and the avoidance of
conflict.
Of the water cases in the ICE database, one third of the cases fall in the duration period of
32-64 years. This phenomenon is similar to forests, where the long-term depletion of the
resources gradually increases tension and conflict in the case as the resource becomes
exceedingly scarce under growing demographic pressures. The data show that the water cases
are inordinately concentrated in dry regions (about 80 percent) that are to be expected. Many of
these cases involve large rivers that flow through the boundaries of several countries.
Water cases fall under the group called “resources” and is part of the yellow loop of the
environmental sub-system (see Figure IV-8). This loop is quite different from the red loop
involving territory, forests, and the stalemate outcome. The yellow loop includes the
environment and the conflict links to resources and access to them. The outcome however is
more definitive and results in a victory or loss (depending on perspective). They are also much
shorter in duration. It may be that the loss of forest resources can be somewhat lessened by trade
and the import of forest products from elsewhere. This is not the case with the loss of water.
251
Figure IV-8
The Forest Causal System (The Yellow Loop in the Environmental Sub-System)
a.
Conflict over Specific Resources (Water): The Nile River Conflict
Time Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Social Type
Sink/Source
Water
The warming climate after the end of the last Ice Age changed the nature of
environments. While Europe warmed from a frozen to a cold climate, the Middle East evolved
from cool forests in the time of the Neanderthal to temperate forests in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar to deserts in modern day Iraq. Nebuchadnezzar lived in a place that was
252
becoming increasingly arid. The lands further west had the desired forest resources, such as
cedars. The lack of forests was the result of the lack of water, except for a few large rivers that
were a prime resource for irrigation and other uses. Larger rivers also became important
transportation corridors. As a result, human cities grew up along the Tigris-Euphrates and Indus
Rivers. Like the Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus Rivers, the Nile River was the lifeblood of
ancient and modern Egyptian civilization.
The need for water as resource is perhaps greatest in northern Africa and the Saudi
Arabian Peninsula, where it is most scarce. The Saharan Desert is the largest expanse on the
planet with a substantial lack of life (perhaps only comparable to Antarctica and the deepest
ocean depths). This made the few oases and fresh water streams and rivers of critical importance
to the survival of society and therefore something worth fighting for. The Nile River is the
greatest of these prizes in the region.
The Nile River is a ribbon of life that represents a dramatic shift in ecotone. It is an
enormous oasis of water and biomass within an extremely arid area. An ecotone is a transition
area between adjacent environmental communities. There are peoples who live in both the arid
and wet zones and their lifestyles may come into conflict in transition areas. The ecotone
supports members of either group and is often a source of conflict. The likelihood of conflict is
also exacerbated by smaller sub-cycles related to the flow of the river. For example, over the last
five thousand years human habitation along the Nile there have been varying patterns of rainfall
in the Nile River headwater areas. As the ecotone shifts, so does the area of transition and thus
conflict.
Several times throughout history, ancient Egyptians attempted to unify and control the
Nile River valley by conquering the Sudan, to the south. The Sudan was invaded during the
253
reign of the Queen of Sheba by the Egyptians, under the Roman rule of Nero, and countless other
times.
Egypt established a beachhead in northern Sudan and conquered the kingdom of Kush.
Kush was populated by black Africans and these people came under Egyptian control and part of
the empire. When the Hyksos people from Assyria conquered Egypt in 1720 BC the Kush
became independent. In fact, they were the new inheritors of succession in Egypt and reconquered upper Egypt and ruled the kingdom for 100 years. There were valuable agricultural
and mineral commodities from Kush and the Nile River was the key to transportation of these
commodities.
Egyptians have long feared the loss of the Nile's waters to Ethiopia. The King of
Ethiopia sent a letter to the Egyptian pasha in 1704 threatening to cut off the water.149 During
one particularly bad famine, the Egyptian Sultan sent ambassadors to the king of Ethiopia to
plead with him not to obstruct the waters.
149
Collins, 3-4.
254
Figure IV-8
The Nile River
The Nile probably gets its
name from "nahal" which means
"river valley" in Semitic, later
"neilos" in Greek and "nilus" in
Latin. It is the world's longest river,
originating 4,187 miles in the
mountains of Burundi. The source
of the river was discovered only in
the middle of the 20th century.150
For centuries, the most accurate
source of knowledge on the location
of the source of the Nile River was
the writings of Herodotus (Greek Historian, 460 BC). Herodotus believed that the Nile River’s
source was a deep spring between two tall mountains (he was wrong). When Nero ordered his
centurions to follow the flow of the Nile River in order to find its source, they got no further than
the impenetrable valley of the Sudd in southern Sudan. John Henning Speke believed he found
the source as Lake Victoria in 1862, but he was wrong. In 1937, the German explorer Bruckhart
Waldekker found the true source (see Figure IV-8).151
Three tributaries, the Blue Nile, the White Nile, and the Atbara, form the Nile. The
White Nile rises from its source in Burundi, passes through Lake Victoria, and flows into
150
151
Adv, p. 1.
Collins, p. 4-8.
255
southern Sudan. There, near the capital city of Khartoum, the White Nile meets up with the Blue
Nile that has its source in the Ethiopian highlands, near Lake Tana. Slightly over half of the
Nile's waters come from the Blue Nile. The two flow together to just north of Khartoum, where
the waters of the Atbara, whose source is also located in the Ethiopian highlands, join them.152
The changes in climate and the flows of the Nile produce a fragmentation effect, as the
problem of water crises became localized. There was nothing the central government, at that
time, could do about the change in water availability. The result was that central authority lost
power.
“It is more likely that climatic changes, resulting in a decrease of the Nile's inundation,
impacted the Ancient Egyptian society. As the central government was unable to cope
with the results of this change, it was up to provincial governors and other local rulers to
come up with a solution to best irrigate their own territory. This, along with different
geographical circumstances, caused some provinces and territories to be more successful
in controlling the floods than others.” 153
These historical struggles for controlling the waters of the Nile River dates back
millennia and the current struggle is only a continuation of a long-standing issue. What is
different about the struggle over time is the intensity of the difference between the push and pull
factors. The sheer number of people totally dependent on the Nile River waters has exploded in
recent times.
152
Ody, p. 1.
Jacques Kinnaer, The Ancient Egypt Site, “First Intermediate Period (2150-2040 bc)”.
“The decline of the Old Kingdom is often said to have been caused by the long reign of Pepi II,
during which the king supposedly lost more and more power to the central administration and the
provincial governors.” September 3, 2004, http://www.ancient-egypt.org/history/07_11/.
153
256
“The Nile River is also a shared water resource of tremendous regional importance,
particularly for agriculture in Egypt and Sudan. Ninety-seven percent of Egypt's water
comes from the Nile River, and more than 95 percent of the Nile's runoff originates
outside of Egypt in the other eight nations of the basin. The Nile valley has sustained
civilizations for more than 5 millennia, but historical evidence suggests that the
populations of ancient Egypt never exceeded 1.5 million to 2.5 million people. Today,
Egypt struggles to sustain a population rapidly approaching 60 million on the same
limited base of natural resources. And Egypt's population grows by another million
people every nine months.”154
To overcome the seasonality of the flows of the river, one of the great modern
engineering achievements was the building of the Aswan Dam. Construction of the High Dam at
Aswan began in 1959 and completed in 1970. Its waters created Lake Nasser, the second largest
man-made lake in the world. The Aswan Dam is one of the great architectural accomplishments
of the 20th century, at a cost of over $1 billion. Rebuffed by the United States and the World
Bank for financing of the project, Nasser turned to the Soviet Union for help.155
Upstream of Lake Nasser, navigation of the Nile stopped in the Sudd due to the immense
swamps. Strong winds and the force of the river created natural dams comprised of plants and
soil, similar to those made by beavers. Britain re-conquered the Sudan in 1898, after an uprising
by a religious sect (the Mahdi). The English began to clear the Nile through the Sudd in order to
“Water, war and peace in the Middle East - conflict over water rights”, Environment,
April, 1994 by Peter H. Gleick, Peter Yolles, and Haleh Hatami.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_n3_v36/ai_15419877/pg_3,
(from Looksmart web directory). Accessed on September 3, 2004.
155
Pearce, pp. 28-29.
154
257
navigate the river. The project was abandoned due to political, economic and environmental
factors, among others.
In the 1970’s, Sudan and Egypt began the joint construction of the Jonglei Canal in the
Sudd, in large part funded by the World Bank, through a system of dikes and levees.
Construction stopped in 1983 one hundred kilometers short of completion due to the civil war in
the Sudan. The project was a great failure for both the Sudanese government and the World
Bank and more than $100 million invested with no return.156
In August 1994, Egypt allegedly planned and subsequently canceled an air raid on
Khartoum, in Sudan, where a dam was being built on the Nile. This act, along with tensions
between Sudan and Egypt over the attempted assassination of President Mubarak in 1995, led to
border clashes.157 Egypt has also acted against Ethiopian development on the Nile in the past.
Egypt blocked an African Development Bank loan to Ethiopia for a project that might have
reduced the flow of the Nile's water into Egypt. Due to Egypt’s rapidly growing population, the
government feared the availability of water demands in the future. Egypt may experience a 16 to
30 percent water deficit by the end of the century. The gap increases as further Egyptian
development projects are planned for the Nile.158
The British did not control the Ethiopian portions of the Nile, from which over 80 percent
of the Nile waters originate. They signed an agreement with the Ethiopian government in 1902 in
order to assure access and warned the Italians and the French not to interfere.159 Planned
developments on the Nile were a disputed matter between the Egyptian and British governments.
156
157
158
159
Pearce, p. 31.
El-Kohdary, p. 1-3.
El-Kohdary, p. 1-3.
Collins, pp. 67-100.
258
In 1929, Great Britain sponsored the Nile Water Agreement, which regulated the flow of the Nile
and apportioned its use. That remains the basis for many agreements today160
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Egyptian foreign minister and later secretary-general of
the United Nations said that the “next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not
politics”.161 Egypt relies on Nile River waters for generating 28 percent of its electric power. As
water flows have varied, the country must use oil resources to make up the gap in demand.
Egypt was able to reach agreement with Sudan in 1959 that guaranteed 55.5 billion cubic meters
of water annually and allowed Egypt to build the Aswan Dam.
No agreement has been reached with Ethiopia, “which is the source of 85 percent of the
Nile’s headwaters.”162 Ethiopia has plans to build a new on dam the Blue Nile River. The dam
will supply water to “1.5 million newly resettled peasants in the western province of Welega and
to provide a steady source of hydroelectric power for the country. The facility is expected to
divert 39 percent of the Blue Nile’s water.” Egypt has warned that building such a dam would
be adverse to Egypt’s national security,” 163 and blocked a loan to Ethiopia in the African
Development Bank that would have financed the project. Anwar Sadat allegedly told his army to
prepare to invade Ethiopia in the event waters were diverted.
On the White Nile River in Sudan there is also internal conflict related to water. The
Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was able to stop construction of the Jonglei Canal
160
Glassman, p. 150.
Peter H. Gleick, “Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security”,
International Security, Vol. 18, No. 1, Summer 1993, p. 86.
162
Christopher L. and David A. Deese,” At the Water’s Edge: Regional Conflict and
Cooperation over Fresh Water”, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Vol.
21, 1996, p. 43.
163
Christopher L. Kukk and David A. Deese,” At the Water’s Edge: Regional Conflict and
Cooperation over Fresh Water”, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Vol.
21, 1996, p. 44.
161
259
co-financed by Egypt and Sudan. (The Sudanese government and the SPLA recently did sign a
peace agreement on the long-standing civil war there.) The SPLA believed the project that to
drain the Sudd would only export their waters to their Arab neighbors to the north. The SPLA
has also regarded oil exploration in the South under the same terms.
Not all waters that Egypt uses are those that flow on the surface. Under a resettlement
program to lure people from the delta in the desert, the government will provide water to the
migrants. A large underground aquifer lies under Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Chad but so far only
Egypt and Libya are drawing from it. ”At that rate, and without any other country tapping the
water, the aquifer is expected to run dry in 40 to 60 years.”164 By then, it may be more precious
than oil.
b.
Water and the Disappearance of the Anasazi
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Social Type
Specific Resources
Water
The warming climate of the planet since the last Ice Age brought humans into conflict
with Neanderthals. Around 1000 AD, a shorter period of warming offered both opportunity and
cost. The Vikings moved into North America when new lands opened and fought Native
Americans. The Mayans declined over time, in part, due to internecine conflict. North of the
Mayans, the Anasazi in the American Southwest experienced similar problems due to drying
conditions that were not millennial in nature but rather changes in precipitation patterns that
occurred in shorter periods, perhaps over the course of a hundred years.
164
Kukk and Deese, p. 46.
260
The Anasazi perfected a specialized system of sustenance that allowed them a life along
the narrow ribbons of water in the American Southwest. The rivers provided shelter, safety, and
housing. The Anasazi disappearance is still a matter of debate. Some elements of their story
resemble the story of the Mayans, but others elements resemble the Viking’s experience. The
deserts of the American Southwest were as desolate of life as the tundra and icepacks of
Greenland.
The roots of Anasazi society dates to 10,000 years ago as nomadic hunter-gatherers on
the plains of North America expanded. About 2,000 years ago, there seemed to be a small shift
in subsistence strategy as corn was introduced into the diet of the ancient Pueblos. They started
to become a more sedimentary people and they began to focus their lives in the area around the
area of Colorado. Archaeologists call this stage of their society, from about year 0 until 550 CE,
“the Basketmakers,” primarily because of their extensive ability to weave and create baskets.
These baskets enabled the people of the region to gather food more effectively:
Food was a constant, primary concern for the Basket Makers. Like the earlier hunting
cultures of the Colorado Plateau, these people were masters at collecting seed, nuts, and other
fruits and berries. With corn available to cultivate, the people began to stay longer in the area.
They found that some species of gourds grew well in gardens, thus providing another food. They
were competent hunters. Tools were fashioned from the bones of animals.165
The Anasazi were from an original group that migrated to the Four Corners area around
100 BC (this is the point where four U.S. states come together: Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
and Utah). The Anasazi evolved in five periods. They moved to the area around the year 100
Wenger, Gilbert R. 1980, Story of Mesa Verde National Park. Available online at
http://www.mesaverde.org/smvf/p1.htm, and in print, p. 28
165
261
AD and evolved from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists, becoming sedentary around 500 AD.166
They may have been pushed into this inhospitable climate by other expanding peoples. A time
of advancement called or “Modified Basket maker” period followed (see Table IV-3).
Table IV-3
Anasazi Periods of Growth and Decline
Period
Name
1.
Basket Makers
2.
Modified Basket Maker
3.
Developmental Pueblo
4.
Pueblo
5.
Decline
Time Era
1-450 AD
450-750 AD
750-1100 AD
1100-1300 AD
1300-1600 AD
These simple technological advances were built on over time and slowly the rural
lifestyle became urban. This led to the “Developmental Pueblo” period, but this was in fact a
long process of evolution. “The Anasazi were dry farmers who relied on capturing unpredictable
rainfall for the growth of crops. After 1000 AD, their culture reached its maximum population
and geographic distribution, due to more efficient farming methods. They established trails and
roads and created points from which signals could be relayed. They engaged in a thriving trade,
especially of their distinctive black-on-white pottery and turquoise.”167
One source notes this gradual process led to steps forward but also steps back. ”With
their more settled lifestyle came the need for more permanent housing for the slowly increasing
population. Although the change was not immediately evident, these cultural adaptations
gradually changed the relationship between the Anasazi and their land. The ultimate impact of
disturbing the delicate balance between the use and abuse of the land took several hundred years
to manifest it fully. Michael Allen and Robert Stevens compare the fate of the Anasazi with
166
167
Bretemitz and Smith, 1975, p. 36.
Desert USA, http://www.desertusa.com/.
262
modern problem that result from upsetting the “delicate balance between human needs and
available environmental resources.” 168
One change was the development of new weaponry for hunting game and fighting with
other people. Over this period, the Anasazi replaced the atlatl with more advanced tools. The
atlatl is essentially a wooden device for propelling a spear and an evolutionary adaptation from
the earlier and larger Clovis point weapons used to hunt mega-fauna by the Anasazi’s ancestors,
the mammoth hunters. The development of bow and arrow technology proved to be a much
more useful weapon in the group’s arsenal and permitted the hunting of a larger population of
game. This led to food surpluses, but the limited supply of game was quickly exhausted. The
culmination of the “Pueblo” period was urbanization but the hunters needed to travel further and
further from the city for game. This centralization strategy ultimately failed and a period of
“Decline” ensued.
Archaeologist Stephen Lekson “found evidence of a swift migration by entire villages of
Anasazi around the year 1300” following a long drought that began about 1150 AD.169 There is
a debate on why. Was it simply migration or a search for more water? Was there conflict
between the groups in competition for the limited resources?
Similar to their Anasazi cousins, the Hohokam and the Mogollon declined after 1300.
The drought problem was thus widespread. By 1600, the Anasazi vanished. “Various theories
attribute diminished resources, population increases, lowered water tables, breakdown of social
structure or raiding by enemies as the cause of their demise.”170
168
Allen, Michael G.; Steven, Robert L., "People and their environment: Searching the
historical record", Social Studies, Jul/Aug 1996, Vol. 87 Issue 4, p. 156.
169
"Researchers Find Evidence on Movement Of Ancient Farming Group in
Southwest", Wall Street Journal, New York, N.Y., Oct 30, 2000.
170
Desert USA, http://www.desertusa.com/.
263
As the Anasazi decline became more intense, internecine conflict focused on limited
resources became an intense problem. Some believe the Anasazi turned to a new food source:
each other. “Human remains found at a twelfth-century A.D. site near Cowboy Wash in
southwestern Colorado provide further evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi.171 The
remains of 12 people were discovered at the site, but only five were from burials.
“The other seven appear to have been systematically dismembered, defleshed, their bones
battered, and in some cases burned or stewed, leaving them in the same condition as
bones of animals used for food. Cut marks, fractures, and other stone-tool scars were
present on the bones, and the light color of some suggests stewing. Patterns of burning
indicate that many were exposed to flame while still covered with flesh, which is what
would be expected after cooking over a fire.”172
Citing cannibalism as a source of conflict does not answer the question of why it
occurred. “Human remains from other sites in the area were similarly treated, and three
explanations have been proposed: hunger-induced cannibalism, ritual cannibalism adopted from
Mesoamerica, or something else altogether. They note a sharp increase in evidence of
cannibalism between 1130 and 1150, followed in each case by the abandonment of the site, then
a decrease in the early 1200s as the climate improved.” 173
There are parallel means for confirming these climate changes. “Careful scrutiny of treering records seemed to establish that in the late 1200's a prolonged dry spell called the Great
“A Case for Cannibalism," Archaeology, January/February 1994.
Amelie A. Walker, “Anasazi Cannibalism?”, 1997 by the Archaeological Institute of
America, Newsbriefs, Volume 50 Number 5 September/October 1997,
http://www.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/anasazi.html
173
Amelie A. Walker, Volume 50 Number 5 September/October 1997, Anasazi
Cannibalism? “A religious leader from a Ute tribe, on whose reservation the remains were
found, supervised the archaeological work and will rebury the bones.”
171
172
264
Drought drove these people, the ancestors of today's pueblo Indians, to abandon their
magnificent stone villages at Mesa Verde and elsewhere on the Colorado Plateau, never to return
again.”174
Archeological evidence shows that in this period, perhaps as a reaction to drier weather,
people in the Mesa Verde area began building dams and canals to trap and divert water to
terraced fields. They were "investing in landscapes" and presumably began to feel territorial
pressures. "The land was filling up with claims and rights".175 How do we link the record to the
theory? Correlating these tree data (dendrochronology) with information on productivity of
various soil types, modern crop yields, and detailed geography, Adler concludes that enough
corn could have been grown during the drought to support the population.” 176 Archeologists
believed the Anasazi suffered from malnutrition, shorter life spans and increased infant
mortality, but there is less evidence of catastrophe in the short-term.
Some climatological evidence, based on tree-ring and pollen studies, suggests that
Anasazi farmers may have been kept from moving to higher, moister grounds by a worldwide
cooling trend known as the Little Age Ice. This same phenomenon ended the Viking
colonization of Greenland and North America. The Anasazi were squeezed from two directions:
lower elevations too dry for farming and higher ones too cold.177
Historical records from 900 to 1300 A.D. in Europe indicate that this was a time of
changes in atmospheric circulation known as the Medieval Warm Period. In high-latitude regions
this was largely beneficial: grapes were grown in England and the Norse founded colonies first
George Johnson, “Social Strife May Have Exiled Ancient Indians”, The New York
Times, August 20, 1996, p. c-1 (Science Desk).
175
Van West.
176
George Johnson, “Social Strife May Have Exiled Ancient Indians”, The New York
Times, August 20, 1996, p. c-1 (Science Desk).
177
Van West.
174
265
in Iceland and then in southern Greenland. But in arid regions a warmer climate, especially when
accompanied by drought, can cause significant difficulties for farmers. A fifty-year drought
occurred between 1130 and 1180 A.D. It was during this period that soil and water conservation
features such as grid borders, terraces and check dams began to be built in the Four Corners
area.178
Yet the Anasazi were capable of continuing in their lands in that situation. They built a
number of reservoirs. Their dams were retained water, but also silt. “Intermittent water running
down the small drainage courses deposited silt behind the dams. The silt, which was often
several feet deep, would retain moisture for a considerable period of time. The Pueblo farmers
used those areas as small farming plots.” 179 They built an irrigation ditch more than four miles
long.180 The Anasazi were able to successfully grow enough corn, squash, beans, and cotton to
satisfy subsistence needs and create a surplus.
When this cycle of drought began, Anasazi civilization was at its height. Communities
were densely populated. Even with good rains, the Anasazi were using their land to its limits.
Without rain, it was impossible to grow enough food to support the population. Widespread
famine occurred. People left the area in large numbers to join other pueblo peoples to the south
and east, abandoning the Chaco Canyon pueblos and, later, the smaller communities that
Annenberg/CPB. 2001. "Collapse: Why Do Civilizations Fall? Chaco Canyon." Accessed
07/31/2003. http://www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/chacocanyon.html
179
Annenberg/CPB. 2001. "Collapse: Why Do Civilizations Fall? Chaco Canyon." Accessed
07/31/2003. http://www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/chacocanyon.html
180
Romero, Tom I. Spring 2002. Colorado Law Review. "Uncertain Waters And Contested
Lands: Excavating The Layers Of Colorado's Legal Past." Supranote 53. John Ragsdale. 1998.
“Anasazi Jurisprudence.” American Indian Law Review.
178
266
surrounded them. Anasazi civilization began a long period of migration and decline after these
years of drought and famine. By the 1300s, it had all but died out in Chaco Canyon.181
The Anasazi houses were built in large alcoves with overhanging ledges; making it
difficult to drop anything on them as part of an attack. Only a direct assault could be attempted.
The steep slope would make it difficult for an enemy to attack. Defenders in the houses could
carefully aim their arrows at attackers trying to run uphill with poor footwear over rough terrain.
If an attack lasted more than a day, the enemy would have to withdraw to obtain water and food.
Water and food stored in the cliff houses would provide the defenders at any time.182
The result of expanding populations and declining resources was conflict and warfare.
Jonathon Haas believes that “if you don't have enough food to feed your children, you go
raiding. And once I raid you, then you have justification to raid back -- the revenge motive. And
so warfare becomes endemic in the 13th century."183 Was the decline of the Anasazi pushed
over the edge by conflict? “Groundbreaking climatological studies have convinced many
archeologists that the "so-called Great Drought…simply was not bad enough to be the deciding
factor in the sudden evacuation, in which tens of thousands of Anasazi …moved to the Hopi
mesas in northeastern Arizona, to the Zuni lands in western New Mexico and to dozens of adobe
villages in the watershed of the Rio Grande.”184 Even more telling is evidence that the Anasazi
Romero.
Wegner.
183
Dr. Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago in Johnson.
184
George Johnson, Social Strife May Have Exiled Ancient Indians, The New York Times,
August 20, 1996, p. c-1 (Science Desk). "Nobody is talking about great droughts anymore,"
asserts anthropologist Linda Cordell. "The mystery of the Anasazi is an open book again."
181
182
267
had weathered many severe droughts in the past. Why did the one in the late 13th century cause
an entire population to abandon the settlements they had worked so hard to build?185
The drought clearly provides a powerful tool push factor that favors migration. "The
peculiar character of the abandonment is its completeness, its rapidity. This suggests that some
kind of 'pull' was operating as well -- or an ideology favoring migration." Analyzing the spread
of religious symbols found on rocks or pottery and the distribution of ceremonial structures,
some archeologists argue that the Anasazi may have been pulled from their homeland by a new
religion emerging among neighbors to the south.
Recent climate studies suggest a disruption in rainfall patterns in a way that may have
made the Anasazi disillusioned with their old religion. Suddenly, the customary pattern of heavy
snows in the winter followed by summer monsoons had become unpredictable. Even if there
was not a great drought, moisture may have been coming at the wrong times. The summer rains,
so necessary to keep the spring crops from dying, were no longer reliable. The rain dances were
not working anymore.
c.
The Jordan River and Conflict in the Middle East
Time
Class
Category
Type
Modern
Environmental Breadth
Specific Resources
Water
Conflict over water resources was an indirect issue with respect to the Anasazi and direct
issue with respect to the ancient Egyptians. Water among the Anasazi was so scarce that disaster
was an inevitable outcome. Conflict arose over the disposition of the dwindling resources. The
185
George Johnson, Social Strife May Have Exiled Ancient Indians, The New York Times,
August 20, 1996, p. c-1 (Science Desk).
268
case of the Nile was an early harbinger of the coming stress that growing populations would
exert on supplies and the conflict situations that would result. The scarcity of water and how it
invites conflict is naturally an issue in areas where water is generally scarce. On a global
regional scale, this means the Middle East ought to have a higher number of conflicts because it
is the driest portion of the planet. It is also in the Tension Belt. One would expect these cases to
focus on the few major waterways in the Mideast, such as the Jordan River.
The combination of the limited water resources and the Middle East’s role as a crossroads
for human and Neanderthal populations has produced a rich and conflict-filled history. Its
geographic space makes it inviting to people, but its actual ability to support human populations
is rather low (at least today). This modern problem has roots in a problem that dates back to the
ancient water cases related to the Nile River case and others.
The state of Israel emerged in 1948 and led to an immediate war with its Arab neighbors.
Control of water resources was an essential part of the conflict. Controlling water was a direct
continuation of the conflict even after hostilities ceased. In 1951, Jordan began an irrigation
project that tapped into the Yarmuk River, some say to deprive Israelis of downstream water in
the Jordan River. Israel then closed the gates on a dam south of the Sea of Galilee and began
draining the Huleh swamps.186 The swamps lay within the demilitarized zone and led to border
skirmishes between Syria and Israel.187 (This has some similarity with the later Korean DMZ
case.)
In the early 1950’s, Israel created a National Water Carrier to transport water from the
Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee to the Negev desert. These new waterways permitted
See “Jordan River Dispute”, TED Case Studies, November 1997.
http”//www.American.edu/TED/westabnk.htm.
187
Aaron T. Wolf, Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River: Scarce Water and its Iimpact on
the Arab-Israeli conflict, New York: United Nations University Press, 1995, p. 45.
186
269
cultivation of desert land. In 1955 Syrian artillery units opened fire on the Israeli construction
team. In an attempt to settle the water dispute, American President Eisenhower appointed Eric
Johnston as mediator.188 This was the first recognition of the key role of water in negotiation.
In 1953, Israel began construction of the National Water Carrier at the intake point north
of the Sea of Galilee. The intake point was within the demilitarized zone, established in the
aftermath of the 1948 war. Syria threatened a military response, and after international
disapproval, Israel moved the construction to Eshed Kinrot.
Diversion of the Jordan River was one of causes of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. In 1964,
Israel opened the National Water Carrier and began diverting water from the Jordan. This
project was in competition with a similar plan for water withdrawal in Jordan, as part of the East
Ghor Project.
The First Arab Summit of 1964 began with plans to divert the Jordan headwaters to Arab
states. In 1965, Arab States started construction on the Headwater Diversion Plan; diverting the
Hasbani into the Litani in Lebanon, and the Banias into the Yarmuk and caught at a dam at
Mukheiba in Jordan and Syria. This diversion would have accounted for a loss of 35 per cent of
Israel’s total water diversions and would cause the salinity rate to increase in Lake Kinneret.
Israel vowed to fight for the water.189 On four occasions between 1965 and 1967, the Israeli
army attacked the diversion construction in Syria, and these border skirmishes led to two air
battles.
During the 1967 war, Israel destroyed the Arab diversion construction and in six days
captured the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. The latter
188
Cooley, p. 9.
Aaron T. Wolf, Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River: Scarce Wwater and its Impact on
the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: United Nations University Press, 1995), p. 50.
189
270
two were returned as part of a peace agreement with Egypt. Water was an issue with respect to
the Golan Heights, where Israel now controlled the Jordan Rivers headwaters and had access to
the waters of the Yarmuk River. Israel also gained access to the length of the Jordan River and
controlled its three major aquifers.
In 1969, Israel attacked Jordan’s East Ghor Canal. Earlier that year, Israeli Water
Authorities measured the Yarmuk River, found its level below average, and accused Jordan of
diverting the waters through the canal. Following terrorist attacks in 1969, Israel twice destroyed
the new East Ghor Canal. All of this eventually became more political than factual. After U.S.
mediation, a fact-finding enquiry convinced Israel that the drop in water flow was the result of
natural forces.
Rivers are not the only areas of contention. After the 1967 war, Israel controlled the
recharge zone of the Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer, which currently supplies about 1/3 of Israel s
water supply. Israel’s 1967 nationalization of all the West Bank water resources further
increased tensions. The nationalization limited Palestinian water use and there were further
limits on the amount of water withdrawn by wells, and has curtailed Palestinian drilling for
wells. Palestinians also complain that during water shortages their water is shut off before that
of the Israeli settlement areas.190
The Jordan River originates on the border of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Three springs
converge to create the headwaters: the Hasbani River (originating in south Lebanon), the Dan
River (originating in Israel), and the Banais River (originating in the Golan Heights and
converge six kilometers within Israel and flow into the Sea of Galilee. Ten kilometers past the
190
Sharif S. Elmusa, "The Water Issue and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," Information
Paper Number 2 (Washington, DC: Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, 1993), p. 3.
271
sea, the river joins with the Yarmuk River (originating in Syria and Jordan). The Jordan River
reaches the Dead Sea at 400 meters below sea level.191
Figure IV-9: The Jordan River
The Jordan River
travels through two very
different regions: a
Mediterranean climate in the
north and desert in the south.
The rainfall pattern varies over
time, but generally decreasing
from north to south and west to
east (see Figure IV-9). About
75 per cent of the rainfall
comes in the four winter months, with substantial annual variations (25-40 per cent).
An aquifer’s utility is measured by the amount that can be pumped out without depleting
the water left in storage. The "safe yield" is usually equal to the recharge rate.192 The three main
aquifers in the area are west of the Jordan, and are central to the water supply of Israel, Jordan,
and the West Bank and Gaza Strip: a western, or Yarkon-Taninim or Mountain, aquifer, a
191
See Aaron T. Wolf, Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River: Scarce Water and Its Impact
on the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: United Nations University Press, 1995) 7 and Xavier
Henri Farinelli, "Freshwater Conflicts in the Jordan River Basin," Green Cross International
http://www.gci.ch/water/gcwater/study.html, p. 24.
192
Ismail Serageldin, “Water Diplomacy and the 21st Century: From Conflict to
Cooperation”, Fifth World Bank Conference, Washington, D.C., October 10, 1997.
272
northeastern aquifer, which discharges into northern Israel, and the eastern aquifer that flows to
the Jordan Valley.
Israel’s renewable annual water supply has 60 per cent coming from groundwater and 40
per cent from surface waters. Almost all water comes from the Jordan River Basin. About a
third comes from the Sea of Galilee, while the western aquifer supplies another third. Water
supplies also receive more per year from wastewater reclamation and non- renewable
groundwater. The total is divided as follows: 73 per cent to agriculture, 22 per cent to domestic
use, and 5 per cent to industrial use. This water irrigates 66 per cent of Israel’s cropland (see
Table IV-4).
Table IV-4
Water Use in the Idle East
Water Sources
% Surface % Aquifer
Israel*
West Bank
Palestine
Jordan
Gaza
Volume
(mcm/year)
1,800
40
115
700
60
50
--
Water Uses
% Agric % Domestic
% Industry
60
73
90
22
10
5
--
50
100
85
95
10
5
5
--
* Israel captures 200mcm/year in wastewater reclamation.
Source: Aaron T. Wolf, Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River, pp. 10-12
One approach to increasing water availability is to promote desalinization but this
remains an expensive proposition. Another is to bring seawater to places inland where salinity
rates are already high. The Dead Canal is the grandest of these ideas and perhaps the most
appealing.
273
A million years ago, a major earthquake created the Syrian-African Rift, the Dead Sea,
and the Jordan River Valley.193 The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at 400 feet below sea
level. Dead Sea water evaporates and creates salts that have both therapeutic and chemical
application. The Dead Sea's salt concentration is about 33 percent, compared to 3 percent in the
Mediterranean Sea.
In the 1930s, the inflow of freshwater into the Dead Sea was roughly equal to the rate of
evaporation, with the Jordan River emptying some 1,300 cubic millimeters/year (two thirds of
the total inflow) into the Dead Sea. Today, that inflow is only 400 cubic millimeters per year
due to national water projects on both sides of the Jordan that have diverted upstream water. As
the rate of inflow from the Jordan has decreased, so has the level of the Dead Sea.194
The idea of connecting the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean goes back to the 19th century,
when some engineers suggested the possibility of using the natural elevation difference between
the two seas to produce hydroelectric energy. According to this scheme, turbines would convert
water into mechanical energy that could be used to produce electricity. The electricity could then
be used for desalinization and the creation of fresh water.
Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, formalized the idea of a hydropower
canal connecting the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea in his 1902 novel Altneuland. He wrote that
it would be possible to take advantage of the 400-meter drop to generate hydroelectric power. In
the 1950s, the American conservationist Walter C. Lowdermilk, conducted research on a canal
stretching from the Mediterranean, across the Negev Desert, to the Dead Sea. He concluded that
See Shari Berke, “Dead Sea Canal”, TED Case Studies, No. 429, January 1998,
http://www.american.edu/TED/deadsea.htm.
194
The Dead Sea originally consisted of two basins -- a larger, deep northern basin and a
shallow southern one -- separated by a peninsula called El Lisan ("the tongue" in Arabic). The
southern basin is essentially dry, except for evaporation ponds used for Israeli and Jordanian
potash plants.
193
274
the 400-meter drop would generate 100 megawatts of electric power. Scientists have revisited
the idea of a hydroelectric scheme that would produce water without flooding tourist and
industrial sites along the shores.
In 1977, an Israeli planning group considered four possible routes for a canal: one from
the Gulf of Aqaba in the south and three from the Mediterranean (the northernmost being the one
envisioned by Lowdermilk). The group favored the southern-most Mediterranean route, which
would avoid the country's major aquifers and could promote development in the northern Negev.
The project would refill the lake to the level of the 1930s over a period of 10 to 20 years.
The Jordanians proposed a similar canal, with the source of water originating from the
Red Sea instead of the Mediterranean. According to the plan, water would be pumped from the
Red Sea at Jordan's southernmost town of Aqaba to an elevation of 220 meters. From there, it
would flow via tunnel through the Jordan Rift Valley before dropping into the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is part of ancient culture. Aristotle (304-322 B.C.) was the first to tell the
world about the salty body of water where no fish live and people float. Pliny the Elder (23-79
BC) reported the therapeutic qualities of the water. King Solomon and Cleopatra used Dead Sea
compounds to cure common ailments. There has been export of the chemical products for
several thousand years.
One study estimates that construction of the canal would take 10 years with a rough cost
of $5 billion. The estimated cost of water diverted by a canal would range from $1.30 to $1.55
per cubic meter. These costs are roughly in line with the cost of desalinated seawater.
What are the solutions? Desalinization seems one of a few ways to increase the amount
of water available. Although infrastructure is expensive, the price of desalinated water has
decreased. In the early 1980s, the unit cost was $1.2 per cubic meter. By 1994, the cost dropped
275
to between $0.6 and $0.7. Price decreases are expected to continue as the desalination industry
continues to grow.
The Dead Sea is not in danger of drying up any time soon. Water evaporates slowly
because the water’s dissolved salts lower the vapor pressure over the surface. According to the
current rate of evaporation, it would take hundreds of years for the lake to dry up because the
northern basin is so deep.
The Jordan River supplies Israel and Jordan with the vast majority of their water. Many
hydrologists believe that people need 1000 cubic meters per person per year as a minimum water
requirement for an efficient moderately industrialized nation. Inside Israel's border, the
availability of water per-capita in 1990 was 470 cubic meters. It is estimated that by the year
2025 this availability will be reduced to 310 cubic meters.195 As such, over 50 percent of Israel's
water sources rely on rain that falls outside of the Israeli border. Israel depends on water supply
that comes from rivers either that originates outside the border, or from disputed lands.
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Water Cases
Two points of comparison are relevant. First, there existed extensive relations between
these ancient empires that relied on wood and water for survival. No doubt these exchanges also
included transfers of technology, including military technology. Trade became another means
for ameliorating the difference between the push and pull factors. Second, the need for water
today, due to an extreme imbalance between push and pull factors, creates extreme frontiers of
dispute.
195
Glace, p. 101.
276
The cases on the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus Rivers are three of the great homes of
ancient river civilizations. No doubt trade led to some synchronicity in their approaches to
environment and conflict situations. These relations are nonetheless undeniable.
“Archaeologists from UCLA and the University of Delaware have unearthed the most
extensive remains to date from sea trade between India and Egypt during the Roman
Empire, adding to mounting evidence that spices and other exotic cargo traveled into
Europe over sea as well as land.”196
The relations became so extensive that systems of competing transportation modes that
traveled over land and by water grew. The desire for interaction was stronger than the
impediments of connection imposed by countries that lie between them. "When cost and
political conflict prevented overland transport, ancient mariners took to the Red Sea, and the
route between India and Egypt appears to have been even more productive than we ever
thought." 197
The importance of sea trade became a key means to meet the wood deficit. It was also an
early example of the idea of recycling.
“Among the buried ruins of buildings that date back to Roman rule, the team discovered
vast quantities of teak, a wood indigenous to India and today's Myanmar, but not capable
of growing in Egypt, Africa or Europe. Researchers believe the teak, which dates to the
196
http://www.popular-science.net/history/india_egypt_trade_route.html
, Popular-Science.net, “Archaeologists Uncover Maritime Spice Route between India, Egypt”,
September 3, 2004 (same as access date).
197
http://www.popular-science.net/history/india_egypt_trade_route.html, PopularScience.net, “Archaeologists Uncover Maritime Spice Route between India, Egypt”, September
3, 2004 (same as access date). "The Silk Road gets a lot of attention as a trade route, but we've
found a wealth of evidence indicating that sea trade between Egypt and India was also important
for transporting exotic cargo, and it may have even served as a link with the Far East." For over
eight years, archaeologists have excavated a site at Berenike, an abandoned Egyptian sea port on
the Red Sea near the border with Sudan.
277
first century, came to the desert port as hulls of shipping vessels. When the ships became
worn out or damaged beyond repair, Berenike [an ancient city located in modern day
Sudan] residents recycled the wood for building materials, the researchers said. The team
also found materials consistent with ship-patching activities, including copper nails and
metal sheeting.” 198
Three key issues show how resources became more specifically targeted with human
development. From hunting grounds needed to acquire food, to wood needed to build cities, to
the important role of water irrigation, these new concerns reflect the old concerns of human
development. The foes in the conflicts also changed: from Neanderthal to mythic creatures (a
symbol of nature) to other human beings and their gods. Egypt, as noted in the earlier Cedars of
Lebanon case study, was already importing wood and timber from Lebanon to build its great
cities 3,000 years ago.
The modern battle for water is not above ground but below it. There is simply no more
surface water to distribute and that which remains is highly contentious. The focus thus is on
water under the ground. “Aquifers are underground water systems that underlie most of the
earth's landmass. Shallow aquifers are renewable, in that they are continually replenished from
rain water and snow melt that seeps down into the ground rather than immediately being drained
by streams and rivers into the oceans. Fossil aquifers, on the other hand, are extremely deeplying (i.e., half a mile or more) aquifers that are non-renewable, at least in terms of a time scale
useful for human populations (according to the Food and Agriculture Organization). The term
stems from the fact that some of these aquifers were formed (and sealed) in prehistoric (even pre-
198
http://www.popular-science.net/history/india_egypt_trade_route.html, PopularScience.net, “Archaeologists Uncover Maritime Spice Route between India, Egypt”, September
3, 2004 (same as access date).
278
human) times.” 199 A huge aquifer underlies Egypt and Libya and others are in Sudan and Chad
that also cross national borders, though far underground. Some aquifers are replenished by slow
natural processes. Fossil aquifers are completely enclosed, similar to oil, and are not renewed.
What are the environmental and legal consequences? How much water is there? What
are international implications? Other large aquifers include the Guarani in South America, the
Kalahari in Southern Africa and the Nubian in Northeast Africa. Will this issue lead to more
cooperation or more conflict?
The Anasazi case is reminiscent of the “ancient cases” that examined water as a specific
resource that can be a reason for conflict, especially that of the Nile River. The Nile is the
longest river on the planet (there are some differences on how one measures the length of the
river) and the Anasazi relied on the existence of much smaller rivers or streams. Size is thus an
important attribute of the cases, in that the scale of impacts may be proportional to the size of
populations supported by rivers.
There are also links to the Mayans before their decline that helped shaped Anasazi
culture. There were Meso American influences on Chaco culture and similarities in architecture
(great houses), the practice of teeth chiseling, and the existence of cannibalism. Perhaps the
Anasazi learned of the fate of the Mayans, and chose another alternative.
"Anasazi…was a Navajo word. The Navajo used it to describe the ancient people, now
vanished, whose ruined dwellings the Navajo found when they migrated into the Four
Corners region from the northward. In a loose, vague sense Anasazi meant ancient
enemies. Richard did not know if this implied that the first of the Navajos had found
199
Donald Jones, Center for Heritage Resource Studies,
http://www.heritage.umd.edu/CHRSWeb/World%20Heritage/Heritage%20Spots/Heritage%20S
pots%20PH.htm, at the University of Maryland in College Park.
279
some of these early ones still in their pueblos and cliff dwellings, and made war upon
them."200
The change in climate that impacted the Mayas, Anasazi and the Vikings were all related
to this single phenomenon of vast changes in temperature and climate over the period from year
900 to 1500 that impacted large parts of the Northern Hemisphere. These are lessons for the
debate on current climate change and its relation to conflict.
The existence of fresh water in arid areas is an ecotone artifact that naturally invites
conflict. The need for water might be expressed as water availability per person and no doubt,
there are those thresholds that indicate the likelihood of conflict once water use dropped below
those levels. This threshold might represent something such as minimum daily requirements for
a person.
The ancient Nile case and the middle-era Anasazi case shows the imbalance between
supply and demand for water in areas where it is sparse. The modern Jordan River case echoes
this long standing trend in the Middle East. Water is both the cradle of civilization and the grave
of many from intersections of conflict and environment.
5.
Weapons
Early people saw the power of nature and the damage it could wreak though earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions. In particular, the river cities that grew were often destroyed and rebuilt
after major floods. Water could be a great weapon. The recognition that the environment and its
resources can actually be used as weapons of war or part of a war strategy is explored through
200
McNitt, Frank. Anasazi. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.
280
case studies of water and the Assyrians, the Native American and buffalo, and the Kuwait War
and oil. The weapons of war required great efforts in history and these efforts are now more
capable with modern technology.
There are relatively few cases of the use of the environment as a weapon of war, similar
to the issue of climate change. The cases are all relatively short in duration in achieving their
outcome and the outcome is usually a definitive victory. In the purple feedback loop in the
environment sub-system, the link of victory is associated especially with the extremely near and
extremely long term (see Figure IV-9). The former suggests a quick end to a battle, the latter to
a multi-generation struggle.
Figure IV-9
The Environment as a Sub-System Causal System (Purple Loop in Conflict-Environment
Overlap Sub-System)
a.
Weapons: Nebuchadnezzar’s Water Wars
Time Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Ownership
Non-Sovereign
Environment as a Weapon
281
As human settlements grew and put increasing strains of the water supply, the growing
scarcity reflected interest in engaging in conflict to secure resources. Water emerged as a
resource worth fighting for, especially due to the successes of the Agricultural Revolution.
Water use evolved from an aspect of survival to an early weapon of mass destruction.
One of the earliest examples of the use of water as a weapon is the ancient Sumerian
myth -- which parallels the Biblical account of Noah and the deluge -- recounting the
deeds of the diety Ea, who punished humanity’s sins by inflicting the Earth with a great
flood. According to the Sumerians, the patriarch Utu speaks with Ea who warns him of
the impending flood and orders him to build a large vessel filled with ‘all the seeds of
life’.201
Truth or mythology, the great flood story reflects the historical importance of water in the
Middle East. Not only did ancient society understand water’s value in the life cycle, but it
understood water’s potential to bring agricultural prosperity and physical security. The people
experienced the effects of flood and sought an explanation for such devastation. Finding
answers in the will of the gods, they connected the great flood to gods’ punishment for original
sin, which is an interpretation of free will in all three traditions. The gods were the first to
introduce the water weapon to man, whose free will allows him to mimic the gods. Since the
great flood, men have used water as a weapon of mass destruction by its contamination,
diversion, dispossession, and by waterpower itself.
Water has been an element in conflict in other historical writings dating over 4000 years
old. Moses led the Jews away from slavery and across the Sinai desert where the Egyptian army
trapped them against the Red Sea. In the story, the Red Sea suddenly parted and led the Jews to
Haleh Hatami and Peter Gleick. “Conflicts Over Water in the Myths, Legends, and
Ancient History of the Middle East.” Environment, April 1994, Vol. 36, Issue 3.
201
282
freedom but them closed and destroyed the Egyptian army.
The story of Exodus was originally
written in Hebrew Yam Sup, a language that can be interpreted in many ways. Although the Red
Sea is the common translation, the author could have meant the Sea of Reeds, the Gulf of Suez,
the Gulf of Aqaba, or even the Mediterranean Sea. Recent evidence makes it scientifically
plausible that the Jews could have crossed the Red Sea around 1500 BC, as in the story. Russian
researchers Naum Volzinger and Alexei Androsov determined that a reef runs across the
northern Red Sea.202 They have reason to believe that the reef was much closer to the surface in
Moses’ time, and that the reef could have been exposed for small periods of time depending on
weather patterns and tidal movements.
The use of environment as an instrument of war has occurred throughout history.
Nebuchadnezzar (604-562 B.C.) went to war over the Cedars of Lebanon and employed the
waters of the Euphrates to defend Babylon from Assyrian attacks.203 Water became a tool of war
for both offense and defense in attacking city-states. Nebuchadnezzar wrote that "to strengthen
the defenses of Babylon, I had a mighty dike of earth thrown up, above the other, from the banks
of the Tigris to that of the Euphrates five bern long and I surrounded the city with a great
expanse of water, with waves on it like the sea."204 The defense also included an intricate system
of canals. Nebuchadnezzar, however, did not start these projects but did finish them. He
completed the works of his father, Nabopolassa. Nebuchadnezzar's building operations "were so
extensive that in this particular he outranks all who preceded him, whether in Assyria or in
Viegas, Jennifer. “Study: Red Sea Parting Possible.” Discover News. December 2, 2004.
Available [online] http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040202/redsea.html, accessed
February 2, 2004.
203
Rogers, 1915
204
Drower, 1954.
202
283
Babylonia."205 Nebuchadnezzar evidently took pride in his accomplishments: "his long and
elaborately written inscriptions have only a boastful line or two of conquest, while their long
periods are heavy with the descriptions of extraordinary building operations."206 Large-scale
water diversions became a weapon.
Babylon, like Baghdad, was a difficult city to defend because the Euphrates River
transects it. The older part of the city lay on the east bank and the new on the west.
Nebuchadnezzar built forts at the north end, where prior invasions originated. He added a
hydrological defense as well and diverted the Euphrates through a canal into a moat that wrapped
around the city.207 Behind the great moat there were two walls: the inner wall of Babylon, the
Imgur-Bêl, and the outer wall, the Nimitti-Bêl. The city was thought to be impregnable due to
the moat and walls. The walls had a protected roadway called Imgur-Enlil, and Nimitti-Enlil
(see later case studies on Hadrian’s Wall and the Great Wall of China). Herodotus, the Athenian
historian, in Book One of his Histories includes this description of Babylon. “The wall is built
down to the water on both sides, and at an angle to it there is another wall on each bank, built of
baked bricks without mortar, running through the town. There are a great many houses of three
and four stories. The main streets and the side streets which lead to the river are all dead
straight, and for every one of the side streets or alleys there was a bronze gate in the river wall by
which the water could be reached.”208 The areas where the river entered the city were also
secured. Nebuchadnezzar notes "no pillaging robber might enter into this water sewer, with
205
206
207
208
Rogers, 1915.
Rogers, 1915
Wellard, 1972.
Sack, 1991.
284
bright iron bars I closed the entrance to the river, in gratings of iron I set it and fastened it with
hinges." 209
Nebuchadnezzar, devotee of the god Marduk (noted earlier in the Epic of Gilgamesh),
believed that "eternal fame rested on his creation of a rampart that would protect both his citizens
and his god's temple from attack. Likewise, Gilgamesh built a rampart enclosing his city of
Uruk and linked faith with conflict and “raised up the names of the gods' in a manner not seen
before his time."210 Virtually all Mesopotamian rulers "considered defense of their capitals and
the maintenance of their god's temples to be the keys to eternal fame."211
Nebuchadnezzar’s defense of Babylon through the use of the water was to be repeated
many times throughout ancient history. As soon as humans learned to use water control as a
resource from agricultural production, so too did they learn to use it as a weapon of war.
Peter Gleick says that “The history of water-related disputes in the Middle East goes back
to antiquity and is described in the many myths, legends, and historical accounts that have
survived from earlier times. These disputes range from conflicts over access to adequate water
supplies to intentional attacks on water delivery systems during wars.”212
This chronology is presented in the form of cases or events that involve water and
conflict. Gleick’s database includes 120 cases in all, many of which overlap with the TED cases
(in fact some are used). Gleick also presents these cases in terms of some basic categories for
comparison and contrast over time (see Table IV-5).213
209
Sack, 1991.
Sack, 1991.
211
Sack, 1991.
212
Gleick, et al, “Water, War and Peace in the Middle East”, Environment.
213
Peter Gleick, The World’s Water: Information on the World’s Freshwater Resources,
“Water Conflict Chronology”, Pacific Institute, Updated August 18, 2003.
http://www.worldwater.org/conflict.htm, accessed September 4, 2004.
210
285
The category operationalization is described in
Gleick (1993, 1998). The “Bases of Conflict” includes
(1) political goals, (2) military goals, (3) development
disputes, (4) conflict targets, (5) conflict tools, and (6)
Table IV-5
Water Cases Coding Categories
(Peter Gleick)
1.
Date
2.
Parties Involved
3.
Bases of Conflict
4.
Violent vs. Context Conflict
5.
Description
terrorism. Violent versus context conflict differentiates
direct and indirect links between conflict and water.
The use of water has been an integral part of human history and human conflict. A 2003
UNESCO report noted that since “ancient times, the destruction of water resources and facilities
have been used as weapons against the enemy.”214 History is full of such examples from all over
the world, showing a great variety of ways and means to use water in military conflicts.
Perhaps the idea of water as a weapon was when places saw the destruction of their
homes through great floods, although the usually attributed to action to a vengeful god. Great
floods are noted in the ancient Sumerian texts of 3000 BC and the role of the god Ea in
punishing humans as well as in the Epic of Gilgamesh. For western civilization this story
became the legend of Noah.
In all three stories the same theme with variation is repeated. Human free will, taken by
eating the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, had gone too far and god wreaked
vengeance on unholy people, and this vengeance is repeated in the stories of Sodom and
Gomorrah as well. In this case, only the pious Noah and his family are spared a world wide
flood. Having the foresight to build a giant ship and acquire pairs of all animals, Noah drifts on
an endless sea until arriving on Mount Ararat and the waters then begin to subside.
214
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004. http://www.wateryear2003.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=4682&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.
286
A modern explanation is being pursued to suggest that this story was a real event. Robert
Ballard and others have found evidence of human settlements deep in the Black Sea.215 The idea
is that the melting glacial waters of the post Ice Age lead to the breaching of a sea wall that
existed in the Straights of Dardanelles. The influx of sea water lay atop the existing fresh water,
thus helping in the preservation of artifacts and flooded the people for lived along the shore of
the lake. The idea is that this flood may have been the basis for the Noah story.
Diverting precious water was also an issue long ago, and is an example of indirect
conflict. “Urlama, King of Lagash from 2450 to 2400 B.C., diverts water from the region to
boundary canals, drying up boundary ditches to deprive Umma [another city state] of water. His
son Il cuts of the water supply to Girsu, a city in Umma.”
Conflict broke out between the Mesopotamian city-states of Umma and Lagash over the
fertile soils and water of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. From roughly 2500 to 2400 B.C.
conflicts occurred over irrigation systems and diversion of water.216
Gleick’s water history shows that water as a weapon was frequently used through ancient
history. “Other historical accounts offer fascinating insights into the role of water in war and
politics. Sargon II, the Assyrian king from 720 to 705 B.C., destroyed the intricate irrigation
network of the Haldians after his successful campaign through Armenia.”217
Water was also used to put down civil unrest. Chronicles 32.3 describes Sennacherib’s
attack on Jerusalem. In this instance Jerusalem is saved by digging a conduit from wells outside
Robert Ballard and Malcom McConnell. “Adventures in Ocean Exploration: From the
Discovery of the Titanic to the Search for Noah's Flood”, National Geographic Society, 2001.
See also Ryan, William and Walter Pitman. Noah’s Flood, New York: Touchstone. 1998.
216
Gleick, et al, “Water, war and peace in the Middle East”, Environment.
217
Gleick, et al, “Water, war and peace in the Middle East”, Environment.
215
287
the city walls to cut off enemy water supplies.218 “In quelling rebellious Assyrians in 695 B.C.,
Sennacherib razes Babylon and diverts one of the irrigation canals so that its water wash over the
ruins.” In 689 B.C., in revenge for the death of his son, he destroyed the canals that supplied
water to the city.
Control of water resources became part of wartime campaigns. “Assurbanipal, King of
Assyria from 669 to 626 B.C., seized water wells as part of his strategy of desert warfare against
Arabia.219 In 612 B.C., “a coalition of Egyptian, Median (Persian), and Babylonian forces
attacks and destroys Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nebopolassar,
lead the Babylonians. The converging armies divert the Khosr River to create a flood, which
allows them to elevate their siege engines on rafts.” In this case water was used as a means of
laying siege to fortified cities.
Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 B.C.) built immense walls around Babylon and used the
Euphrates River to create a series of canals as defensive moats. The ancient historian Berossus
said that he "arranged it so that besiegers would no longer be able to divert the river against the
city by surrounding the inner city with three circuits of walls."220 In other wars he used water in
different ways. ”In 596 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar breached the aqueduct that supplied the city of
Tyre in order to end a long siege.” 221
Another ancient historian, Herodotus, tells how Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in
539 B.C. by diverting the Euphrates River into the desert. He then marched troops into the city
along the dry riverbed. The fascination with using water as a weapon continued through out
218
Chronicles 32:3
Gleick, et al, “Water, war and peace in the Middle East”, Environment.
220
Gleick, et al, “Water, war and peace in the Middle East”, Environment.
221
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004. http://www.wateryear2003.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=4682&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.
219
288
history. ”In 1503, Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli planned to divert the Arno River away
from Pisa during a conflict between Pisa and Florence.”222
Modern wars too focus on destruction of water assets. “In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek
ordered the destruction of flood-control dikes on a section of the Yellow River in order to flood
areas threatened by the Japanese army. The flood did destroy part of the invading army, but also
between 10,000 and 1 million Chinese people were displaced.”223 Allied forces targeted
hydroelectric facilities in Germany in World War II and U.S. planes destroyed large parts of
North Vietnam’s water system infrastructure. “North Vietnam claimed a death toll of 2 to 3
million inhabitants due to the drowning or starvation that resulted from these attacks.” 224 Like
the Romans who salted the wells of the Carthaginians after defeating them in the Punic Wars, in
the 1999 war in Kosovo “water supplies and wells were contaminated by Serbs”. 225
The use of water in conflict in the Middle East has continued up to today. In 1974, Iraq
threatened to attack the al-Thawra Dam in Syria, and both sides called up border troops due to a
dispute over control of downstream water. Completed in 1968, the impact was pronounced in
the 1973-5 period when there were extensive droughts in the region. Only through the mediation
of Saudi Arabia was war diverted. Since water behind dams can also be used to create
electricity, war was extended into the realm of the use of water as a source of energy. Warfare
adapted to this reality. In 1981, during the Iran-Iraq war, Iran bombed a dam for hydroelectric
production in Kurdistan.
Water scarcity has led to some initial efforts to use ocean water to supplement water
resources, although is not fit for human consumption. In 1991, “during the Gulf War, Iraq
222
223
224
225
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004.
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004.
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004.
UNESCO, 2003, accessed September 4, 2004.
289
destroys much of Kuwait’s desalination capacity during retreat.” The allies targeted Baghdad’s
water and sanitation systems as part of the war. In response to a Shiite rebellion following the
Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein in 1993 launches a water deprivation war against the Ma’dan
or Marsh Arabs.226
Water was an ancient dual-use product. It was both vital to a nation’s existence but also
could be used as a weapon of war. Water was considered as a weapon in the Gulf War. The
Allied forces, especially the United States, feared that Iraq would use chemical or biological
weapons against invading troops. In the search for responses other than chemical, biological or
nuclear, the United States held out the option of destroying several upstream dams from Baghdad
on the Euphrates River. The release of waters would cause large-scale destruction downstream
since most cities are on or near the river and ruin related water uses for human consumption or
agriculture, for example.
b.
Weapons: The Slaughter of the Buffalo in Native American Wars
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Conflict
Non-territory
Weapons
Deer were a key food source for the survival for poor people in England living on the
margin in the time of Robin Hood. In North America, buffalo filled this role and assumed an allencompassing part of the lifestyle of some Native Americans living on the plains. The English
of Nottingham could survive without deer but the Native American could not survive without the
buffalo. This reliance on a single resource was their key to survival but also a major weakness.
See Robert D. Cohen, “Marsh Arabs”, TED Case Studies, January 1995, Number 189,
http://www.american.edu/TED/marsh.htm.
226
290
Although the Mayan and Anasazi civilizations collapsed, and the Incas and Aztecs
conquered, the tribes of the Great Plains thrived and their numbers grew following the advent of
Europeans into North America. The Spaniards who invaded Mexico also brought horses back to
North America after a lapse of at least 10,000 years. Horses were native to North America but
died out, probably because of human hunting for food. The horse greatly increased the ability of
these tribes to exploit buffalo, around which their subsistence strategy was based, and they took
advantage. The Native Americans relied on the buffalo for meat, clothing, shelter, and even
waterproof containers made from the horns. In the war against them, killing the buffalo became
a key strategy of the US Army.227
For many decades, most Americans knew of the Great Plains simply as the Great
American Desert, an inhospitable area of poor soil, little water, "hostile" Indians, and general
inaccessibility. The American Civil War and its aftermath changed that conception and there
were three forces largely responsible. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act; in 1869, the
first transcontinental railroad was completed, and in 1873, barbed wire fencing was introduced.
Coupled with improvements in dry farming and irrigation and the confinement of American
Indians to reservations, after much brutal warfare, the Americans were the majority population in
the Great American Desert.
The U.S. Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the president to grant Indian nations
unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their lands. These attempts were usually met with
violent resistance, especially the members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, Cherokee,
and Creek tribes. Some 100,000 people were forcibly removed, many in manacles. The trek of
227
Parts of this section were researched and written by Melissa Brockly.
291
the Cherokee in 1838-1839 was known as the Trail of Tears. Wars over resettlement were also
fought with the Seminoles (1835-42) and many others.
The Indian Territory was that part of the United States west of the Mississippi, and not
within the States of Missouri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas. Never an organized
territory, it was soon restricted to the present state of Oklahoma. The Choctaw, Creek, Seminole,
Cherokee, and Chickasaw tribes were forcibly moved to this area between 1830 and 1843 from
the American Southeast, and an act of June 30, 1834 set aside the land as Indian country which
later came to be known as Indian Territory.
In 1866, the western half of Indian Territory was ceded to the United States, which
opened part of it to white settlers in 1889. This portion became the Territory of Oklahoma in
1890 and eventually encompassed the lands ceded in 1866. The territories became part of the
Union as the state of Oklahoma in 1907.
With the decline of the range-cattle industry, settlers moved in and fenced the Great
Plains into family farms. That settlement--and the wild rush of pioneers into the Oklahoma
Indian Territory--constituted the last chapter of the westward movement. By the early 1890s, a
frontier had ceased to exist within the 48 continental states.
As the hunters were destroying the buffalo, the U.S. army was fighting the Native
Americans. The U.S. government tacitly supported the buffalo destruction in order to get rid of
the “Indian problem”. Some southern Plains Indians saw that the hunters were uselessly killing
masses of buffalo and resisted. In 1867, the U.S. government granted private hunting lands to
the Comanches and Kiowas in Texas without state approval, so when white hunters crossed into
Native American territory, the Texas government looked the other way.
292
In 1876, the Kwahadi Comanche warriors led by Tu-ukumah went in search of the white
hunters that crossed into their territory to kill bison only for their tongues and hides and
destroyed their camp and the buffalo parts. On their mission, Tu-ukumah’s warriors fired upon
famous hide hunters John Cook and Rankin Moores’ camp and then Marshall Sewell came to
their rescue. He was unfortunately captured,was killed and scalped. The death of this wellrespected Marshall drove the buffalo hunters to form an Indian-fighting unit in which they swore
not to kill any more buffalo until they had scalped every Comanche warrior involved. After
months of small battles between the Comanches and the hunters, the fighting culminated at the
Battle of Yellow House Canyon where at least 50 Native Americans were either killed or injured
and one white hunter was killed. Several months later, Tu-ukumah’s Kwahadi Comanche
warriors were destroyed by Captain Patrick Lynch Lee and his black ‘buffalo’ soldiers.228
The original bison in North America that lived up until the end of the Pleistocene era
(around 10,000 years ago) were the gargantuan Bison latifrons and the Bison antiquus. The
larger latifrons was common in middle Pleistocene and the antiquus more toward the end of the
age, so the possibility exists that the latter evolved from the former. It is uncertain when today’s
Bison bison came into the picture. One theory is that it simply evolved from one of the two older
species. Another theory is that the Bison evolved from the European Bison priscus, which
migrated across Siberia and over the land bridge connecting Asia to North America. The Bison
priscus lived in the far northwest of the continent and evolved into Bison bison, according to the
theory.
The changing of the environment prompted general evolutionary change toward smaller,
well-adapted buffalo species. As the last ice age ended, then so did the Bison latifrons and the
228 Cunningham, Sharon. “Yellow house Canyon fight: Buffalo Hunters vs. Plains Indians.”
Wild West. Leesburg: Jun 2003. Vol. 16, Issue 1, p. 46.
293
Bison antiquus. It may have been because of the inability to adapt to environmental changes, or it
may have been because of Native American over-hunting at the time. Even 10,000 years ago the
Native Americans used mass killing techniques on the buffalo like running them over cliffs. The
Native Americans have their own stories as to why the Great Spirit killed off the megafauna.
William Tall Bull, Cheyenne elder, said that there once was a giant buffalo that was
carnivorous and greatly oppressed the people, but the Great Spirit reduced him in size.
Thereafter the Cheyenne would not eat a certain kind of fat found in the throat of bison
bison because it represented human flesh that giant buffalo once ate. Both the Sioux and
the Cheyenne insisted that the two species of buffalo were actually the same animal,
reduced by this strange intervention of Great Mystery.229
Millions of buffalo once roamed North America.230 The Great Plains of North America
were said to be “black with buffalo”. The North American Plains Indians were essentially biggame hunters, the buffalo being a primary source of food and material that was used for clothing,
shelter, tools and religious icons. Woven into the fabric of Native American life for millennia,
the buffalo was revered and honored. Some scholars argue that extermination of the buffalo was
an official policy of the U.S. government in order to achieve extermination of the Native
Americans, particularly those living in the Western Plains.
The American bison may not have been the brightest creature in North America, but it
was certainly resilient. It was the dominant herbivore of the Great Plains after the extinction of
other large herbivores coming out of the last ice age. “Before humans of European descent
began to exert their influence on the biota of North America, the number of bison living here
229
DeLoria, Vine Jr. Red Earth White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific
Fact. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 1997, p. 150.
230
Dina Lehman, “The Buffalo Harvest”, ICE Case Studies, ICE Case Studies, January
1998, Number 47, http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/buffalo.htm.
294
periodically may have approached 30 millions. A little more than a century later, fewer than
1,000 bison remained.”231
The buffalo came into competition for grazing land with the horses that were
reintroduced to North America by the Spanish conquistadores, and eventually with cattle that
also transmitted disease to the American bison. Market hunting for buffalo drastically affected
the buffalo population, leaving them close to extinction. Interestingly, it was market forces that
ended up saving the buffalo from their demise. The American Bison Society advocated
preserving the buffalo and encouraged Buffalo Bill and other Wild West Shows. The Wild West
shows depicted the dangerous, exciting American frontier where the U.S. army sent scouts like
Buffalo Bill out to kill buffalos and Indians alike. “By the 1990s, more than 90 percent of the
bison in North America were in private hands, rather than publicly owned.”232 Private bison
herds raised and sold buffalo to circuses, zoos, and parks.
In the 1870s and 1880s the buffaloes were killed by the hundreds of thousands each year.
Market demand for buffalo robes, meat, and tongues was at its peak. Demand for buffalo hides
started in the 1870s when Argentinean cattle production was diminishing. The market demand
for buffalo increased as the buffalo skeletons were ground into buttons, combs, knife handles,
ingredients in the sugar-refining process, and phosphate fertilizer to sweeten the ‘corn belt’ soil.
The invention of the Sharps rifle and the extension of the railroads west of the Missouri river
played a significant role in the quick destruction of the Plains Indians’ source of clothing, food,
and shelter between 1840 and 1870. The Sharps rifle allowed for quick and efficient shooting,
which made it easier to kill both people and buffalo. The railroads expedited trade with the East.
Choate, Jerry R. and Eugene D Fleharty. “Decimation of a Dominant Herbivore.”
Ecology. Brooklyn: December 2000. Volume 81, Issue 12; pp 3550-51.
232
Schweikart, Larry. “Buffaloed: The Myth and Reality of Bison in America.” Ideas on
Liberty. Irvington-on-Hudson: Dec 2002. Volume 52, Issue 12; p 8-11.
231
295
American westward expansion onto the new frontier brought the settlers west and the
homesteaders north.
Some researchers discount the impact of the hunters on the buffalo population as not
crucial to the near-extinction of the buffalo. Jim Flores of the University of Montana believes
that “they [the white hide hunters] share the burden of the final mop-up. But without their
involvement, the buffalo would probably have only lasted another 30 years.”233 Flores believes
that other factors affected the decline of the buffalo more strongly, including climate change,
competition for space, and disease.
The actual military campaign against these tribes was largely ineffective, but the near
extermination of the American bison during the 1870s was an enormous blow to Native
Americans. By denying access to these resources, the buffalo slaughter was the beginning of
total war against those people. Generals Sheridan and Sherman, using similar tactics to those
they employed in the American Civil War against Confederate supplies and food sources, sought
to eliminate the buffalo not only to defeat the tribes militarily but also to subdue them for
relocation. Forts provided de facto support for the buffalo hunters and military personnel often
killed buffalo for food and sport.234 Furthermore, "In 1874, Secretary of the Interior Delano
testified before Congress, "The buffalo are disappearing rapidly, but not faster than I desire. I
regard the destruction of such game as Indians subsist upon as facilitating the policy of the
Government, of destroying their hunting habits, coercing them on reservations, and compelling
them to begin to adopt the habits of civilization.”235 Sheridan added that "if I could learn that
Robbins, Jim. “Historians Revisit Slaughter on the Plains.” New York Times. (Late
Edition (East Coast). New York, N.Y.: Nov 16, 1999. p. F3.
234
The Military and United States Indian Policy, p. 171.
235
The Military and United States Indian Policy, p. 171.
233
296
every buffalo in the northern herd were killed I would be glad".236 Other records however point
to a groundswell of military opposition to the wanton killing.
A final factor in the buffalo war was to provide income to those living in the area or those
who wanted to live there, thus actually attracting settlers. Colonel Homer W. Wheeler, who
fought with the U.S. Cavalry for 35 years, said that "millions of Buffalo were slaughtered for the
hides and meat, principally for the hide. Some of the expert hunters made considerable money at
that occupation.237
On April 29, 1868, the Indian Peace Commission of the United States government signed
the treaty of Fort Laramie with the Sioux (Lakota) and other tribes in the Dakotas. The treaty
closed settler trails and forts, and allocated hunting rights along the Powder River. It also created
a Sioux reservation west of the Missouri river in what is now South Dakota, but required that
they allow railroads to run through their reservation. The treaty obliges the U.S. government to
arrest and punish any offender of the treaty guidelines.
The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1870 and by 1874 rumor spread that there
was gold in South Dakota on Indian Territory. Under pressure to open up the reservation to
mining and buffalo hunting, the U.S. government reneged on its treaty and Colonel Custer
attacked Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) and the Sioux Nation. Eventually, the Sioux,
Cheyenne, and Arapahoe fled to Canada, but after a few years starvation forced the tribes to
move to North Dakota and surrender to the US government.
In buffalo hunter John Cook’s memoir, General Philip Sheridan told the 1857 Texas
Legislature not to protect the remaining Texas buffaloes and reward the hunters for killing
buffalo and for discouraging the Native Americans. He said that the buffalo hunters were doing
236
237
The Military and United States Indian Policy, p. 172.
Buffalo Days, p. 80.
297
more “to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular army . . . for the sake of a lasting
peace let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be
covered with speckled cattle, and the festive cowboy, who follows the hunter as the second
forerunner of an advanced civilization.”238
In 1876, Texas Representative James Throckmorton said, “there is no question that, so
long as there are millions of buffaloes in the West...the Indians cannot be controlled, even by the
strong arm of the Government.”239 Chief Sitting Bull was imprisoned for two years after which
he traveled with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. In 1888, Sitting Bull negotiated the sale
of the Sioux reservation to the US government and was shot by Indian policemen two years later.
The Sioux wars ended in 1890 when the U.S. army massacred them at Wounded Knee, South
Dakota and were left with a population of less than 250,000 people. The Sioux were not the only
dwindling population. With a buffalo population of 60 million in 1800 falling to13 million in
1870, the Great Plains retained less than 1000 buffalo by 1900.240 It is no coincidence that the
Native Americans’ main food source was rapidly over-hunted and mass slaughtered during the
same time period as the Sioux Wars.
General Custer was enthusiastic about the buffalo wars and killing buffalo in general. He
Mitchell, John G. “Change of Heartland.” National Geographic; May 2004, Volume 205
Issue 5, p. 2. Another view is that “One bill made it unlawful for non-Indians to kill buffalo, in
an effort to restore buffalo hunting to the Indians. Other federal policies, though, already viewed
elimination of the bison as a key element in removing the food source for the Plains Indians,
much the way Sharman sacked Georgia. Ranchers were already claiming that cattle made more
efficient use of the plains than did buffalo. Where the Indians thought the supply of buffalo was
endless, white’s recognized it was finite and intended to eliminate it as a means to eliminate the
Indians.” Schweikart, Larry. “Buffaloed: The Myth and Reality of Bison in America.” Ideas on
Liberty. Irvington-on-Hudson: December 2002. Volume. 52, Issue 12, p. 4 and p. 8.
239
Patton, Allyson. “Skull Mountain.” American History. Harrisburg: April 2001. Volume
36, Issue 1; p. 72.
240
“The Great Sioux Nation of the 19th Century.” History Channel Exhibits. Available
[online] http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/sioux/chrono.html, December 2, 2004.
238
298
said that “to find employment for the few weeks which must ensue before breaking up camp was
sometimes a difficult task. To break the monotony and give horses and men exercise, buffalo
hunts were organized, in which officers and men joined heartily. I know of no better drill for
perfecting men in the use of firearms on horseback, and thoroughly accustoming them to the
saddle, than buffalo-hunting over a moderately rough country. No amount of riding under the
best of drill-masters will give that confidence and security in the saddle which will result from a
few spirited charges into a buffalo herd.”241
In 1873, over 750,000 hides were shipped on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
alone, and it is estimated that over 7.5 million buffalo were killed from 1872 to 1874.242 The
slaughter of the great buffalo herds of the West took place between 1874 and 1884. The
Southern herds of in the Texas panhandle were gone as early as 1878 and extinction spread
north.
c.
The War in Kuwait and the War on the Environment
Time
Class
Category
Type
Modern
Conflict Type
Non-territory
Weapons
The environment may become a focus of conflict not through their economic value and
the gain from resources, but also using resources as a weapon of war.. The Assyrians used water
to attack Babylonians and the U.S. Army slaughtered buffalo to deprive Native Americans of a
key economic resource. Countries of the world today have signed treaties that ban the use of
weather modification for conflict purposes, either direct or indirect.
241
242
My Life on the Plains, General Custer, p. 111.
General Pope and U.S. Indian Policy, p. 179.
299
Iraq was accused of violating the weather treaty (and others) during the Persian Gulf
War. The spilling of oil into the Gulf had only minimal climate impacts, besides the devastation
to flora and fauna. The burning of the oil wells had a short-term impact in weather visibility, but
the longer-term impact on the weather of the region was perhaps a more important impact.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was justified under a historical territorial claim. Iraq claims
Kuwait as one of its provinces that was wrongfully taken from it by Great Britain. This claim
predated the more recent economic boom in Kuwait fueled by oil.243 Oil was however a key
reason behind Saddam Hussein's invasion in 1990. Iraq had incurred a huge debt burden from
ambitious military spending (said to be about $70 billion) and a costly war with Iran in the early
1980s. Iraq also accused Kuwait of over-producing oil in spite of OPEC agreement.244
Iraq also claimed that Kuwaiti wells near the Iraq border were drilling at an angle and
actually entering Iraqi sovereign soil, albeit hundreds of feet below the surface. (This is similar
to the problems faced by countries that adjoin large bodies of water, especially fresh-water lakes
and rivers.) Since this pool of oil straddled the border, similar to an aquifer, it was a shared
resource and over-production was depleting that resource for the benefit of Kuwait. One can see
a precedent argument in ownership of waters that straddle two countries, such as the Great Lakes
of North America.
In July of 1990, the Iraqi Regime voiced their belief that excess oil production by Kuwait
was intentional. Tensions heightened in the Arab region, and although Saudi Arabia attempted to
act as a mediator between the two states, this effort failed. Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2 of
that year, and the devastation to the environment began immediately.
Melissa Krupa, May, 1997, “Environmental and Economic Repercussions of the Persian
Gulf War on Kuwait”, ICE Case Number: 9. http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/kuwait.htm
244
Husain, 1995.
243
300
Iraq had made previous claims on Kuwaiti territory during its 85-year history. In 1963,
Iraqi President Qasim had mobilized forces to invade Kuwait but pulled back because of British,
Saudi, Egyptian, Tunisian and Sudanese force deployment in protection of Kuwait. They
protected Kuwait in part in respect for their sovereign Arab neighbor and in part because they
feared the growth of Iraqi power in the Middle East. For many years after that incident,
Kuwait’s sovereignty remained formally unquestioned. During the Iran-Iraq war, however,
Saddam Hussein proposed that Kuwait turn over the oil-rich islands of Warba and Bubiyan to
Iraq, or that Kuwait allow Iraq to lease the islands indefinitely. Kuwait refused to acquiesce to
any of Hussein’s demands. Iraq’s historic understanding of Kuwait’s geographical and strategic
importance on the Gulf influenced the Iraqi decision to invade Kuwait.
Iraq invaded Kuwait not only because of its territorial claims and its strategic location on
the Arabian Gulf, but because of Kuwait’s consistent defiance of OPEC’s oil production quotas.
Quotas were important because it kept oil prices and state revenues for the nationalized industry
high. Iraq was suffering economically because of the Iran-Iraq saga and its gigantic foreign debt
which amounted to around $90 billion. Iraq looked to regional countries, including Kuwait, to
relieve the debt for the war that had protected the entire region. “[T]he Iraqi regime argued that
the massive debts that Iraq acquired in the Arab world to protect Gulf countries from their
Persian enemy were insignificant compared to the sacrifice made by Iraqis with their blood.”245
Kuwait’s refusal to cancel the debts combined with their consistent overproduction of oil led the
Iraqi regime to accuse Kuwait of deliberately trying to undermine the Iraqi economy. Frustration
led the Iraqi regime to decide it would be easier to occupy Kuwaiti oil fields than try to negotiate
any further, so it did.
245
Husain, Tahir. Kuwait Oil Fires: Regional Environmental Perspectives. Exeter: BPC
Wheatons Ltd. 1995, p. 26.
301
The Iraqi occupation was brutal and Kuwaiti zoos became part of the horror. “Some of
the animals (from the Kuwait zoo) were transported in their cages to the Baghdad Zoo, and
others were shot, cooked and eaten, or left to suffer a lingering starvation and death.”246 Of the
animals that remained, they made part of the process of interrogation and revenge. “Inside the
wolf compound the remains of a man’s boots hinted at the nightmarish violence which has taken
place here; as did the guttra head-dress lying on the floor in a tiger’s cage.”247
Iraqi forces had threatened to destroy Kuwaiti oil fields if U.S. and allied forces
counterattacked after the August 2nd invasion. In December 1990, Iraqi troops had already begun
experimenting with and packing well heads with explosives. When allied troops began heavy air
strikes in January 1991, their own bombs detonated 34 oil wells, while Iraqi troops detonated
another 60 in response to the strikes. Overall, the Iraqis detonated around 800 oil wells, of which
730 exploded. Out of that total, 656 of those wells burned for many months, while the other 74
wells overflowed and formed huge lakes. Almost 2 percent of Kuwait’s oil reserves were
wasted, and the burning wells released many potential toxic gases (to humans and plants) into the
air, including sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrogen sulfide (see Table
IV-6).
Table IV-6: Kuwaiti Oil Wells248
Kuwait Oil Field
Survey
Field
Magwa
Ahmadi
246
Drilled
147
89
On
Fire
98
60
Gushing Damaged Intact
6
21
15
2
18
6
Michael McKinnon and Peter Vine, Tides of War, London: Immel publishing Ltd., 1992,
p. 94.
247
Michael McKinnon and Peter Vine, Tides of War, London: Immel publishing Ltd., 1992,
p. 95.
Modified from: 1991 “Kuwait Oil Wells Blow-out” in El-Baz, Farouk. The Gulf War and
the Environment. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. 1994. p. 86.
248
302
Burgan
Raudhatain
Sabriyah
Ratqa
Bahra
Minagish
Umm Gudair
Dharif
Abduliyah
Khashman
South Umm Gudair
Wafra
South Fuwaris
Total
423
83
71
114
19
40
44
4
5
7
18
482
9
1555
292
24
28
67
63
2
5
3
39
4
9
5
1 Unknown unknown
8
3
2 unknown unknown
27 Unknown
7
1
27
3
11
2
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
4
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
16
6
33 unknown
15
0
0
0
9
616
76
100
155
The environmental impacts of the Gulf War Crisis were felt immediately at the onset of
the Iraqi invasion.249 The fragile vegetation suffered from transportation of heavy artillery and
movement of troops across the desert. Additionally, the build-up of solid wastes from the
destroyed public infrastructure polluted the ground and groundwater. The war uprooted,
trampled, and destroyed the limited vegetation.
The atmosphere throughout the region suffered from the fire and smoke that resulted
from explosives, intentionally set oil fires, and from both known and unknown chemicals. Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein threatened “if he had to be evicted from Kuwait by force, then Kuwait
would be burned".250 When Allied forces quickly overwhelmed the Iraqis, he was true to his
word and as his troops fled, they set fire to over six hundred oil wells in Kuwait. “Conjecture as
to why Saddam Hussein might have authorized this measure included suggestions that he wished
to impede the amphibious landing anticipated by his military commanders, or that he intended to
249
250
Sadiq and McCain 1993.
Sadiq and McCain, 1993. p.2.
303
cause maximum damage to Saudi Arabian or other Gulf countries’ desalinization plants and seawater-cooling intakes.” 251
Researchers warned that rising smoke might cause changes in the planet's weather
pattern.252 Carl Sagan said "the net effects would be similar to the explosion of the Indonesian
volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a
summer", but other researchers believed the impacts the smoke's effects would be marginal at
worst. Sagan and others arrived at their conclusions based on a nuclear winter fall-out scenario
in which smoke would remain entrapped in the upper atmosphere and temperatures would drop
radically.253 Climatologist Richard Turco warned that “soot clouds would spread across India
and South-East Asia, but there were varying opinions as to weather would reach high enough to
create the widespread climatic effects of his scenario.” 254
There was fear that the smoke would affect the monsoon over the Indian subcontinent
since the prevailing winds blew east. A more serious problem caused by the acid rain forms
from burning oil and harm people with respiratory problems or other diseases. Public health
experts projected that the air pollution would (slowly) kill approximately a thousand Kuwaitis.255
The Gulf's ecosystem was not spared either. The Iraqis released about 11 million barrels
of oil into the Arabian Gulf (or Persian Gulf, according to the Iranian viewpoint) from January
1991 to May 1991. The spill was more than twenty times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill and
twice as large as the previous world record.256 Oil covered more than 800 miles of Kuwaiti and
Saudi Arabian beaches, devastating marine and bird wildlife. Birds were the hardest hit, along
251
252
253
254
255
256
McKinnon and Vine, Tides of War ,1992, p. 99-100.
Zimmer, 1992.
Zimmer, 1992.
McKinnon and Vine, Tides of War, p. 97.
Zimmer, 1992.
Zimmer 1992
304
with marine turtles.257 Both the hawksbill and green turtles (an endangered species) utilize the
offshore islands of the Gulf as nesting sites.
Another source of sea pollution was due to sea warfare. At least 80 ships sunk during the
Gulf War, many of which carried oil and munitions. These ships, along with those purposely
sunk during the Iraq-Iran War, will remain a chronic source of contamination of the Arabian
Gulf for many years. The Gulf will recover from the oil spills, but it will be different after the
recovery. It may take decades for specific ecosystems to recover.258
A sudden deterioration of environmental quality in this region was believed to have
resulted from the recent Gulf War during which a large number of oil wells in Kuwait
were set on fire. Heavy smokes containing various unknown materials traveled over the
sky of Saudi Arabia including the city of Riyadh for several months until the burning oil
wells were fully capped.259
About six million barrels of Kuwaiti oil were burning in March 1991. The soot generated
was one concern, as one gram of soot can block out two-thirds of the light falling over an area of
eight to ten square meters. Accordingly, scientists calculated that the release of two million
barrels of oil per day could generate a plume of smoke and soot that would cover an area of half
of the United States. Weather patterns and climactic conditions could have carried such a plume
great distances to severely hamper agricultural production in remote areas of the world.
Another concern centered on the effects of the height of such a smoke plume, where upon
reaching a specified height (35,000 to 40,000 feet) and temperature (400 degrees Celsius), such a
257
Sadiq and McCain 1993.
Sadiq and McCain 1993.
259
Al-Khodairy, Fahad and Ahmed Al-Dakan, Mahmood Akel, and Mohammed A. Hannan,
“A comparative analysis of mutagenic activities of air samples collected from Riyadh before,
during and after the Gulf War”, International Journal of Environmental Health Research 8, pp.
15-22 (1998), Carfax Publishing Ltd.
258
305
plume would cause a serious erosion of the ozone layer which could be highly hazardous to plant
and animal life. Kuwaiti crude oil contains 2.44 percent sulfur and 0.14 percent nitrogen, and it
was estimated that the daily sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions would be between 750
and 10,000 tons per day, leading to human health problems and damage to agricultural
production.
Hundreds of miles of the Kuwaiti desert were left uninhabitable, due to the accumulation
of oil lakes and to soot from the burning wells. One to two million of migratory birds visit the
Gulf each year on their way to northern breeding grounds, and thousands of cormorants,
migratory birds indigenous to the Gulf region, died because of exposure to oil or from polluted
air.
The fishing industry in the Gulf was crippled by the oil spills. Before the war, harvests of
marine life were up to 120,000 tons of fish a year. After the oil spill, these numbers significantly
dropped. Other species effected by the oil spillage included green and hawksbill turtles (already
classified as endangered species), leatherback and loggerhead turtles, dugongs, whales, dolphins,
flamingoes, and sea snakes.
The impacts were on top of ‘normal’ pollution in the Gulf (caused by frequent spills of
oil and emissions of dirty ballast from passing tankers). Over the long-term, they may pose a
greater environmental threat than any damage inflicted by the Kuwaiti oil fires. The Gulf is
polluted by 1.14 million tons of oil per year (equivalent to 25,000 barrels of oil per day), which
is dispersed by 40 percent of the more than 6,000 oil tankers which transverse the Gulf each
year.
Another concern raised about the spillage of oil into the Gulf stemmed from the overall
reliance on water in the region. Seventy to ninety percent of the populace depends on
306
desalination plants for fresh water supplies, and the oil spillage threatened the precious
desalination plants, as well as power plants and industrial facilities all along the Gulf coast. As
to the direct impact on human health, health experts noted that the residual effects of
hydrocarbons in the air or in peoples' bodies would precipitate a dramatic increase in lung cancer
and birth defects across the region in as little as fifteen years. Other scientists predicted that
Kuwait's death rate could rise by as much as ten percent within a short time frame. There has
been intense speculation in the United States that the mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome", which
currently affects almost 10,000 U.S. troops who served in the Gulf, may have been caused by
the release of chemicals from the burning oil wells.260
In 1993 Farouq al-Baz, director of Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing, stated
that more than 240 oil lakes had been discovered in the Kuwaiti desert. Al-Baz added that
"'Birds, plants and marine life are still suffering from the effects of the war and damage to the
desert itself could persist for decades.” In addition, the mixture of sand and oil residue in the
Kuwaiti desert created large areas that effectively were reduced to semi-asphalt surfaces. By the
fall of 1995, disturbing reports were filed from Kuwait claiming that sunken Iraqi warships filled
with chemical munitions off the coast of Kuwait posed a serious and urgent threat to the regional
environment.
In September 1995, Kuwait filed a $385 million claim against Iraq for compensation for
environmental damage due to Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. More specifically, Kuwait submitted
five claims to the United Nations for environmental damages covering health, coastal areas,
maritime environment, ground water resources, and desert environmental damages.
260
Al-Khodairy, et al, “A Comparative Analysis”.
307
The Saudi Fisheries Company announced in 1992 that the shrimp and prawn fishing
industries had lost over $55 million. Since shrimp reproduce in the spring when water
temperature rises, the decrease in temperature could have thrown off reproductive activities. In
fact, plankton larvae numbers significantly declined as well in 1992. Likely, the thick plumes
and soot deposits on the water surface in the Gulf had a lot to do with the change in the marine
environment. Additionally, the oil that spilled into the Gulf directly and through the watershed
destroyed coral reefs and other marine life.
Migratory birds confused the oil lakes for bodies of water and died as a result. Many
wildlife were driven from the land from the noises of war, however, their new obstacles are the
unexploded landmines under the broken gravel and sand surface. The breakage of the desert
topsoil (mostly from tanks, but also from oil lakes) led directly to more desert storms and less
spring vegetation growth.261
Some scientists speculated that a 1994 cyclone in Bangladesh that killed 100,000 people
was precipitated, in part, due to climactic changes from the Kuwait oil fires. In direct damage
costs, Kuwait calculates that it suffered $170 billion in losses, and that this figure may rise to as
high as $700 billion. In September 1995, Kuwait submitted a $385 million environmental
damage claim against Iraq to the UN.
Christopher Flavin of the World watch Institute called the Gulf War “the most
environmentally destructive conflict in the history of warfare.” He called for a workable
environmental code for the conduct of war, including enforcement mechanisms for violators.” 262
Alsdirawi, Fozia. “The Impact of the Gulf War on the Desert Ecosystem.” Farouk ElBaz, ed. The Gulf War and the Environment, Lausanne, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach
Science Publishers, 1994.
262
McKinnon and Vine, Tides of War ,1992, p. 157-8.
261
308
The impact was felt to some degree over a large area and in differing ways. Black snow was
reported in the Swiss Alps and black rain fell in Baluchistan in Pakistan.263
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Weapons Cases
Modern Mesopotamian depends upon the water of the Tigris and Euphrates, and that
dependence shapes the political and economic life of the people living between the two rivers.
The dependence fuels the legal disputes on water in Mesopotamia. Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq
all share the traditional Islamic law view of water management. These countries allocate water
among communal water systems, which they have used since the Code of Hammurabi. In fact,
the term “shari’a” in Islamic law originally meant “the path to the watering place”.264
Additionally, Israel treats water as a community resource as opposed to private property.
Despite the community tradition, Middle Eastern countries fight about water more than any other
resource.
Defending the Tigris-Euphrates River remains an important part of Iraqi national security
objectives. Iraq maintains that it has "acquired rights" relating to its "ancestral irrigations" on the
Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Evidently these security concerns date back over 2,500 years.
According to Iraq, there exist two dimensions of acquired rights. The first dimension is ancient:
the historical inhabitants of Mesopotamia have relied on this water (even to defend themselves)
and have an acquired right to it. Therefore, no upstream riparian country is entitled to take away
the rights of these inhabitants. The second dimension is modern: acknowledging the irrigation
263
McKinnon and Vine, Tides of War ,1992, p. 158-9.
Dellapenna, Joseph W. “The Two Rivers and the Lands Between: Mesopotamia and the
International Law of Transboundary waters”, BYU Journal of Public Law, 1996, Volume 10,
Issue 2, p. 213.
264
309
and water installations. Iraq has 1.9 million hectares of agricultural land in the Euphrates Basin,
including an ancestral irrigation system left from the Sumerians times. Perhaps these systems
were built using the moats and canals that defended the city of Babylon.
The conflict over war has a long history and in the Middle East this history is virtually
uninterrupted. Populations have overused the waters for millennia, since the Agricultural
Conjunction and soon after cities emerged in Mesopotamia. Over time the use of irrigated water
contaminated many fields through the slow but eventual depositing of salts and chemicals.
Over that long history it is remarkable in the many ways in which water was used as a
resource in conflict. The options were simple: the water could be diverted either toward or away
from an opponent to gain some short or long-term advantage. Water is different in modern states
where dams created giant lakes or water reserves. Dams allow for vastly more regular water for
household, agriculture and industry, and provide some incentive for sporting and fishing
businesses. On top of that, it is a huge provider of electricity that can supply large numbers of
people. These super “water assets” are prime conflict targets in modern conflict.
In the “ancient cases”, water was a valuable resource for the Babylonians yet the
Assyrians turned this resource against them. By damming the rivers and diverting them, they
flooded out the defenders. In this case, the resource was not directed back at the defender but the
defender was deprived of the resource. The Buffalo case is similar to the struggle between
humans and Neanderthal over hunting resources and thus the tactic, whether intended or
inadvertent, has a long precedent.
In the case “middle case” of Robin Hood the access to deer as protein is similar to the
needs of the Native Americans and buffalo. It also provides an interesting counterpoint to the
related Native American cases regarding the Mayans and the Anasazi whose lifestyles were
310
dictated by differing environmental and economic strategies. These differences also led to
differing forms of conflict over differing types of environmental issues. They wiped out the
deer.
Why did the climate turn colder in the 1000 to1500 time period? Some suggest that a
single cataclysmic event triggered some a period of general decline that also revealed by the
Dark Ages in Europe, the failure of several Central American Empires, and the rise of Islam in
the Middle East. This event could have been an asteroid striking in Siberia or some relatively
unpopulated location, or a super volcanic eruption, like a Krakatoa in Indonesia.265
The environment was used as a weapon by the Assyrians (water and flooding), the
Americans (exterminating buffalo), and by the Iraqi regime (by causing massive air, sea and land
pollution). The ways in which one can manipulate the environment to cause damage is probably
limitless, especially with today’s technology. Both winners and losers in conflict have pursued
scorched earth policies. This includes various proposed (or real) terrorist acts such as poisoning
water supplies (although the Romans salted wells of conquered people), the purposeful spread of
disease (such as smallpox or anthrax in today’s security climate), and the like.
Key resources have been a recurring theme throughout time and a source of conflict.
Such conflict is often context dependent from a historical standpoint. Wood has served this role
over time, as well as gold and guano. Oil has become the focus of political and economic
introspection because of its importance to the world economy.
6.
Boundaries
265
David Key, PBS, notes that the Krakatoa eruption in 535 led to climate disruptions for
10-20 years. Impacts included the (1) end of Byzantine Empire, (3) the bubonic plague, (2) the
decline of Teotihuacan Empire in Central America, and (4) the onset of Dark Ages.
311
As states developed they established permanent boundaries and attempted to control the
flow of people and things through these permeable lines. In extreme cases, man-made barriers to
travel are constructed and represent near total-control of the areas. This section looks at three
types of separating boundaries and their manifold implication: the Great Wall of China,
Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom, and the de-militarized zone (DMZ) separating North and
South Korea.
Boundaries show up as a key part of territorial issues in the ICE cases. These are often
long-term in nature and associated with statement that are drawn out over trends on competing
demographics amongst differing populations. Boundaries (or borders) are part of the red
feedback loop in the conflict sub-system associated with territory, long-term conflicts, and
stalemate outcomes.
There are also aspects of the cases that follow found in the blue loop of the conflict subsystem (see Figure IV-10). This loop involves conflict at several levels (sub-state, unilateral and
multilateral) that are long-term in duration and have a high level of conflict.
Figure IV-10
The Border Causal System (blue loop in the Conflict Sub-System)
312
1.
Preventing Conflict though Manipulation of the Environment (Boundaries): The Impact
of China’s Great Wall on the Environment
Period
Class
Category
Type
Ancient
Ownership
Sovereign
Barrier
The control of water assets to create barriers, as in the case of moats, became a tool for
defense in conflict. Such structures started as protections around city-states but grew to serve as
protective devices for large countries. The development of large-scale societies likely began in
China and other parts of Asia, where then, as today, they held the largest concentrations of
313
human populations. These extreme cases of human concentration place extraordinary demands
on the environment and resulted in some of the grandest construction projects on the planet in its
history. In this tradition, China has built the world’s largest dam (Three Gorges) although an
extensive system of canals has been in place for several thousand years.
A clash of cultures began to take shape about 3,000 years ago. Even by this date, China
had developed into a vast, agrarian society that built on the success of the Agricultural
Conjunction. To the north in Mongolia, peoples had developed advanced nomadic lifestyles that
relied on the use of the horse. With technological advancement, the horse also provided
considerable military advantage, especially in addition to the inventions of saddles, reins, horse
shoes, and other intermediary technological advances. The agrarian Chinese needed a defense
from such “blitzkrieg” attacks. The solution was to build the Great Wall of China.
The Great Wall stretches for 4,160 miles across North China.266 Its construction began far
back in Chinese history in the Spring and Autumn periods (770-476 BC) and the Warring States
period (475-221 BC). When Emperor Qin Shihuang unified China, he linked and extended the
walls. Prisoners of war, convicts, soldiers, civilians and farmers provided labor. In 246 BC, the
ruler of State of Qin (Zheng Ying) had conquered much of China and adopted the title First
Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huang Di). He unified weights and measure, standardized the coinage
and even unified the axle lengths of the wagons.
This progress came at a cost. Millions died and many Chinese legends tell of parted
lovers and men dying of starvation and disease. Many bodies are buried in the foundations of the
wall. Qin Shihuang garrisoned armies at the Wall to stand guard over the workers as well as to
defend the northern boundaries. The tradition lasted for centuries. Each successive dynasty
Damian Zimmerman, “The Great Wall”, ICE Case Studies, Number 38, December 1997,
www.american.edu/TED/ice/wall.htm.
266
314
added to the height, breadth, length, and elaborated the design of this mammoth structure, mostly
through forced labor.
Figure IV-10
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall
crosses plateaus, mountains,
deserts, rivers and valleys,
passing through five
provinces and two
autonomous regions. It
averages about 20 feet wide
and 26 feet high. Parts of the
wall are so broad that 10
persons can walk across it
side by side. Most visitors
see the Wall that was restored in the Ming dynasty, when stone slabs replaced clay bricks. It took
100 years to rebuild, and it is said that the amount of material used in the present wall alone is
enough to circle the world at the equator five times. The Great Wall, known in Mandarin as
"Wan-Li Ch'ang-Ch'eng" (10,000 Li Long Wall), stretches approximately 4,000 miles (6,400
km) west to east from the Jiayu Pass (in Gansu Province) to Po Hai near the mouth of the Yalu
River (see Figure IV-10).
Parts of the Great Wall date from the 4th century BC. In 214 BC Shih Huang-ti, the first
emperor of a united China connected a number of existing defensive walls into a single system
315
fortified by watchtowers. The towers served to both guard the rampart and to communicate with
the former capital, Hsien-yang, near Sian, by signal--smoke by day and fire by night. Burning a
mixture of wolf dung, sulfur and saltpeter produced smoke. Through the system, an alarm was
relayed over 500 km within just a few hours (France had a similar system in the Middle Ages).
During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the Wall took its present form. The brick and
granite work was enlarged, and sophisticated designs were added. The watchtowers were
redesigned and modern cannons mounted in strategic areas (the cannons imported from
Portugal).
The wall was an effective deterrent for hundreds of years, but when the dynasty
weakened from within, the invaders from the north were able to re-conquer China. Both the
Mongols (Yuan Dynasty, 1271-1368) and the Manchurians (Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911) were
able to conquer the Chinese, not because of weakness in the Wall but because of inner weakness
and poverty. The cost of the wall's construction bankrupted dynasty after dynasty. Invaders,
such as the Mongols, took advantage of rebellion from within and stepped into the void of
power.
The grand design for the wall started in the Zhou dynasty (1134 BC to 250 BC). The
purpose of this structure was to stop the 'barbarians' from crossing the northern border of China.
More than 4,600 years ago, there had been continuous violent conflicts between the agricultural
Han Chinese on the south and the Non-Han Chinese herdsmen to the north. Their technological
capacities reflected both their technology and their climate. The three northern vassal States
Yan, Zhao and Qin of the Han Chinese during the Zhou Dynasty (1134 BC to 250 BC), started
the walls along their northern frontiers to protect themselves.
316
Yan, whose capital is the present day Beijing, lasted from 766 BC to 222 BC. It erected a
long wall along its northern frontier from Liaoning Peninsula to the north of Beijing in Hebei
province. Zhao, whose capital is the present day Han Dan Xian in Hebei province, existed from
453 BC to 228 BC and built a long wall along its northern frontier from the north of Beijing.
The State of Qin (present day Xian in Shaanxi province) existed from 777 BC to 207 BC, added
a wall in its northern frontier from the banks of the Yellow River to the plateau of Long Xi in
Gansu province.
As the wall was built, the various Non-Han Chinese tribes unified and became a rival to
the Qin Empire. The conflict grew as the Han Chinese farmers moved north and came into
conflict with nomadic tribes. The Qin armies drove the nomads back to the Gobi Desert. To
secure the northern frontiers, Emperor Ying mobilized all the able-bodied subjects in China to
join up all the walls erected by the States of Yan and Zhao. When all the old walls were
connected, it was called "Wan Li Chang Cheng” (Ten Thousand Li Long Wall) and became a
permanent barrier separating the agricultural Han Chinese on the south of the Wall from the
Non-Han Chinese nomadic cattle-raisers on the north. What remains of the Great Wall today
consists of five sections.
1.
The Mutianyu (north-east) section was built for watching and shooting at an invading
enemy. It consists of several battle forts spread about 50 meters apart.
2.
To the east, there is the Gubeikou section, where the smoke alarms were set.
3.
The Badaling (west) section is probably the best preserved of all of the sections.
4.
The Jinshanling Section is known for its detailed architecture.
5.
Finally, the Sumatai section, east of Jinshanling, is 3,000 miles long, resting mainly on a
mountain ridge surrounded by sharp rocks. This section contains 35 well-preserved battle forts.
317
The environmental impact of the wall’s construction is manifold. First, just building the
wall required moving enormous amounts of stone. Unearthing the stones would have required
moving a tremendous amount of soil as well, as would build a base for the wall. As the wall
crept west, there were fewer stones available, especially as it approached the Gobi Desert. Over
time, the Chinese developed a system of using loose material, even sand, mixed with willow
grass or other vegetation for stability, and tamping the mass down into a compact, concrete-like
compound.
Second, the maintaining of a large standing population of men to build the wall alone
required an enormous amount of resources. It was essentially a large city that moved
continuously and one which the area’s resources would normally not have been able to support.
The fires needed for cooking and warmth led to massive deforestation in this semi-arid land.
This was especially true in the west.
Third, the need for game to feed the large work force led a zone around the area of the
workforce essentially devoid of certain species that they ate. Predator animals would be killed as
threats to the work force. One can imagine that the wake of building the wall left a swathe of
destruction: a treeless and denuded plain devoid of animals. It would no doubt take centuries for
the environment to recover. Finally, the wall meant to keep out the Mongols, but it would keep
out animals as well that returned to the area. It would interfere with the migration of land
mammals which probably were segmented into populations isolated on either side of the wall.
Thus, populations of a variety of animals were separated into two distinct groups.
The wall was heavily garrisoned and armed with cannons. While there are few records of
military losses from that time, an estimated two to three million Chinese died over the centuries
that it took to complete the wall. Furthermore, those stationed at the wall were subject to the
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hazards of the unexplored Chinese North. Many died from random attacks by Mongol bands,
bandits, and wild animals, hunger, and disease. This was an early attempt to create an area of
sovereign control. Border check points and defended boundaries were part of this effort.
After the wall fell into disuse, the stones and building materials were recycled by
villagers along the route who used it to build houses and other structures. The greatest modern
threat to the Great Wall comes from the roughly 10 million visitors who come to it each year and
dislodge stones, litter, and mark it with graffiti. As a result, the Chinese government has
declared certain portions of the structure off-limits to tourists.
b.
Hadrian’s Wall and the Environmental Roots of the End of Roman Expansion
Period
Class
Category
Type
Middle
Conflict
Territory
Boundaries
The Great Wall in China changed societies, technologies and the environment. The wall
was an extremely expensive operation that not only cost a lot to build but a tremendous amount
to maintain. In the end, after several thousands years, it did fail and the Manchu’s took over
China. It is hard to say whether it was worth it because, in the end, the Manchu’s were
assimilated into Chinese society even when they did finally breach the wall.
In Europe, growing populations and convergences of empires took place later in history.
A similar “end of empire” mentality overcame the Romans, around the 1st century A.D. and they
retreated behind lines drawn across several continents. On mainland Europe, the Danube and
Rhine rivers served as these boundaries and a wall of timber that stretched across the countryside
covered the gap between the two. On the island of Britain, the Romans advanced north until
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they met stiff resistance from the Picts (a people related to the Scots, a Celtic people). Rather
than waste effort on attempting to conquer Scots, the Roman Emperor Hadrian chose to build a
wall instead. No doubt Hadrian had reports of the Great Wall in China and adapted the idea.
Britain was a difficult place and the British a difficult people to conquer. Julius Caesar
invaded in 55 and 54 BC, but gained only a toehold in the southwest corner of the country.
Caligula tried again in 40 AD. Claudius, a few years later, was the first to make any substantial
inroads into Britain.267 Roman forces led by Agricola advanced into northern England
(Northumberland and Cumbria) around 80 AD. The Romans built series of bridges, forts, roads
and camps as they pushed north in to Scotland to fortify their conquests.
The Romans however found that the “northern part proved more difficult to suppress.
The terrain was harder, the winters fiercer, and the supply routes longer.”268 They decided to
build a wall across Scotland to defend against the warring tribes. There were many reasons for
Hadrian’s Wall. It was also the result of a political decision (on the extent of the empire) and an
accident of geography (an isthmus) that made the wall a practical option. The wall served a
man-made purpose that the natural Rhine River did in providing separation between the Roman
Empire and hostile groups on its boundaries.
The Romans gradually left Britain in the early fifth century as the Empire declined, but
this process had already begun around 100 AD. Part of the withdrawal was in the face of Scot
resistance, also “to contribute to Trojan’s wars of conquest in southern Europe and the East
[Dacia and Pathia]”.269 The ensuing periods often represented drastic changes. In the sixth and
267
268
269
Stewart Perowne, Hadrian, London: Croom Helm, 1960.
Bedoyere, p.12.
Bedoyere, p.12
320
seventh centuries, the area around Galloway was part of the Celtic kingdom of Rheged and there
were numerous invasions by pagan English tribes during this period.
Hadrian's Wall stretched from Newcastle upon Tyne in the east to Carlisle in the west, for
moving troops, completed in the second century AD. The main western road originated in
Stanwix, a fort on Hadrian's Wall.
Hadrian's Wall had several parts: the Wall itself; the Vallum, (a defensive ditch which
marked the rear edge of the Wall zone); a road system; and 16 forts (and nearby civilian
settlements) along or near the Wall. There are also many earlier Roman military works such as
marching camps and permanent bases. Hadrian built a 73 mile wall that stretched across Britain:
10 feet broad and 14 feet high with a ditch in front that was 30 feet wide and 9 feet deep. At
every mile along the wall, there has a small fort built into the wall and halfway between them
were two turrets for signaling. Elsewhere in the empire, Hadrian built other artificial barriers. In
Germany, there were palisades of timber to mark the extreme boundaries of the empire that had
made to decision to end the process of endless expansion (see Figure IV-11). The Antonine Wall
was a somewhat later attempt to push this boundary further north, but the attempt was relatively
short-lived.
Figure IV-11
Antonine and Hadrian Walls
321
Roman remains of Hadrian’s Wall
survive remarkably well. In east
Northumberland, the Wall is for the most part
buried but the earthworks survive and are
visible for many miles. The earthworks must
have had major effects on the Roman
landscape. One estimate suggests they moved
3.7 million tons of stone to supply material for
the wall. 270 In the central sector, the remains
of the Wall and associated features are
prominent and often dominate the local
landscape. The significance of the Wall
corridor in archaeological terms, and its complexity, was recognized by the designation of the
Hadrian's Wall Military Zone as a World Heritage Site in 1987.
The wall, born of conflict, has itself produced a myriad of environmental impacts. The
first impact would be on larger land animals that migrate with the season. The impact separated
these animals (deer, elk, wolves and the like) into smaller genetic pools or limited their access to
food sources during certain times of the year. The impacts of the wall on area
microenvironments were enormous. It not only changed the environment that existed but
changed it to a zone that was wall-dependent in its vegetal disposition. The collection of rocks
itself tended to make the summers hotter in this zone and the winters milder. With the grazing of
animals around the Wall’s villages, forests were discouraged and grasslands were encouraged.
270
Bedoyere, p. 25.
322
Here was a clear case where conflict had an enormous impact on the environment in a most
subtle manner.
Compared to earlier empires, “the Roman Empire was different because its organization
and military power gave it the potential to exist beyond the personality of the emperor…Hadrian
recognized that the Empire could not expand indefinitely and decided to consolidate
frontiers…The meandering line of the Wall and its associated structures represent a considerable
achievement for a non-industrial society.”271 The wall played a small role in a later conflict. In
1745, Charles Stuart and his Jacobite forces invaded England to restore the Catholic Crown.
Lacking an adequate road the British forces were first unable to move and were ultimately driven
back by Stuart and his forces. But the British eventually prevailed. After the war, the British
used stones from the foundation of Hadrian’s Wall to build a military road to make future troop
movements easier. Thus, Hadrian’s Wall played a role in a conflict 1,500 tears after its
construction.
The purpose of the wall was to provide a buffer zone and a cordon sanitaire for the
Roman Empire vis-à-vis Scottish tribes in the northern part of the island of Britain. However,
that is only a physical interpretation of the structure. The wall served several other purposes as
well, “The Wall, despite being devised as a strategic and political tool, would also have involved
the troops in all the homogenizing and morale-boosting competitive wide-effects of mutual
participation in a major project.” 272 The immensity of the project provided its own microcosm
Guy de la Bedoyere, Hadrian’s Wall: History and Guide, Tempus Publishing, Stroud
Publishing, United Kingdom, 1998.
272
Bedoyere, p.14
271
323
of activity. “In time the Wall probably became so integrated a part of military routine and local
civilian life that its original intentions were largely forgotten.” 273
Figure IV-12
The Extent of the Roman Empire
The wall was in fact a historic success and established a line of Roman control that
allowed the creation of Roman institutions in northern England. The position to pull back, some
three hundred years later, suggests that the policy provided some short-term stability as well.
The reasons for building the wall are also thought to be the result of internal Roman political
machinations rather than external threats. “The abandonment of Trajan’s conquests aroused
273
Bedoyere, p.14
324
hostile reaction; and further, it was suspected that the deathbed adoption of Hadrian was a fake,
stage-managed by Trajan’s widow in the interests of her favourite.”274 Yet, it was during this
time that ended Roman expansion (imperirum sine fine) and soon thereafter Hadrian pulled out
of the Middle East around the Euphrates and lands on the other side of the lower Danube River
(see Figure IV-12).
Hadrian “knew as the British Army in the Egyptian desert were to demonstrate in 1940,
that a force on the strategic defensive (as the Romans were in the face of Northern Barbarians)
must continually adopt the tactical offensive. The use of a line of static forts, he realized, was
minimal and what was required was a system of fortifications. Which would give his army the
maximum mobility, would ensure that it would always have initiative, and would give it control
over a wide area and the vital communications which furnished the supplies of the area.”275
c.
The Korean Demilitarized Zone and Environmental Protection
Time
Class
Category
Type
Modern
Conflict
Territory
Boundaries
The Chinese and Romans built great walls that separated empires and this tradition of
great walls continues today. Walls today are more elaborate variations on this basic theme and
constructed of sophisticated materials than rock and mortar. These systems not only include the
armed forces that were associated with protecting the walls, but also new ways of interdicting
274
Anthony R. Briley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, New York and London: Routledge,
1997, p. 1.
275
Anthony R. Briley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, New York and London: Routledge,
1997, pp. 86-7.
325
advancing forces that included barbed wire, land mines, and systems of lighting, sound, and
movement detection, and many other mechanical means not available to the Chinese and
Romans.
The demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea is a modern barrier like
the Great Wall of China and Hadrian’s Wall. By proximity, it is in the same region as the Great
Wall, but in practice it is more like Hadrian’s Wall. Both are relatively short, but cross
peninsulas in a manner that is much less permeable (and long), compared to the Great Wall.
The environment is part of the story of the DMZ in many ways. One story is particularly
poignant. The DMZ is heavily militarized and constantly weapons are directed from one side
towards the other. A small environmental issue in the DMZ near Panmunjon nearly resulted in
conflict.
“It started with a tree. It nearly ended in war. On Aug. 18, 1976, a South Korean work
party supervised by two U.S. Army officers was sent to prune a 100-foot poplar tree in
the Joint Security Area along the Demilitarized Zone, which marks the border between
North and South Korea.”276
There was key bridge in the DMZ, called the “Bridge of No Return”, that allowed access
to both sides of the DMZ for parties in the conflict across a river.
There was nearby “a row of
poplar trees, and the fifth tree blocked a line of sight between checkpoint 3 and the bridge from
the view of check point 5. In the Joint Security Area, the trimming of a poplar tree each summer
276
Jan Wesner Childs, Stars and Stripes, August 18, 2001, accessed October 8, 2004,
http://ww2.pstripes.osd.mil/01/aug01/ed081801c.html.
326
was a routine procedure. However, in early August 1976, a South Korean work force was
threatened with death if they tried to trim the tree.”277
A few North Korean troops arrived and demanded a stop to the operation, but the pruning
continued. Shortly thereafter, about 20 North Koreans ascended on them. Some accounts say
they brought carrying metal pipes and axes, others say they overwhelmed the smaller party and
took their axes away from them. They attacked the pruning party and set upon two American
officers, killing them with the axes.278
The incident resulted in one of the greatest crises there since the end of Korean War. The
U.S. aircraft carrier USS Midway went to the waters of the peninsula and fighter jets and
bombers were moved from Okinawa in Japan to South Korea. Troops were put on alert.
Three days later the United States launched “Operation Paul Bunyan”, where U.S. Army
engineers returned to the tree protected by infantrymen, with Cobra helicopters, F-11 jet fighters,
and B-52 bombers in the air above. Artillery units were stationed nearby. The engineers cut
down the tree. It was alleged that Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, wanted to launched
retaliatory bombing attacks on North Korea.279
The military demarcation line or MDL separates North and South Korea is a temporary
rather than a permanent structure, at least according to the treaty.
The De-Militarized Zone or
Operation Paul Bunyan “Tree / Hatchet Incident” 18 August 1976,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/paul_bunyan.htm, accessed October 8, 2004.
278
Jan Wesner Childs, Stars and Stripes, August 18, 2001, accessed October 8, 2004,
http://ww2.pstripes.osd.mil/01/aug01/ed081801c.html.
279
Operation Paul Bunyan “Tree / Hatchet Incident” 18 August 1976,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/paul_bunyan.htm, accessed October 8, 2004.
277
327
DMZ is an area of 2 kilometers on either side of the MDL. Entry into the territory, contiguous
waters, or airspace is prohibited under the Armistice treaty that ended the war.280
This stipulation did not prevent the North Koreans from attempting to infiltrate the south
underground. Kim-Il Sung allegedly gave an order in the 1970s that each army division along
the border was required to dig and maintain two infiltration tunnels each. The first such tunnel
was discovered in 1974 and the second a year later.
I taught a course in Seoul, South Korea, at Sookmyung University, in the summer of
2004 and visited one of the infiltration tunnels. The trip from a downtown Seoul hotel was not
far, but there were several checkpoints along the way where our passports were checked. The
route from Seoul took us near the coast and the urban setting of the city quickly vanished into a
relatively little developed area. Surprisingly, there are people, mostly farmers, who live with in
these zones.
We stopped at a visitor center and watched a video and visited concession stores that
mostly focused on the DMZ. From there, we visited a military overlook station on a hill that
viewed the valley of the DMZ below. There was a village there, but the North Korean
“peasants” are said to be members of the North Korean military and it is largely a Potemkin
village.
From there went to the infiltration tunnel. Tram cars took us into the ground and we
wore helmets and were instructed to watch our head due to the narrow hole. You could hear the
sound of plastic on rock as people’s helmets grazed the low-hanging roof. Water trips from the
roof and the place smelled of mold. A swift, cool breeze blew through the tunnel. At the bottom
Operation Paul Bunyan “Tree / Hatchet Incident” 18 August 1976,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/paul_bunyan.htm, accessed October 8, 2004.
280
328
of the tram was a larger tunnel that had been blocked out with concrete and no doubt armed with
explosives. This was a short portion of a discovered North Korean infiltration tunnel.
When it was discovered, the North Korean government claimed that this was a coal mine
that had probably strayed off course. The geology of the area however was not a type likely to
have coal deposits. The North Koreas also smeared some mixture on the walls of the tunnel to
give the impression that coal was present. The North Koreans also alleged that it was actually
the South Koreans who had dug the tunnel. An examination of blasting patterns however
showed that the tunnel excavation was done in a north to south pattern.
The DMZ separated one people divided by two ideologies. The conflict itself was
horrendous. The Korean War led to a loss of life estimated around 5 million. The conflict nearly
grew into a much larger conflagration. General Douglas MacArthur proposed the use of nuclear
weapons in the conflict against Chinese forces and this eventually led to his dismissal by U.S.
President Truman.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 when Korea invaded South Korea. At the time,
it was thought that Mao Tse-Tung in China and Joseph Stalin in Russia engineered the invasion,
but later reports suggested that Kim Il-sung was behind the act and that China and Russia later
“approved” of it. The West viewed the invasion as a threat to the stability of Northeast Asia and
particularly to Japan.
Under the policy of “containment”, the West responded. U.S. President Truman said that
the “attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the
use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war."
329
The end of the Korean War in 1953 was a cease-fire only.281 Signatories were North
Korea, China and the United States, and South Korea never did sign a peace treaty with the
North. The armistice created a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that was a buffer zone between the
North and the South. The DMZ is heavily fortified and laden with thousands of land mines
making human habitation nearly impossible. The DMZ provides an environment in which
hundreds of species of plants and animals (some endangered) have flourished because of the
danger to humans.
The DMZ is one of the most "phenomenal military edifices left on this planet after the
end of the Cold War".282 It is about 150 miles in length along the 38th parallel and is two and a
half miles wide with a buffer zone around it. Combined, the swath is a stretch of about six miles
that cuts the Korean continent in two. The terrain in the DMZ varies quite a bit and includes a
series of ecosystems, and habitat types that ranges from mountains to jungles. This strip of land
has been untouched by human hands since the signing of the armistice in 1953, making it one of
the most protected “parks” in the world.
Since that time, the DMZ has become home to many species of plants and animals. With
the industrialization of South Korea and the desperate situation in North Korea, extinction has
become a major problem on the peninsula. However, many of the plants and animals on most of
the peninsula do exist in the DMZ. Mammals and birds are especially under threat on the
peninsula. Over 10 percent of both mammals and birds are threatened with extinction.283
Ann Nichole Neufeld, “Korean Demilitarized Zone as a Bioreserve”, ICE Case Studies,
Number 52. http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/dmz.htm
282
"Demilitarized," 1997, p. 1.
283
World Resources: 1998-99, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, Table 14.1,
Biodiversity Tables, p. 322.
281
330
The DMZ has become an important stop for birds on "the East Asia Migratory
Flyway".284 Rare Manchurian Cranes and Siberian herons are two of the many birds that use the
DMZ as a resting place along their migration route. However, this strip of land has drawn more
than just birds. South Korean researchers found "41 native and 40 rare species of plants, along
with 16 native and 8 rare species of fish in the three-mile wide South Korean buffer zone
adjacent to the DMZ.” 285 They also found 14 species of animals not known to live in the area
and 8 species threatened or endangered.
The DMZ is a successful habitat precisely because it is dangerous for humans. The
United States has refused to participate in negotiations to ban land mines, largely because of the
roughly one million land mines used to protect South Korea from an invasion by North Korea.
Pentagon strategists assert that the land mines are vital to thwarting any invasion by almost one
million North Korean troops posted along the DMZ.286
The relative sanctity of the DMZ stands into stark contrast to the state of the environment
in South Korea, which has undergone considerable modernization. “In South Korea's rush
toward modernization, it has sacrificed some of the natural beauty for which the Korean
Peninsula was known as the "land of embroidered rivers and mountains.” Today, 48 percent of
reptiles and 60 percent of amphibians in South Korea are either extinct or endangered.”287 A
“1994 bio-diversity study revealed that over 20% of South Korea's terrestrial vertebrates are
284
Jordan, 1997, p. 1.
Drohan, 1996, p. 1.
286
Myers, 1997, p. 2.
287
Frank Langfitt, Sun Foreign Staff, “The Demilitarized Zone”, Korea, Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com.
285
331
already extirpated or endangered, namely 30% of mammals, 14% of birds, 48% of lizards,
snakes and turtles, and 60% of frogs and salamanders.”288
Modernization’s impact is accompanied by the impact of old traditions. This is
particularly the case with respect to wildlife. “In the Korean psyche wildlife to most people is
not the nature's wonder to respect and enjoy and the natural heritage to cherish and sustainably
conserve. Rather, in Korean culture, wild animals and plants are utilitarian objects at a personal
level and something to exploit, eat and nourish the body. There are large markets in Korea and
many parts of Asia for meat and body parts from wild animals and for wild plants; for food and
medicinal use. Animal poaching is simply a matter of business concerns for financial gain and
would cease were there no market.”289
It is ironic that the pristine nature of the DMZ and its capacity to serve as a wildlife
sanctuary is viable only as long as threatened conflict exists between North and South Korea.
Some environmentalists fear a peace treaty would lead to the invasion of the DMZ -- by South
Korea developers. Parts of the DMZ are within 20 miles of Seoul.
A differing approach would be to expand the DMZ in terms of a peace park and take the
opportunity to set aside valuable land for protection on a peninsula were wilderness is under
threat. KC Kim sees the DMZ as an "eventual core of a larger network of protected areas across
Korea, all connected by natural corridors or greenways".290 Kim proposes that the DMZ become
a system of bio-reserves. These would offer sanctuary for rare and endangered species of plants
288
Lee et al, 1994. Bio-diversity Korea 2000, Seoul: Minumsa, Digital Chosun.
K. C. Kim, Professor, Director Penn State Center for BioDiversity Research; Chair, The
DMZ Forum. Digital Chosun Online Newspaper, March 27, 2000, Volume 18, Number 49,
Chosunilbo (English Edition) Daily News.
290
Brown, 1996, p. 2. Dr. K. C. Kim, director of the Center for Biodiversity Research, has
written and published Biodiversity Korea 2000: “A Strategy to Save, Study and Sustainably Use
Korea's Biotic Resources, a "blueprint" for biodiversity conservation for South Korea”.
289
332
and animals. In addition, it would offer an economic boost for both countries through
"increasingly popular ecotourism and research of organisms which may have medical and
commercial uses".291 The species are not limited to tigers. “Heavily exploited in traditional
medicine markets and for such products as bear paw soup, black bears have largely disappeared
in South Korea…The DMZ may be one of the few areas remaining where any significant
populations are left.”292
Endangered species seem to thrive in this environment, precisely because they can often
return to their status as a primary predator – now that humans are not around. US soldiers
stationed in the DMZ have reported tiger sightings and there are allegedly tigers caught on video
jumping over the barbwire that carpets the area. U.S. soldiers can use weapons against the tigers
in protection.293
Some argue that promoting healthy environment such as the DMZ is part of unification
and prosperity issues for the peninsula. "Healthy environment and rich natural heritage are of
paramount importance for the future of unified Korea. Environmental concerns underlie all of
the major topics that have been identified as priority, (including) economic cooperation, tension
and arms reduction.” Further, it might serve as a boost to both economies: “Creating a nature
reserve might result in economic opportunities such as eco-tourism. “294
291
Drohan, 1996, p. 1.
Donald Smith, “Peace Prospects Imperil Korea’s Wildlife Paradise”, National
Geographic News, June 23, 2000 (online).
293
From DMZ Forum: http://www.dmzforum.org.
294
“War zone to wildlands: the campaign to restore Korea”, K. C. Kim, quoted in June 19,
2000, Margot Higgins, Environmental Network News, http://www.enn.com.
292
333
North Korea has also suggested the DMZ’s might be preserved for environmental
reasons. 295 “The director-general of North Korea’s Nature Conservation Union in Pyongyang, in
a radio statement broadcast by the government’s official news agency, cited preservation of the
DMZ as a worthy goal. Nine years ago the two governments formally agreed that the DMZ
ultimately should be used for “peaceful purposes.” 296
Kim sees the DMZ bioreserve as a way to enhance cooperation between the two Koreas,
in addition to its importance for conservation. "The environment is a benign, seemingly
apolitical issue on which the Koreans could possibly agree," observes Kim. Environmental
issues may be the least provocative way of breaking the ice".297
d.
Comparing and Reflecting on the Boundary Cases
The Great Wall was the first, the foremost and the most famous attempt to separate
peoples through the creating of physical barriers. Many have followed, such as Hadrian’s Wall,
the Berlin Wall and the Korean DMZ. Israel is building a wall to separate it from its Arab
neighbors.
Several millennia ago, the Chinese were terra-forming the planet on a scale not attained
for thousands of years later. They created hills, mountains, impenetrable barriers of stone and
mud, and berms that were similar in impact to huge changes in geology. The changes in
geological structure were particularly disadvantageous for the horse-based military and economic
Donald Smith, “Peace Prospects Imperil Korea’s Wildlife Paradise”, National
Geographic News, June 23, 2000 (online).
296
Donald Smith, “Peace Prospects Imperil Korea’s Wildlife Paradise”, National
Geographic News, June 23, 2000 (online).
297
Drohan, 1996, p. 1.
295
334
systems of the northerners. Nonetheless, it had a similar impact on other large, migrating species
indigenous to the area.
Was the wall worth it? It did last for a long time and was built at great cost. Ultimately,
it failed, but even in its failure the Chinese were able to absorb the invaders rather be absorbed.
There is no doubt that the wall was a demarcation of economic system, but it could not alter long
term social trends.
The Great Wall stopped the Mongols advance towards the south, at least for several
thousand years. Rather, the Mongols and the Huns turned to the south, conquering India, the
Middle East, and driving west deep into the heartland of Europe. There, they ravaged European
kingdoms and the remnants of the Roman Empire. As they advanced whole populations moved
further west, creating a huge migration of peoples into Western Europe.
Perhaps the idea of the Great Wall in China laid the seeds for the Great Wall in Britain.
No doubt word of the wall traveled throughout Eurasia – it was, after all, the largest construction
project in history. The Great Wall of China began from a series of short walls and there is no
reason why this would not continue in Europe, as a means of linking up defensive systems.
Perhaps Hadrian’s Wall had persisted as a viable physical barrier and of an idea of an Iron
Curtain that existed across Europe during the Cold War. In Britain, a wall separated people, as
today it separates peoples in the West Bank and on the Korean peninsula. These walls are
clearly more than mere physical barriers. They serve to define zones of ideology and social
systems in the context of environmental possibilities and the difference, over time, can become
quite stark.
China’s Great Wall was certainly an antecedent for the Hadrian, but the outcomes and
circumstances were entirely different. Hadrian’s Wall was shorter, fewer resources used and the
335
life span of it less in time and scope. A system of walls was also used, along with water barriers,
in the case study on the defense of Babylon from the Assyrians noted earlier.
The example of Hadrian’s Wall clearly demonstrates how conflict can lead to enormous
changes in the environment as combatants attempt to remake the environment to fulfill their own
strategic purposes. The impact many years later would not only reveal separated biological
systems, at least for certain land animals, but very distinct social, economic and social systems
among human beings.
The clearest relevant examples from the earlier cases are the stone walls built by the
Chinese and the Romans. In terms of size, the Korean DMZ more closely resembles Hadrian’s
Wall, which only provides perspectives on the scale of China’s Great Wall. The walls were not
only physical separations of peoples but distinctive lines between types of economic systems.
The Great Wall separated the sedentary Chinese system of the south with the nomadic horsebased system of the north. Likewise, the sedentary crop production of Romans stood in stark
contrast to the pastoral strategies of the Picts (Scots). The DMZ separates capitalist South Korea
from communist North Korea. Whereas the first two conflicts related to environmental and
conflict barriers had mostly negative impacts on the environment, in the DMZ it provided a
convenient sanctuary for wildlife.
The irony that a dangerous place for human is a (somewhat) safe place for plants and
animals is not lost. In many ways, the DMZ is a type of national park, but one where tourism is
forbidden. The keeping out of tourists and settlements tips the balance from humans back to
nature. Barriers now are more than just land features. As the case of the Korean DMZ
illustrates, it also includes air, land water, and underground dimensions.
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C.
Environment and Conflict: The Cases Through Time
A differing perspective on the cases is to look at them through the time periods to which
they belong. Along with this grouping, the relevant coding of the cases can also be shown and
discussed through temporal analysis.
1.
Ancient Case Patterns
Climate change is a strong driver of conflict behavior in this ancient historical period.
People begin to establish stable centers of economic and social life, but declining resources or
increasing populations inevitably seep into human history leading to the movement of peoples.
Human social systems are not amenable to steady state behaviors.
Competition between and within humans for prized land and the key resources over time
is evident. While some of these demands are general, such as arable lands and hunting grounds,
the demands focus on specific resources important to the socio-economic context of time. Early
in history, specific resource needs just begin to emerge. Water was needed to irrigate crops and
wood required to build urban settlements and as an energy source. These incremental changes in
resource demands over a long time represented substantial advances in technology. These
technology advances spilled over in the conflict arena. Combined with the larger populations in
city states, these centers had the ability to extend their powers over a large distance. This was
the basis for the creation of the state. States saw the environment as a reason to wage war, but
also a means to create military capacity. This policy was an essential part of building early
states.
337
These ancient cases exhibit certain attributes that can provide a basis for some simple
comparisons, although they clearly lack statistical and scientific validity. From these six ancient
cases in this chapter, it is possible to develop common categories for coding that can be useful in
analysis. The cases some areas of basic indicators, including approximate beginning and ending
dates of conflict, as well as information of the geographic locations of the conflict and the actors
involved. The geographic locations can be further micro-scoped along dimensions of continent,
region, and country (see Table IV-7).
Table IV-7
Coding of Base Indicators from the Ancient Case Studies
Case /
Neanderthal Cedars of
MohenjoNile
Indicator
Lebanon
Daro
Begin
45,000 BC
2,600 BC
2,500 BC
500 BC
Conflict
End Conflict 15,000 BC
138 AD
1700 BC
2,005 AD
(ongoing)
Conflict
30,000
2,738
800
2,505
Duration
(years)
Continent
Europe
Mideast
Asia
Mideast
Region
Western
Asia
South Asia Africa
Europe
Mideast
Mideast
Country
Many
Lebanon
Pakistan
Egypt
(current)
(now)
Actors
Humans,
Babylonians, Aryans,
Egypt,
Neanderthals Phoenicians Dravidians Nubians
Habitat Type Cool
Temperate
Dry
Dry
(then)
2.
Assyrian
Water War
720 BC
Great Wall
of China
450 BC
539 AD
1600 AD
181
2,050
Mideasst
Asia
Mideast
Iraq
Asia
East Asia
China
Assyrians,
Chinese,
Babylonians Mongols
Dry
Temperate
Middle Case Patterns
The need for control over resources, both general and specific, arose in tandem with the
development of organized political entities and ultimately states. The state established strict
338
regions of control and access to resources. With growing populations, spheres of interest began
to overlap and conflict over resource became a common occurrence.
South Asia provides an instructive historic microcosm of the varied and changing
relationship between environment and conflict, particularly in heralding the coming importance
of two sought after commodities: wood and water. In conflict situations, combatants may seek
to change the environment in order to increase their military advantage or to decrease that of an
opponent. Mughal armies conquering peoples in South Asia often laid siege to forts built in
heavily wooded areas. They began by cutting down all of the trees in the area before the
siege.298 This tactic would remove hiding places for bow-equipped snipers from preying on the
Mughal armies -- similar to spraying Agent Orange on jungle vegetation during the Vietnam War
to protect American soldiers from sniping by Viet Cong guerillas.
Trees are often victims in wars. In World War I, there was massive deforestation for a
variety of reasons: burning wood for warmth and cooking, exploding ordnance, and the firing of
millions of metal bullet projectiles. At the battles at Antitem and Gettysburg in the American
Civil War, most of the trees in the area fell due to the multitude of rifle shells that were fired by
the two armies, one bullet at a time. In World War II, the Soviet Union engaged in a "scorched
earth" policy in retreating from German advances, burning their buildings, crops and forests prior
to the German invasion (as they did when Napoleon invaded). Forests became part of defense
strategy in South Asia hundreds of years ago.
"A sixteenth century classical literary text, Aamuktamalyada, written by
Krishneveda Raya, spells out what ought to be the policy of the state towards
298
"Forests, Pastoralists and Agrarian Society in Mughal India", by Chetan Singh, 21-48,
Nature, Culture and Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, David
Arnold and Ramacharda Guha, eds, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 23-5.
339
forests and tribal groups. Though he recommends that the state should
deliberately develop impenetrable forests on all the boundaries of its kingdom in
order to protect people from thieves, he advises only a partial clearing of forests
in the center of the kingdom, not others."299
These ancient policies on environment and conflict extended not only to forests
but also to the use of them, particularly the role of animals and thus the agricultural
economy, the mainstay of agrarian lifestyle. (See case study on Robin Hood and forest
rights in England.) The strict forest policy, that limited access to forest resource to the
elite, ultimately led to resentment and backlash in Southeast Asia.
"The first and spontaneous individual peasant protest against forest regulations
took the form of a violation of government restrictions. Illegal grazing and the
resulting impounding of animals had become perennial problems, despite strict
supervision by forest subordinates. There was an increase in cases of
unauthorized grazing and the removal of grass and other forest produce.
Unauthorized felling was the biggest forest offence in the eyes of the state in
Guntru, Nellore, Chittoor and Anantpaur. In 1919-20 as many as 8,900 cases of
forest 'crimes' were reported."300
Wood was a prized resource in South Asia but so was water. A series of small
dam systems in south Bihar (in the eastern part of present-day India) in mid-nineteenth
299
"Whose Trees: Forest Practices and Local Communities in Andhra, 1600-1922,"
Neelardri Bhattacacharya, Nature, Culture and Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental
History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramacharda Guha, eds., Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995, pp. 88-89.
300
"Whose Trees," Neelardri Bhattacacharya, p. 119.
340
century captured run-off from central Indian plateau.301 As water was also prized, so
were the resources in it, especially the fish and sea mammals that lived there. Regulation
and taxation of water use emerged.
"Fishermen, along with other agriculturalists, appear everywhere to have been
subject to the 'tax on trade and professions' known as muhtarifa." The jalkar, a
tax on income for "the use of the produce of water" was only one of several ways
that fishermen's income were taxed and regulated in the 18th-19th centuries.302
The range of environment and conflict issues in historic South Asia demonstrate several
types of environments there and the types of social systems that evolved over time.303 The
following six cases also follow the form and order of the ancient cases noted above and proceeds
along a historic path. The discussion of the ancient and middle cases suggests a continuum of
development in the types of environment problems. Such a comparison does not mean to imply
301
"Small Dam Systems of the Sahyadris," David Hardiamn, Nature, Culture and
Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramacharda
Guha, eds., Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, 185-209.
302
"Inland Waters and Freshwater Fisheries: Issues of Control, Access and Conservation in
Colonial India", Peter Reeves, Nature, Culture and Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental
History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramacharda Guha, eds, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995, pp. 260-292. The role of environment in national policy decision-making is not
new. Air pollution problems in South Asia, for example, have been an issue of policy concerns
for a long time. "However, a much longer history of air pollution is apparent from earlier
accounts. By the eighteenth century, smoke was cited, along with heat, dust, humidity, and
noisome smells, as one of the attendant hardships and health hazards for Europeans in Calcutta."
Calcutta adopted smoke nuisance legislation in 1963, one of the first cities in the world to do so.
London was the first in 1853, well ahead of most other cities.” From "The Conquest of Smoke:
Legislation and Pollution in Colonial Calcutta," M.R. Anderson, 293-335, Nature, Culture and
Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramacharda
Guha, editors, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 294.
303
Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings, New York, Vintage Books Edition: 1991 (first
edition, Random House, 1977), p. 69. Social concerns became a source of conflict. In the
Americas, the Yanomamo of the Amazon met those needs but also came into conflict with other
tribes in disputes mostly over women
341
any sort of trend, since the possession of two cases over two periods is clearly an insufficient
base from which to judge. They do however point to manifestations in the relation between
conflict and environment that seem-longstanding in nature.
The span of when conflicts begin and end spans over 1,800 years. Conflict durations are
generally long, but appear to be decreasing in span over time. North American cases account for
two-thirds with the rest being European cases. Western North American cases are the most
common and most habitats are temperate in nature. The cases suggest a shift to the New World
from the Old World, but also a focus on new, emerging problem types (see Table IV-8).
Table IV-8
Coding of Base Indicators from the Middle Case Studies
HADRIAN
MAYA
VINELAND
Middle
Cases
Boundaries Arable
Climate
Land
Change
Begin
80
250
1000
Conflict
End
450
850
1500
Conflict
Conflict
370
600
500
Duration
(years)
Continent
Europe
North
North
America
America
Region
Western
Southern
Northern
Europe
North
North
America
America
Country
Rome
Guatemala
Canada
(current)
(now)
Actors
Rome,
Babylonians, Vikings and
Scots, Picts
Phoenicians Native
Americans
Habitat
Temperate
Temperate
Cool
Type
(then)
3.
Modern Case Patterns
342
ANASAZI
ROBIN
BUFFALO
Water
Forests
Weapons
1100
1450
1870
1600
1600
1889
500
150
19
North
America
Western
North
America
USA
Europe
North
America
Western
North
America
USA
Various
tribes
UK and
Merry Men
Dry
Temperate
Western
Europe
UK
USA,
Native
Americans
Temperate
Modern cases reflect both the same issues as those earlier in history and the long-term
trends and issues described earlier. While many issues remain concurrent, the pace at which they
change is new and how they manifest themselves in particular situations depends on a larger
context.
These modern cases are presented chronologically, but since these conflict outbursts are
symptoms of much longer-term problems, the order is somewhat arbitrary. With a general
shorter time period of focus, compared to the ancient and middle cases, there is more of a chance
of overlap in the duration of the cases. With differing durations, discerning order based on
conflict time periods becomes more problematic.
The compression of time related to conflicts of environment is partially a simple matter
of available historical record, but also an acceleration of these conflicts due to more people,
resources demands and the nation-state system that embodies those interests. As before, the
cases draw from the six general issue areas.
A comparative matrix shows the six modern cases and their distribution across a number
of event-data driven criteria. Some conflicts have an extremely short time span (one year) and
medium term (eight years). Two conflicts were outliers at 38 and 52 years of duration
respectively. The continents are equally split between Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Onehalf of the cases are in dry habitats and one-third in tropical ones.
By this modern era the differing types of conflicts often relate and overlap, which was not
the case earlier in history. The reason is globalization and the growth in the size and reach of
nations. The conflicts in Jordan and Kuwait were definitely linked at the time and the role of
natural and human impacts are evident in the Sahel and Rwanda cases (see Table IV-10).
Table IV-9
Coding of Base Indicators from the Middle Case Studies
343
DMZ
JORDAN
KUWAIT
KHMER
RWANDA
SAHEL
Boundaries
Water
Weapons
Forests
Begin
Conflict
End
Conflict
Conflict
Duration
(years)
Continent
Region
1953
1967
1991
1992
Arable
Land
1994
Climate
Change
1997
2005
2005
1991
2000
1994
2005
52
38
1
8
1
8
Asia
East Asia
Mideast
AsiaMid
Mideast
AsiaMid
Asia
East Asia
Africa
East Africa
Country
North Korea
South Korea
North Korea
South Korea
Jordan
Jordan
USA
Rwanda
Africa
West
Africa
Niger
Jordan,
Israel
Temperate
Dry
UN Allies,
Khmer
Iraq, Kuwait Rouge,
Vietnam,
Cambodia
Dry
Tropical
Modern
Cases
Actors
Habitat
Type
344
Rwanda,
Uganda,
Congo,
Burundi
Tropical
Niger,
Chad
Nigeria
Dry