www.alternet.org/envirohealth/48854/ -
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Published on: 3/12/2007
Last Visited: 3/13/2007
Liz Lucas, spokesperson for the international relief agency Oxfam, which works on water sanitation in Chad and Darfur, says both Darfur and East Chad face the same environmental challenges.
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"Climate change is where it begins," Lucas says.In Darfur, increasingly drier climates and desertification have forced the mostly Arab nomadic pastoralists to graze their livestock on the agricultural lands and pastures of the mostly black non-nomadic populations, leading to repeated conflicts over the past 30 years.
But Lucas says there is more to the current crisis.
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"The drier and the worse it gets there," says Lucas, "the more these already marginalized groups will have to fight for their livelihoods."
CARE's Hyba says in East Chad it is only a matter of time before resource competition between locals and refugees erupts into inter-communal conflict."In a couple of years, if the refugees are still here, I would imagine that a lot of the peace-building activities would probably be around deadwood collection," she says.