2004-2006 – Scientific coordination of the Project entitled “Combating Desertification with Traditional Knowledge – A Contribution to Euro-Mediterranean Security” . The joint impact of human and natural causes of land degradation can pose a serious human influx from both Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and from the MENA region to Europe.
Such a massive human movement is expected to bring about undesirable socio-economic transformations in the target countries on both shores of the Mediterranean Sea. One possible measure of alleviating such a movement is to help people in the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean countries to better cope with drought succession by means of conserving land and water resources. In this context land degradation and desertification will be analyzed as a security issue for the environmental security dimension with a focus on the interactions between the human individual as a cause, contributor and a victim of global environmental change.
As a human security challenge, desertification poses severe problems for food, health and livelihood security. Desertification is conceptualized as a manifold new security challenge that poses no military threats but environmental challenges, vulnerabilities and risks to the well-being, survival of individuals and national stability.
This cooperation will bring together four natural scientists and a social scientists who focus from different disciplines on the security implications of desertification efforts. This unique interdisciplinary effort will most
likely contribute to a policy agenda-setting of new soft security challenges.
