Circular Migration as Climate Change Adaptation: Reconceptualising New Zealand´s and Australia's Seasonal Worker Programs - Núm. 2013-2, Julio 2013 - Precedente. Anuario Jurídico - Libros y Revistas - VLEX 492786130

Circular Migration as Climate Change Adaptation: Reconceptualising New Zealand´s and Australia's Seasonal Worker Programs

AutorChristine Brickenstein/Gil Marvel Tabucanon
Páginas7-34

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Climate change is among the most serious challenges faced by the world in this century. Nevertheless, international negotiations focus more on mitigation and less on adaptation, in spite the fact that potentially, the “greatest single impact” of environmental change will be on “human migration and displacement” (IPCC, 1990). It was only in 2010 at the Conference of Parties (COP) in Cancun, for instance, when migration was included in climate change negotiations (Mokhnacheva, Lee, & Ionesco, 2013). While migration would not be an only response to environmental changes as affected populations may choose to adapt in situ or simply do nothing, yet it is a likely response for those whose homes and means of livelihood are within vulnerable locations. Migration, whether temporary or long-term, has long been recognized as an important coping strategy for persons and communities affected by both sudden and long-term environmental degradations. Where environmental scarcity threatens the long-term capacity to provide food for families and communities, migration has provided the means to minimize vulnerability. Thus, the enhancement of current voluntary migration opportunities and creation of new migration channels would be a reasonable, if proactive, goal vis-à-vis climate change challenges. Forced relocations should be sought only as an option of last resort.

This paper looks into an aspect of adaptation, namely the role of circular migration as climate change adaptation. It focuses on two of the Pacific region’s recent seasonal labour schemes, Australia’s Seasonal Workers Program (SWP) and New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE). Both programs have a dual purpose: while intending to fill labour shortages in the horticultural and viticultural industries of Australia and New Zealand, they also provide employment opportunities for Pacific Island workers by way of circular, i.e. temporary, migration thereby contributing to the economic needs of the workers’ respective nations (Woolford, 2009). Traditionally, labour mobility schemes have a primarily economic focus: for sending countries they provide the development package of employment opportunities, regular remittances and skills enhancement; while, for host countries, the schemes answer labour shortages in seasonal industries where “a reliable workforce is lacking” (MacDermott & Opeskin, 2010). This paper explores if, beyond economic goals, both SWP and RSE may

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be reconceptualised as adaptation strategies in response to the threats and challenges from environmental and climate changes.

The structure of this paper has four parts. First, it presents an overview of the Pacific situation in relation to environmental migration. Secondly, it examines both the historical context and key features of the SWP and RSE, and their implications towards Pacific environmental migration. Thirdly it discusses the seasonal worker programs in other countries particularly those in the U.S., Spain and Colombia. It notes how the concept of temporary worker programs in those countries were reconceptualised to include communities affected by natural disasters. The grant by the U.S. (for the first time, beginning January 2013) of H-2 or Temporary Workers visa to Haitian citizens was partly in response to Haiti’s 2010 earthquake devastation. The Temporary and Circular Labour Migration Scheme (TCLM) of Colombia and Spain, another innovative program, selects circular migrants from disaster prone high risk zones in Colombia, such as those affected by the Galeras volcanic eruption or the floods that occurred in 2010-11. The last part reflects on the role of migration as an adaptation strategy. It asks whether the ambit of Australia and New Zealand’s seasonal labour schemes may be expanded to include environmentally affected populations in the Pacific.

1. The Pacific Situation

Pacific Islanders have for centuries moved across great distances between islands, as their way of coping with environmental threats. Recent events suggest that migration triggered by environmental changes is expected to increase significantly over the coming years (IOM, 2009a). The Pacific region, with its low-elevation island nations dispersed in a vast ocean setting, makes it particularly vulnerable to challenges from the physical environment. The region is predicted to be among those where the adverse effects of environmental changes can be felt the most (Locke, 2009). Thus, the Pacific region presents a unique opportunity to understand the complex relationship between environmental change and migration.

First, the Pacific Rim, with its active volcanoes and geologic faults, has produced some of the world’s worst earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and

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tsunamis that have resulted in displaced populations. Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, for example, left 550,000 people homeless, with millions more lacking adequate supplies and services (Yamagata, 2011). Second, several places in the Pacific are regular pathways for typhoons and tropical cyclones. For instance, tropical cyclone Gene devastated Fiji in 2008, damaging infrastructure, agriculture and utilities, and necessitated the provision of FJ$1.7 million worth of food rations by the Fijian government (Relief Web, 2008). In 2005, Hurricane Percy destroyed most of Tokelau’s agriculture and led to “severe food shortages” such that New Zealand offered to relocate Tokelauans in this country (Moore & Smith, 1995). Third, the Pacific is extremely vulnerable to long-term environmental processes such as climate change and sea level rise. Examples include instances of coastal flooding due to unusually high tides in the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and northern Papua New Guinea (OCHA, 2008), and seawater intrusion into farmlands and freshwater aquifers in the Solomon Islands (Webb, 2008).

Low-lying atoll states, such as Tuvalu, are extremely vulnerable to long-term environmental processes like climate change and sea level rise, which would potentially render the atoll nation uninhabitable. While no one is certain when this will occur, long-term preparation would pave the way for a viable solution. Migration, whether temporary or permanent, is being increasingly seen as an effective adaptation measure for long-term impacts of climate change. The voluntary nature of migration allows space for physical and psychological preparation for both the migrant and those who stay behind. As entire communities need not move, other members of the migrant’s family, including the sick, the very young and the elderly, may stay behind and benefit from the remittances sent. On the side of migrants, the initial difficulties of adjusting to a new home are usually resolved as voluntary migrants generally choose destinations with an already existing network of friends, family or job opportunities waiting, and there is always the possibility of calling or going back home.

When movement is less than voluntary, however, such as when lands are expropriated, or when environmental degradation in their home islands leaves a community with no choice but to move, entire community systems are disrupted and uprooted, in most cases permanently. These relocations unravel

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spatially and culturally based patterns of social organisation as it uproots all members of the community (Cernea & McDowell, 2000). An example is the Bikinian resettlement on Rongerik Atoll and Kili Islands in the 1940s, which produced deep frustrations continuing to the present. A “sense of loss” and state of discontent is felt in resettlement with several people wanting to return to their home islands with its traditional values and systems.

2. Preferential Migration Schemes for Pacific Peoples

Environmental migration need not always be seen in terms of desperate en masse escape to safer locations. Environmental migration may be an adaptation measure of the first resort or a survival mechanism of last resort. This leads to the useful, but flexible, distinction between environmentally motivated migrants, who move before grave environmental deterioration endangers their lives, and environmentally forced migrants. Some individuals may choose to move way before grave environmental deterioration directly threatens their lives (Warner, Afifi, Dun, Stal, & Schmidl, 2008). For these voluntary migrants, the diminishing productivity of their lands, due to environmental deterioration, is only a motivating factor in the relocation process. They can also do this without having to bring along their families. Their move, thus, is similar to that of a labour migrant in search of better livelihood opportunities. Migration thus secures new opportunities not only for migrants but also for the families they leave behind, especially through the remittances they send back. The benefits accruing from these remittances are such that the adaptive capacities of those who stay behind are strengthened (with the construction of better homes, for instance), thereby obviating, or at least mitigating, the need for forced mass relocations.

Although couched in primarily economic terms, the circular or temporary migration schemes of New Zealand and Australia may be regarded –or at least have the potential of being regarded– as initial attempts at establishing proactive environmental migration schemes in the Pacific. Learning from experience of the United States in relation to Haiti, as well as that of Colombia and Spain, both SWP and RSE may be reconceptualised as adaptation strategies for affected Pacific island countries made vulnerable by long-term environmental and climatic processes.

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