environmental degradation as a cause of conflict in - Steiner Graphics

• Remoteness of the area from the centre of development in Eastern Sudan.• Harsh environmental conditions of the area.• Political and socio-economic neglect of the area by the central and regionalgovernments.• Uniqueness of its historical, cultural, economic and political backgrounds.• Overwhelming nature of rapid change, particularly in the last few decades(impact on the natural resources and population dynamics).The findings of the first phase revealed the following:• Umm Kaddada area was continuously declining in importance, as far as itsprevious functional locations as a communications, trading and administrativecentre was concerned.Accordingly, the previous sedentary zone with its centre at Umm Kaddada was foundto be shifting southward. Reasons for this shift could be summarized as follows:• The decision of the British Administration, as early as 1930, to reduce UmmKaddada to a sub-division of a central district administered from al-Fashir,must have had a bearing on its socio-economic development.• The shifting of the transport route southward i.e. the previous transportroute, passing through Umm Kaddada area from east to west shifted to thesouth, due to the declining importance of Umm Kaddada and the favourableenvironmental conditions in Southern Darfur.• As a result of the shift of the transport route some settlements like Nyalaand al-Da’ayn replaced Umm Kaddada as transport centres; the latter hasbeen gradually pushed into a backwater.• Another outcome of that shift was the trend towards out-migration from thearea as one response of the population to the recent changes.• Paradoxically, the movement of the people started at a time when waterbecame available, thus the hypothesis that water availability as a key factorfor development proved to be invalid in the case of Umm Kaddada.• Having discovered all these factors, we attempted to use these findings asa basis for a feasibility study and to use the indicators picked out throughthis phase of study, namely— deterioration of environmental conditions,expressed in terms of climatic fluctuation; degradation of soil; removal ofvegetation cover and enhanced desertification process; reduction in grainproduction, changing social organisation of the Berti tribe, adoption of neweconomic activities, availability of underground water and lack of surfacewater; recent developments in Southern Darfur and the shift of transport49