Roots of Migration
Five years ago Trees, Water & People ran a campaign - Roots of Migration - speaking to the rise in climate migration out of Central America.
We spoke to the fact that people migrated for three main reasons: 1. Security - including physical violence and sociopolitical violence like corruption, 2. Economic - where people weren't making enough income to live with dignity, and 3. Environmental - where people's land no longer provided for basic needs.
Climate Change makes all three of these drivers worse, and that's the main thread through a new Climate Migration series from NPR: Uprooted. Migration often starts in rural areas, where shifting weather patterns makes small scale agriculture riskier and less lucrative every year.
A friend of TWP that farms full-time in Honduras says, “Locally, the weather seems to keep getting stranger annually. Last year it was raining daily through mid July and this year we have had almost three weeks with no decent storms right as corn is close to harvest. In our area we are having 40-50mph dry winds which are normally seen in November. So hard to keep track of without a consistent water supply. Many farmers in this area are going to Tegucigalpa for work now.”
Migration stories don't start at the border - they start in rural communities like these, where people struggle every day to make ends meet. That’s why TWP focuses its efforts in these areas, trying to provide alternatives to leaving everything behind, which invites new challenges and increases already heavy burdens on women and girls in these communities.
In 2018-2019 I spoke with dozens of migration experts to ask their thoughts on how climate change was driving migration. Most honed in on the more acute and easily visible drivers - gangs extorting small businesses, high unemployment, low wages, and food insecurity. As this series illustrates, these are symptoms of a bigger issue, much more difficult to address.
Hence our campaign - Roots of Migration - which urged that we address the root causes of this phenomenon through climate action, climate adaptation, and climate-ready development. It’s the only path forward for countries like Honduras which are agriculture dependent with high levels of persistent rural poverty.
Thanks for supporting this global challenge through Trees, Water & People.
Links to the 4-part NPR series, Uprooted:
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/21/1189253504/climate-change-migration-honduras