23-2008 This week on Radio New Internationalist Human Tides An estimated one billion people will flee their homes by 2050
What's the most urgent threat facing poor people in developing countries. War? Climate change? Mega-development? A recent report says it's the result of all three - that people are being forced from their homes. On current trends a staggering one billion people will flee their homes in the next 40 years - the majority because of climate change and the building of mega-projects like dams and mines. Today's co-host, John Davison- one of the authors of the report Human Tide: the real migration crisis- joins Radio New Internationalist's Chris Richardsto visit some startling scenarios and meet the people who are affected:
• Ten years after Cyclone Mitch hit Honduras, Juan Almendares from Friends of the Earth reveals how displacement and disruption still endures.
• Development projects like dams displace 15 million people a year. Medha Patkar - the leader of the Save Narmada Movement - recounts how the World Bank helps fund them.
• Two hundred and fifty million people are going to be displaced because of climate-change through floods, droughts, famines and hurricanes between now and 2050. That's more than double the entire populations of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Ibrahim Togola - from the Mali Folke Center - explains how it's already happening in Africa.
• Professor Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, presents compelling reasons why the Rich World should pay to climate-proof the Poor World.
In today's CD - Urban Gypsyperformed by the Romanian-born Shukar Collective - traditions of those perennial refugees - the gypsies - meet the electric sounds of modern musicians.