IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v10y1998i6p699-713.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Refugees and environmental change in West Africa: the role of institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Black

    (School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)

  • Mohamed F. Sessay

    (School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK)

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between forced migration and environmental change in West Africa, through an analysis of the changing institutional context through which resource use and management decisions are made. The paper draws on the work of Leach and Mearns (1991), who have highlighted how institutions shape the ways in which different groups of people gain access to and control over resources, and in doing so, affect environmental outcomes. This approach is used to illuminate two apparently paradoxical case studies of refugee influxes in Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, where despite significant increases in the population of host areas, degradation of natural resources has remained limited. It is argued that flexible local institutions have been able to adapt to the presence of refugees, providing regulated access to natural resources, and so reducing destructive behaviour. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Black & Mohamed F. Sessay, 1998. "Refugees and environmental change in West Africa: the role of institutions," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(6), pages 699-713.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:10:y:1998:i:6:p:699-713
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1328(1998090)10:6<699::AID-JID511>3.0.CO;2-Z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:10:y:1998:i:6:p:699-713. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.