state of the environment in Somalia - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

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Traditional and modern building in one compound in Hargeisa. Credit: UNDP Somalia Settled by Arab colonists around 900 A.D., Mogadishu had become an important trade centre for the east coast of Africa by the 12th century. During the 16th century, Mogadishu was controlled by Portugal. In 1871, the city was occupied by the sultan of Zanzibar, who leased it to the Italians in 1892. In 1905, Italy purchased the city and made it the capital of its colony of Italian Somaliland. By 1914 Mogadishu’s population was estimated to be approximately 12,000 people. The city was captured and occupied during World War II by British forces operating from Kenya. Rebel forces entered the city in 1990 during Somalia’s long civil war. Intense battling between clan-based rebel factions damaged many parts of Mogadishu in 1991 and 1992, and the city was again the scene of fighting after the international peace-keeping forces of UNOSOM II, which had arrived in 1992, left in 1995. Today the city lacks any form of central government and control remains in the hands of competing militias. Key services such as the airport and port facilities likewise remain under the control of vying factions. Mogadishu’s population is currently estimated to comprise around 2,450,000 people (http://www.shimbir.demon.co.uk/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogadishu) Kismayo, also located on the Indian Ocean coast in south-western Somalia, is the principal town and port of the Jubbada Hoose region. It was founded in 1872 by the sultan of Zanzibar, passed to Great Britain in 1887, and was held until 1924, when it was transferred to Italian control. Kismayo is today the main port for charcoal exports to the Gulf States. Hargeisa, in north-western Somalia, is an important commercial centre and watering place for nomadic stock herders. The town is a transportation hub and has an international airport. It was taken in 1870 by Egyptian forces, then under Ottoman Turkish control, who withdrew in 1884 to fight the rebellion in the Sudan led by Environment in Somalia 24 UNEP Desk Study
Muhammad Ahmad or the Mahdi, whose forces captured Khartoum in 1885. The British later took control of Hargeisa and, in 1941, made it the capital of British Somaliland. The city is the capital of the faction which declared northern Somalia independent as “Somaliland”. Although predominantly a rurally-based population and culture, there are strong patterns of rural-urban migration in Somalia (Gundel, 2002). For a time during the war, this process was reversed as people fled the main towns and moved to areas where their clans originated. A make-shift kitchen of a nomadic family. Credit: FAO/D. Signa Consequently the population of previously small regional towns such as Belet Weyne, Galkaiyo, Baidoa, and Bossassoo rose dramatically as people fled fighting in Mogadishu, the Lower Jubba and the inter-riverine areas. Rapid urban migration has since become a particular issue in Hargeisa where the majority of returning Somali refugees from Ethiopia have chosen to settle. The concentration of businesses and aid programmes in the administrative capitals has also served to attract people from rural areas (Gundel, 2002). The same applies to Somalis returning from the diaspora – mainly an urban community primarily formed on a family and clan basis – as well as economic migrants from Bay and Bakool regions. The relative stability afforded by areas such as “Puntland” has encouraged a large influx of people who migrated from the southern areas affected by the civil unrest. This has contributed to reduce the availability of water in this dry region, where the inhospitable climate makes water a vital resource (EU, Undated). Water and Sanitation Water resources vary by location. In much of the north and north-east, sub-surface water is generally saline and often the only permanent source of water can be found in deep boreholes. In the south, however, water is obtained from rivers as well as shallow wells. In the tsunami-impacted part of the country, many wells in coastal areas have been clogged, or buried by sand washed in by the waves, resulting in brackish and polluted water (UNEP, 2005). Seawater may have also invaded the porous rocks contaminating the underground water with salt. The Human Development Report for Somalia (UNDP, 2001) estimates that Somalia’s annual renewable freshwater fell from 2,500 m 3 per person per year in 1950, to 980 m3 in 1990, with a prediction of 363 m 3 by 2025. It is generally accepted that when this value falls below 1,000 m 3 per year, water scarcity begins to hamper health, economic development, and human well-being; below 500 m 3 per year it becomes life threatening. Somali women collecting water from a deep well. Credit: UNDP Somalia Environment in Somalia 25 UNEP Desk Study Recent data on access to water are not available for much of the country, but it is thought that fewer than 5 per cent of the total population may have secure access to water throughout the year (UNDP, 1998). An estimated 31 per cent of the population has access to safe drinking water in the north-west, while comparable figures for the north-east
Page 1 and 2: The State of the Environment in Som
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents A NOTE ON DATA SO
Page 5 and 6: A NOTE ON DATA SOURCES, NOMENCLATUR
Page 7 and 8: ● control of soil erosion; ● fi
Page 9 and 10: Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in mid-Octobe
Page 11 and 12: Environment in Somalia 9 UNEP Desk
Page 15 and 16: Box 1. The Somali clan-based social
Page 19 and 20: Box 3. Vulnerability of the economy
Page 21 and 22: Somalia’s Environment Minister Mo
Page 23 and 24: Box 4. Local institutions take the
Page 25: HUMAN AND URBAN ENVIRONMENT Introdu
Page 29 and 30: Box 6. Abandoned pesticides An aban
Page 31 and 32: Table 2. Number of livestock The 19
Page 33 and 34: inputs and disrupted technical supp
Page 35 and 36: The absence of surveillance means t
Page 37 and 38: A Somali child rescues a kitten who
Page 39 and 40: Table 3. Recent natural disasters i
Page 43 and 44: Box 10. Land ownership and land dis
Page 45 and 46: The lucrative charcoal trade raises
Page 47 and 48: proposed upstream as well as a hydr
Page 49 and 50: Lobster, commonly fished in Somali
Page 51 and 52: Box 16. Decentralization of ‘fish
Page 53 and 54: Table 4. Rare and endangered bird s
Page 57 and 58: RECOMMENDATIONS Introduction An acc
Page 59 and 60: Existing solar stove pilot projects
Page 61 and 62: REFERENCES Agrosphere, 2004. Impact
Page 63 and 64: Somaliland Centre for Peace and Dev
Page 65 and 66: ANNEX I Chronology of Key Political
Page 67 and 68: 1994 UNOSOM seeks to broker a deal
Page 69 and 70: ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS asl abov

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