The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of ‘environmental refugees’. The emergence of refugees within the framework of international law and policy is examined briefly so as to provide insight into the juridical difficulties environmental refugees can expect to confront. The literature on environmental refugees is steadily growing and the very definition of who qualifies as an environmental refugee has undergone great changes. The evolving nature of the definition and its increasing complexity is reviewed; the result being that environmental refugees can now be placed into several well-defined groupings, each with its own idiosyncratic characteristics. These increasingly distinctive groups of refugees can have as debilitating consequences as other types for receiving societies. The nature of this threat must be looked at fully in order to emphasize the urgent need to arrive at appropriate solutions. Finding solutions to a new crisis is not a simple task as many people fiercely oppose recognition of environmental refugees. Yet, failure to act may prove detrimental to human well-being as the emerging evidence points to a state of affairs that may haunt humankind in the twenty-first century.

Rural people in most of the developing countries are facing an acute shortage of domestic fuel which has led to many socio-economic and environmental problems. In an attempt to examine the nature and extent of the household energy problem, and to suggest certain measures to alleviate it, 432 sample households from eight sample villages in Haryana, north-western India, were surveyed using structured questionnaires during 1995. We find that there has been widespread switching over to low quality fuels (crop residue and dung cake), more time and effort are now spent in fetching fuelwood, biomass fuels have been monetized, and that severe degradation of vegetation cover has occurred. All these changes reflect the acute shortage of household energy in rural areas of Haryana State. It has almost become a crisis, particularly in the Eastern Haryana Region and in poor households. The common lands still provide a significant proportion of household fuel, especially to landless and marginal farming households. Hence, energy plantation on common lands is an immediate, feasible and sustainable solution to the rural energy problem. There is also an urgent need to prevent the wastage of energy by increasing end-use efficiency.

National Parks have become the most widely-used category of protected areas in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies have shown that local-community support for National Parks is based mainly on perceptions of benefits and costs against the background of social, cultural, political and economic considerations. This paper examines the experience in the Cross River National Park (CRNP) in southeast Nigeria using data collected through rapid rural appraisal techniques, household questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions and guided interviews. The results show that in spite of a high level of community awareness of the need to conserve the forests of the study area, there is a low level of local support for the CRNP forest conservation initiative. Four main factors are identified as the main influences on the support extended to the project, namely: reality and expectations of socio-economic development, the pace of project implementation, the relationship between park staff and communities, and the historical rights of local people to the forest of the study area. The implications of the findings relate to the long-term sustainability of the CRNP as a protected forest area.

Many years of waterfowl hunting have added thousands of tonnes of lead shot to European wetlands. Effective and non-toxic substitutes for lead shot have been developed and are commercially available throughout Europe, but few nations (Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands) have statutory requirements for their use. Governments can induce hunters to use non-toxic shot by regulatory measures and/or non-regulatory steps, but economic incentives to increase the affordability of lead-free shot have never been used by any nation and might be politically inappropriate. Educational programmes to increase the hunting public's understanding of the poisoning problem, and to provide accurate information on the non-toxic shot, are the best long-term way for governments to focus their spending and induce change, whether on a voluntary or regulated basis. Each of the six nations which has moved to end lead poisoning of waterfowl has adopted a regulatory approach, but these nations have acted independently of each other, and yet the use of non-toxic shot should apply to all countries of a flyway.

Several European treaty and policy precedents could form the basis of a pan-European regulation requiring the use of non-toxic shot. A proposal to eliminate the use of lead shot in wetlands has been made under the Bonn and Bern Conventions. An European Union-USA proposal to reduce the use of different categories of lead under an Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Council Act has been made, but has deleted an earlier recommendation that lead shot be included. The substitution of lead shot by nontoxic alternatives is also consistent with the European Council Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds of 1979. The passing of a European Council regulation, stipulating the minimal acceptable standards for shot used for waterfowl hunting, is seen as the most effective way to remediate this transboundary toxic problem. This type of action by the European Union, while recognizing the Principle of Subsidiarity, would still allow other member states to enact more rigorous legislation pertaining to the use of lead shot within their jurisdiction, as have Denmark and the Netherlands. Although responsibility to enact and enforce a European Council regulation is the prerogative of each member state, a single regulation would promote consistency of action amongst all states.