Conflict and climate fragmenting Rojava: new report

16-02-2022

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The findings of a new climate security paper published on Wednesday looking into the impact of this summer’s drought in northeast Syria and the dire conditions facing local pastoralists (also known as herders) shine a clearer light on the state of rural Rojava, issuing a series of recommendations to the Kurdish-run Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the international community alike to take much-needed action to address the crisis immediately and in the years to come.

The impressive climate security paper written by Peter Schwartzstein, an independent environmental journalist and consultant, and Wim Zwijnenburg, a conflict and environment analyst with the Dutch peace organisation PAX, analyses the state of rural northeast Syria, with a focus on its all-too frequently overlooked pastoralist community; farmers and families struggling to cope with a disproportionately heating climate, combined with long-term insecure resource mismanagement and ongoing conflict leaving them highly vulnerable.

Its findings are based on the pair’s fieldwork in Syria in late September and early October, as well as earlier on-the-ground research, remote sensing analysis and observation, supported by the UN and other humanitarian data. PAX researchers interviewed dozens of pastoralists, farmers, officials, and independent observers; some of whose stories are included in the report, and many of whom make shocking points on the scale of food and water deprivation in the area.

By connecting the themes of climate, conflict, and environmental security in the Middle East, the report explores the consequences and interconnection of the crisis in rural northeast Syria - and it does not stop there. The influx of the displaced to the Kurdistan Region, Zwijnenburg told Rudaw English on Tuesday, should put the issue of the area’s stability high on agendas across the region.

Rojava, like its neighbours, frequently experiences acute water shortages in the summer months due to a lack of rainfall, with residents in the northeast Syrian city of Hasaka particularly vulnerable to a struggling local water supply. The problem is exacerbated by disputes over water with Turkey, and Kurdish officials have for years accused Turkey of cutting off the flow of water in the Euphrates River and from the Alouk distribution station, although Zwijnenburg stresses that Turkey is also suffering from drought-related lower water levels - exacerbated by its heavy rain-fed agriculture - so this is less of a conspiracy than a global climate crisis.

As the cycle of poverty worsens among climate-hit livelihoods, Zwijnenburg explained, and without assistance to farming-reliant families in particular, there is a real chance that violence and instability in the region will increase. The young and struggling are already turning to militias, and he drew a comparison with the previous pattern of recruitment to the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq. The paper references the ISIS attack on the Ghweran prison in Syria's northeastern city of Hasaka last month, saying it highlights the threat the group continues to pose to stability in northeast Syria.

Describing the impact of 2021’s turbulence on northeast Syria, the report finds it most acute “among the isolated rural communities where there are zero options beyond pastoralism and agriculture and where residents were already living hand-to-mouth before the war,” drawing the connection to increasing crime rates and quoting the mayor of al-Sallaliah, east of Hasaka, who explains the logic in simple terms: “If I can’t eat, I will steal from someone. This is how people are thinking.”

Yet despite the report’s concerning findings, including research into the area’s impacted water sources, it offers some hope. Zwijnenburg told Rudaw English that his trip coincided with the first International Water Forum in North and East Syria in Hasaka in September, where representatives from international organisations and local communities met with academics, politicians, and civil society groups to discuss the root causes and potential solutions to water insecurity, declining agriculture, and pollution.

In addition, Zwijnenburg and Schwartzstein met with officials at the autonomous administration’s departments of agriculture, water resources and oil ministry. There, he found, the challenge was not the authorities’ unwillingness to address the problem, but a lack of sufficient funding.

“In the short-term,” the report says, “rural Syrians in the northeast and beyond will need significant basic assistance. 2021 was such a bad year that most farmers didn’t even cultivate enough to produce seeds to plant again next season, their usual practice, while many pastoralists have far too few animals to turn a profit. In both instances, these communities largely lack the money or access to credit to rebuild lost herds or purchase expensive farming inputs.”

“In the longer run, pastoralists and farmers will need considerably deeper help in re-working a crumbling agricultural supply chain and natural landscape,” it continues, leading neatly to a series of concluding recommendations for both the autonomous administration and the international community.

According to Zwijnenburg, the most effective way forward is for the international community and Turkey to work together to resolve the political status of northeast Syria; addressing Turkey’s security concerns, along with those of the southern administration and the US, and attempting to reach a politically calm and stable environment in which, he hopes, greater security-related and environmental investment will flow.

To the autonomous administration and NGOs working on water, pollution, and agricultural issues, the report calls for greater assistance in securing animal fodder during future droughts. Both international actors and local authorities should conduct systematic monitoring and the assessment of surface and groundwater sources within northeast Syria, it says, and work to integrate the results into their policy-making alongside other crucial management practices. As things stand, many Syrians in the northeast suffer from the health consequences of burning waste and groundwater pollution from leachates, it adds, so the construction of safe landfill sites outside urban areas could temper damage.

In addition, the paper suggests that the international community build upon Hasaka’s recent water forum, establishing a regional diplomatic initiative to prevent and mitigate conflict over the use of transboundary water resources, including the Euphrates and other relevant rivers, and ramp up pressure to find a political solution for northeast Syria that accounts for regional security concerns and, therefore, also works to address the deeply personal issues its people face.

Without a considered, effective and sustained response from authorities, our heating climate poses an existential threat to communities such as Rojava’s pastoralists. As the report succinctly notes, “This is the story of the climate crisis writ small.” The situation is already highly concerning, and will deteriorate further should no action be taken.