Environmental migrants face both challenges and opportunities as they adjust to new physical, cultural, and social environments. These migrants share similarities with involuntary migrants due to conflict; in many cases, neither return home and must instead reestablish their lives and livelihoods in a new place. The nature and availability of employment may be dramatically different in a new location, as may be the written and unwritten rules governing behavior. Resilient institutions are therefore necessary at national and international levels to maintain order, while preserving the rights of those forced to leave their homes. Much work remains needed in order to understand how to support environmental migrants, as well as host or receiver communities, as they navigate this livelihood transition.
The Institute’s work on maintaining effective livelihoods for environmentally displaced persons has included:
- An article co-authored by Carl Bruch on livelihood re-establishment (Nakayama, M., Yoshioka, N., Fujibayashi, H., & Bruch, C. (2016). Factors Affecting Livelihood Re-Establishment of Climate Change Induced Transboundary Displaced Persons. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 4(9), 40-48.)
- Research in the Marshall Islands and Springdale, Arkansas, on building livelihoods and improving the transition of Marshallese migrants to the U.S.