The complexity of environmental migration: case of the returned Burkinabe fulani breeders from Bouna Department in Ivory Coast to Noumbiel Province in Burkina Faso

The issue of environmental migration starts to involve growing number of scholars and policymakers all around the world. Conventionally, environmental degradation is not a sole reason that drives people to move but rather it goes hand-in-hand with other political and socio-economic factors. In March 2016, an inter-communal conflict arose between Lobi farmers and Burkinabe Fulani herders who had settled in Bouna department in the northeast of Ivory Coast after leaving Burkina Faso following the great drought in 1970s. This conflict that appears to be born along a banal fact of pillaging the Lobi farmers' fields by the cattle of Burkinabe Fulani herders had serious
consequences: numerous injuries, several casualties, capital destruction, and economic losses. Eventually, the conflict led to displacement of few thousand people to the province of Noumbiel in Burkina Faso. The analysis of the roots of this massive displacement points to the growing local demand for natural resources and to the management of agricultural lands what got aggravated along social issues of chieftaincy among different ethnic groups in the Bouna area. The increase in the area of agricultural land has led to shrinkages in the area of rangelands and the degradation of forest resources, thus reducing pasture acreage of cattle herds. Although clashes between
stockbreeders and agriculturists had been taking place in the neighbourhood for many years, the situation appeared to escalate up to the point of prompting people to move for the first time. Even though the displaced people in this case are considered returnees to their home country, the years
of staying in Ivory Coast destroyed almost all social and economic linkages in their home country. The situation led to humanitarian crisis marked by limited access to UN support since the status of returnees did not qualify for refugee. The support was provided by local Burkinabe government and
NGOs.