Environmental Change and Human Security in the Caspian Region: Threats, Vulnerability and Response Strategies

Abstract

This paper examines the ecological changes occurring in the region of the Caspian Sea from the emergent perspective of environmental security. While the implications of environmental change for national and human security have been noted by scholars since the 1960s, the concept of environmental security only became widely fashionable in the late 1980s with the abrupt decline of the cold war and rising concern about global environmental problems. Environmental security has been interpreted in two fundamentally different ways; with the more traditional conception focusing on environmental causes of war and other armed conflict, while the comprehensive one examines how environmental stresses pose direct threats to human security. The principal environmental threats in the Caspian region arise from (1) water pollution, (2) the decline of fisheries, (3) changing sea levels, and (4) land degradation. Prevention and adaptation are two fundamentally different approaches to enhancing environmental security. Four types of adaptive responses are avoidance, protection, recovery, and adjustment. Examples of how Each of these types of response strategies have been employed to address Environmental changes in the Caspian region are cited. A combination of preventive and adaptive strategies will be needed to further enhance the environmental security of the peoples of the region.