Five-part multimedia series investigates Dhaka, Bangladesh

I have posted before about one of the fastest growing “megacities” in the world, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Nearly 500,000 migrants flow into the capital city each year, many motivated by environmental pressures. Erik German and Solana Pyne of GlobalPost examine the future of Dhaka in a five-part multimedia special report. This series is currently shown on […]

Video: "Hot Cities" Documentary Series by BBC World News

“Hot Cities” is a powerful and informative documentary series that was aired last fall on BBC World News TV. This is an excellent eight-part series about the present effects of climate change on cities around the world. Three of the episodes center around the issue of human mobility as a result of climate change at […]

"Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home"

(New York Times) January 3, 2010 – DHAKA, BANGLADESH – Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home. Two years later, they […]

Video: Kenya and the Realities of Rural to Urban Migration

Erratic weather patterns and increasing droughts and floods due to climate change are causing people in rural Kenya to migrate to the urban centre of Nairobi. There is evidence that already crowded slums are being overwhelmed by constant arrivals of people who are seeking a better life due to loss of rural livelihoods in the southeastern […]

Syria: Drought Driving Farmers to the Cities

(IRIN) September 2, 2009 – Thousands of Syrian farming families have been forced to move to cities in search of alternative work after two years of drought and failed crops followed a number of unproductive years. “The situation has now got really severe; we are talking about desert, rather than farming land,” said Abdel Qader […]

Somalia: Pastoralists Leave Drought-Hit Villages

(IRIN) June 23, 2009 – Thousands of nomadic pastoralists in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have abandoned their drought-affected villages and moved closer to urban centres, officials have said. “More than 20 percent of the nomads have moved to the urban centres, [and are] living with their families in villages near towns,” Mursal Askar Mire, […]