‘It is the Environment, Stupid’: Sudan’s war and its impact on local communities (Feature by Mohamed Osman Adam, PANA correspondent, Khartoum)
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The tip of the iceberg behind the causes of the current war in Sudan are political, social and economic disparities, politicians argue. But a careful look beneath reveals that the core cause is environment related calamities, and drastic climatic changes.
To reach a sustained solution, the country has to invest into how to make use of its points of resilience, scholars argue. They argue that Sudan has huge potentials which will serve as impetus so that it will once more stand up tall, using its socio-cultural heritage and, building on that resilience, come out vibrant out of the ashes.
According to the First Nationally Determined Contribution, under the Paris Agreement, October 2021, Sudan is already experiencing the impacts of climate change and its tragic consequences. The study argues that over the past three decades, climate change has led to crop failures in traditional rain-fed faming, the backbone of the economy.
“It has also led to severe impacts to pastorallist activities such as the deterioration of natural rangelands, an increase in seasonal fires, overgrazing in communal lands, and livestock deaths. Such impacts are deepening already profound poverty levels across rural communities in Sudan,” it said.
But worse, years of drought and climatic change made the grazing fields for nomads and the arable land for the farmers, look like a ‘’moving target’’, specially in Darfur and Kordofan regions of western Sudan.
In trying to reach that target, different communities of nomads and farmers started moving out of their historic communal zones in quest for areas similar to the ones they used to live and subsist on for generations. They ended up in frictions which developed into clashed that turned into communal conflicts and ultimately to war.
Notably, the bulk of members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary forces currently fighting Sudanese Armed Forces, hail from those areas that have experienced the calamities of drought and desert creep since the early 1980s.
As explained by sub-regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development's IGAD) Agriculture and Environment Division (AED), agriculture and livestock are recognised as the dominant sectors in the sub-region, contributing significantly to GDP, employment, and income across Member States.
However, it is actors in those two sectors, agriculture and livestock, that are at loggerhead in Darfur and which have ignited the community clashes in Darfur as early as the 1980s -1990s, and culminated by pushing the clash eastwards, until it broke into full-fledged war in central Sudan in April 2023. Without going to the root causes, not the symptoms of the problem, the vicious cycle of war and conflict would continue unabated, in Sudan.
To resolve such a situation people have to go to the root causes and, in many cases, they failed to touch the point of pain: but ‘’it is the (environment) … stupid’’. This is a phrase imitating the one used by former US President Bill Clinton in his campaign 1992.
His opponents were focusing on social, political and terrorism claims at the time. But he pointed rightly to the true cause of the suffering of the working-class: the economy. And he won. His catchy phrase, coined by James Carville in1992, was “It's the economy…Stupid!!”
The Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN), which is the tool that summarises a country's vulnerability to climate change and its readiness to improve resilience, places Sudan among the first six countries most vulnerable to climate change globally.
But it cynically ranks the country as the 177th amongst those ready to stand up again. Since then, the war has further undermined the country’s already limited capacity to adapt and respond, with many programmes aimed at addressing climate change halted.
Professor Mohamed Salih, an expert in Soil and Environment Studies at the University of Khartoum, told the Pan-African News Agency (PANA) that in addition to the diversity and richness of Sudan's environmental resources, Sudanese were resilient in coping with the environmental and climatic change because they enjoy ’a diversity in the types and systems of production that have provided the basic needs for food, energy, and water.
He cited the social security elements where all families are currently, especially in central Sudan, receiving support from their children, especially expatriates. "It is very clear that there are no displacement and refugee camps funded by the international community,’’ inside country, where people moved to from Kordofan, Khartoum, Darfur and Gezira, Prof. Salih said.
Those who crossed into other countries such as Uganda, South Sudan, Chad, Kenya, and Ethiopia or Eritrea are being catered for by international and regional bodies beside the host communities. But this is not the case in most safe states inside Sudan where people are staying with relatives.
Prof. Salih said people are coping with the devastating effects of man-made environmental challenges, coupled with the current climatic change, by relying on self-help.
“This now is the norm in the reconstruction of areas...clear examples are evident in the reconstruction of schools and hospitals and the reconstruction of the electricity sector using solar energy.”
But the country is also poised to use other sources including the diversity of environmental resources, which are evident in the ability of agricultural production systems in rain-fed areas to provide food. “Despite high prices, there is sufficient production of corn, sesame, and millet for the country,” Prof. Salih argued.
But that is only one half of the glass, as beyond those situations, directly attributable to or exacerbated by the war, Sudan continues to face severe environmental challenges, including drought, extreme rainfall variations, and desertification.
The Conflict and Environment Observatory stated in a study conducted in May 2025 that, in Sudan, the vicious cycle of economic hardships and challenges brought by environmental changes that braved people’s resilience, which in turn lead to environmental problems that would convert into economic woes, is exemplary.
“Ordinary people, trapped in the war or displaced, attacked everything they could use for cooking: trees, plants, fences, grasses, logs, doors, beds and tyres that were recycled and used as gardens and parks fences.”
However, when the rainy season starts many of those families resume planting trees, at least in some of the areas most impacted by the ongoing war in Sharq el Nil, Khartoum state in 2024.
The Conflict and Environment Observatory has underlined thorough field study that the war has led to widespread destruction of forests and natural habitats, resulting in biodiversity loss.
Even within the national capital, according to Sudanese photojournalist, Magdy Abdullah of Sudanow magazine, dense historical forest covering over 1,500 acres at the confluence of the two Niles, and which dates back to 1939, has come under vicious attack. The acacia forest serves as a sanctuary for various resident and migratory birds, including geese, cattle egrets, terns, ibises, ducks, river gulls, and herons, many of which are considered rare species. The forest is also home to numerous songbirds and other bird species native to the poor savannah regions
Sudanow pointed out to a 1993 survey which said the Acacia Forest is home to 817 species of birds, with 18 of them being migratory birds that come from Europe and the Middle East. The forest is also part of the Nile Sudanow ecosystem and contains rare species of Acacia trees, as well as other trees and shrubs.
Abdullah made an urgent call to experts in this field: protecting the Acacia Forest is a collective responsibility that begins with enforcing environmental laws, proceeds through raising public awareness, and reaches accountability for perpetrators without leniency.
“The relevant authorities must recognise that failing to protect this reserve will lead to an inevitable environmental catastrophe that cannot be mitigated later,” he said.
The impact is sweeping and does not affect only Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan, but the whole horn of Africa region, according to one study.
This impact of the war and its environmental consequences seem to be contagious, the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory reported in May 2025.
The observatory warned that “Sudan’s proximity to the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea means the conflict poses a serious risk of regional destabilization, placing additional pressure on climate-sensitive ecosystems and fragile environments in neighbouring countries”.
As the country witnessed acute shortage in cooking gas, fuel, and electricity, beside the difficulty to transport charcoal from remote production areas in the Blue Nile, and south western region of the country, people have had to cut trees within compounds and in public gardens in the main towns. Not even productive trees such as lemon, grape fruits and mango trees were spared.
Significant efforts are required to rehabilitate damaged infrastructure, purify water, and rehabilitate degraded agricultural lands.
Peace has to be established. But genuine endeavour has to be exerted to restore the environmental balance and help as an impetus for people’s resilience.
A study commissioned by the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) of Norway in which seven Darfur scholars took part this month recommended that “long-term strategies like building climate-resilient agriculture should focus on implementing practices that help farmers adapt to changing climates and reduce vulnerability to droughts, floods, and other weather events”.
The study titled: Climate Change, Conflicts and Food Security in North Darfur State, Sudan: Risks and Implications concluded that international cooperation was essential to address the global nature of climate change and its impacts on food security.
However, Prof. argues that the resilience elements that enhance the Sudanese people's ability to cope with environmental degradation due to war and to stand up again, is primarily based on the solid social structure of the society...which maximises the concepts of social security and self-help.
-0- PANA MO/MA 27July2025
