by Ahmed, Zeinab H. Ayan

Facts and Requirement

Before I discuss in detail the importance of Ecology to mankind, I would like to borrow the exact definition of the term "Human Ecology" The branch of Sociology that is concerned with studying the relationship between human groups and their physical and Social environment. So when we talk of ecology, we can't totally forget the word environment. In deeper terms, we talk of cleaner environment; environmental protection, industrial wastes, depleted eco- system and depleted forest. Do you ever really sense anything important in these terms', have you ever imagined the role you can play in the actual implementation of these words'

So, Ecology is very vital and also our environment is exceptionally important. How do we talk of the seriousness of these terms yet many of us remain indifferent of what is happening in our surroundings. What we are all sure is that no other organism causes damage to the environment other than man. Ironically man is the weakest organism who needs the protection and safe guarding of the very environment she/he is destroying.

Current environmental situation:- World-wide

Today's Global environmental situation is one which can cause terror in the minds of those who care and understand it's meaning. I would like to remind every one of us, as human kind that majority of our world leaders just pay a lip- service in the actual protection of our environment. I wish to stress once again that there is real madness just going on world-wide where the trend is destruction and rush for hollow richness. I feel saddened by the rush to fell large forest trees and use them for economic enrichment of few individuals. All over the world especially developing countries like Africa, environmental degradation through forest destruction is alarming and on the increase.

Environmental Effects in Somalia: Lower Jubba and North- East of Somlia through Charcoal Burning

Among the major disasters in Somalia are:

(a)* The forest destruction through commercial charcoal burning
(b)* The Export of rare species of wildlife e.g. hyenas, lions, wolves and rare birds and Somali monkey
(c)* The discard of toxins and toxic waste in Somalia waters

A lucrative deal is going on between charcoal traders in Somalia and some Arab rich individuals. Without authorities to check this heinous crime against humanity these individual rich merchants get away with the destruction of the volatile forests in these regions. Having visited these regions I was shocked and bitterly angered by the scale of charcoal been exported from these regions. Why have the charcoal burners and the illegal exporters targeted these two regions' Because these regions are a home to large trees some of which are rare in the other parts of the country. Among these trees are: Acacia-(thorn-tree), Qurac, Galool, fulay, and Adaad-geri-(named after the Giraffe) and fruit trees like: Qoolati, waraday, qansah, damal, and others. Today these large trees are a prey to greedy individual traders who employ displaced local farmer herdsmen who lost their livestock during the prolonged civil war. This situation has exasperated the poverty condition and has given new advantage to these merchants of doom in these tropical regions. So far, no agency has attempted to rectify this dangerous situation. Some of these trees are valued in Somalia and it was culturally a taboo to fell them. These trees usually offer fruits to the wild-life species like the monkey and exotic birds.

The report on the Somali Ocean especially in the Lower Juba is not also very pleasing. A research has indicated that large number of unknown ships are stationing themselves at the Coastal zones only leaving at dawn only to return at dusk. Many fishermen reported that these ships carry-out trawling work at the coast of Somalia - deleting the ocean. A high death of sea -cucumbers and other smaller marine life has been observed. strengthening the already assumed suspicion of industrial or nuclear chemical waste seemingly dumped in the shores. So man kind contributes most of the damage to the eco-system through unwarranted over-fishing, forest depletion, poaching of wild-life and industrial waste being dumped into the un- guarded coastal zones of the developing nations.

As women and children are those who are mostly effected by the environmental disasters, Somali Professionals like Fatima Jibrell, Managing Director of Horn of Africa Relief and Dev. Org. who is always concerned about the environmental and human issues has been doing a lot of campaign in and out of Somalia. Fatima is also the Coordinator of Resource Managment Somalia Network an Umbrella organisation in Somalia who are supported by NOVIB of Netherlands. She has sent alarms verbally and in writing to International Organizations: UN, EU, OAU and IGAD to take generous measurments about environmental disasters in Somalia but she hasn't got positive reactions yet for this issue.

My point of view is, for this conference to have a working channel be established and a forum be created to press for viable action against environment degradation. I feel the awareness has been created already, we need action, action, action to force the world community leaders to categorically enforce the existing laws against environmental abuse.

Efforts to consolidate peace in Somaliland followed a path widely divergent from that of southern Somalia. After Barre's ouster, the Isaaq-led SNM retreated to Somaliland, and was not involved in the inter-clan violence in the south. In an effort to alleviate fears of SNM retaliation among clans residing in Somaliland associated with the Barre regime, as well as the belief that the Isaaq would attempt to seize complete control of the northwest regions, non-Isaaq clans were allowed to participate in the April-May 1991 conference held at Burao, at which Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia (Farah 1996).

Somaliland was not immune to violence, however. Beginning in January 1992, two traditionally rival Isaaq clans, the Habar Yonis and Habar Jeclo, battled for control of Burao; shortly thereafter, the Habar Yonis and `Iisa Muusa became involved in a violent struggle for Berbera. However, without assistance from the United Nations (which had very little presence in Somaliland), this conflict was resolved via a "bottom up" approach, viz. by a Council of Elders (guurti) meeting at a peace conference held in Sheekh by the traditional means of xeer. Later conflicts over access to land, grazing, and water rights within the Isaaq clan-family and between the Dulbahante and Warsangeli clans were resolved in the same manner. Because these peace conferences were initiated by the clans themselves, and not the UN, they were able to continue as long as necessary in order to resolve the disputes, sometimes lasting as long as four months.

At the January-May 1993 Borama Conference, a 150 member National Guurti appointed a new Somaliland government in 1993, headed by new President Muhammed Ibrahim Egal (the last Prime Minister of Somalia's civilian government), to replace the transitional SNM government that had been installed at the time of secession. The Borama Conference also produced a National Charter, which was to act as Somaliland's constitution for two years. The Charter called for the establishment of an independent central bank and judiciary, and created a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected lower house (the Assembly of Representatives) and a non-elected upper house (the Assembly of Elders). The elders' peace-making role was formally institutionalized in this document, stating that the Assembly of Elders was "to encourage and safeguard peace [and] creating or enforcing existing codes of conduct (xeer) among the clans" (Bradbury 1997, 22). This was an attempt to integrate traditional and modern forms of government, one of the stated goals of the SNM since its founding in 1980. After the achievement of this goal, the SNM essentially became defunct.

At a conference held at Hargeisa between October 1996 and March 1997, Egal was re-elected for an additional five years by a Shir Beeleedka (Congress of Clans), comprised of the national Guurti and 150 additional delegates chosen by their clans. A new provisional constitution was approved, which required the government to hold a nationwide referendum on its ratification within three years.15 The Hargeisa Conference was also able to end a two year war between the Habar Gerhajis sub-clan and Egal's Habar Awal sub-clan that was precipitated by the selection of Egal as President in 1993. Since the resolution of this war, no other meaningful conflict between lineage groups has taken place in Somaliland.

IV. Summary and Conclusion

This paper has been an initial effort in the attempt to gain a better understanding of the divergent paths followed by Somalia and Somaliland during the past decade. The comparative case study above was an attempt to show that the effects of centralization varied in Somaliland and Somalia, and have diminished Somalia's ability to utilize xeer as a means of conflict resolution and state-building.

The Italian administration inculcated the values of a Western-style centralized government to the Somali urban elite created by the administration's economic modernization policies, while the British placed much less emphasis on both modernization and the creation of a system of highly centralized national governance. During the civilian regime, the southern urban elite, whose commitment to the concept of xeer had already been diminished due to the abandonment of clan-ties, dominated the Italian-style central government, and soon became a predatory `state class', using their government positions for personal gain to the detriment of the Somali people. The underrepresentation of northern politicians in the upper levels of the central government during this time meant that few northerners were part of the predatory state apparatus. In the era of the Barre regime, the brutal repression of the Isaaq, the north's predominate clanfamily, only served to strengthen northerners' commitment to xeer, as the Isaaq rallied around the SNM, which was founded with the express purpose of creating a national government based on xeer principles. Conversely, Barre's tactic of rewarding (primarily southern-based) clans loyal to the regime created a new predatory state class in the south.

However, due in large part to their leaders' lack of a long-term plan for a post-Barre Somalia, armed clan factions repressed by Barre also became caught up in the struggle for personal economic gain, vying for control of what little was left of the state. After the collapse of the state, the resilience of xeer in Somaliland, coupled with the absence of international intervention, allowed the SNM to utilize a xeer-based "bottom-up" approach to reconciliation and the building of state capacity. Conversely, the "top-down" approach imposed upon southern Somalia by the UN and other international actors only served to legitimize the warlords allowed to take part in the reconciliation conferences, and eradicated any possibility of a xeer-based reconciliation effort by refusing to recognize clan elders as a legitimate indigenous peace-keeping force. The fact that a number of the members of Somalia's Transitional National Government16 were also members of the Barre regime reveals the difficulty of purging Somali politics of the former predatory state class.

I plan to carry out a much more detailed examination of traditional institutions of governance in Somalia and Somaliland in the future, as this comparative case study is admittedly guilty of oversimplifying the reality facing Somalis and Somalilanders. The value attached to xeer by Somalis and Somalilanders has likely been affected by a number of other factors, including, inter alia, the pan-Somalism that played a major role in Somali politics from mid-colonial period until the defeat of Somalia by Ethiopia in the 1977-78 Ogaden War; Cold War geopolitics; the current manipulation of Somali politics by its neighboring countries (most notably Ethiopia); the commercialization of the pastoral economy; ecological degradation; the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the region; and globalization. Xeer has acted as means to pattern person-to-person relationships among Somalis in the Horn of Africa for centuries, and has allowed them to face the many contingencies of pastoral nomadic life. It is therefore essential to examine the ways in which xeer and the tradition of "pastoral democracy" have been affected by these events and processes, for as Vincent Ostrom reminds us, "Person-to-person, citizento- citizen relationships are what life in democratic societies is all about" (Ostrom 1997, 3).

Works Cited

Agence France-Presse. 2002. "Somali Elders Urge TNG President to Resign Before Peace Talks." ReliefWeb (http://www.reliefweb.int), 2 April 2002.

Ahmed, Ismail I. and Reginald Herbold Green. 1999"The Heritage of War and State Collapse in Somalia and Somaliland: Local-Level Effects, External Interventions and Reconstruction." Third World Quarterly 20(1): 113-127.

Anderson, Mary B. 1999. Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace - or War. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Bradbury, Mark. 1997. Somaliland: CIIR Country Report. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations.

Doornbos, Martin. 2002. "Somalia: Alternative Scenarios for Political Reconstruction." African Affairs. 0(101): 93-107.

Duany, Wal. 1992. "The Nuer Concept of Covenant and Covenantal Way of Life." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 0(22): 67-89.

Farah, Ahmed Y. 1996. "Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Somaliland: The Case of the Peace Committee for Somaliland." Paper presented at the International Resource Group Conference. Mombasa, Kenya. November 6-9, 1996.

Frushone, Joel. 2001. Welcome Home to Nothing: Refugees Repatriate to a Forgotten Somaliland. US Committee for Refugees.

Issa-Salwe, Abdisalam M. 1996. The Collapse of the Somali State: The Impact of the Colonial Legacy. London: HAAN Publishing.

Lewis, I.M. 1961. A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. London: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, I.M. 1980. A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. London: Longman Group Ltd.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ostrom, Vincent. 1990. "The Problem of Sovereignty in Human Affairs," in James S. Wunsch and Dele Olowu (eds.), The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions and Self-Governance in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Ostrom, Vincent. 1997. The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Ostrom, Vincent. 1999a. "Cryptoimperialism, Predatory States, and Self-Governance," in Michael D. McGinnis (ed.), Polycentric Governance and Development: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Ostrom, Vincent. 1999b. "Problems of Cognition as a Challenge to Policy Analysts and Democratic Societies," in Michael D. McGinnis (ed.), Polycentric Governance and Development: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Shivakumar, Sujai. 1998. "ActionAid-Somaliland: Programme Review-Institutional Analysis." Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1990 [1835]. Democracy in America: Volume I. New York: Vintage Classics.

Tripodi, Paolo. 1999. The Colonial Legacy in Somalia. New York: St. Martin's Press. Wunsch, James S. 1990. "Centralization and Development in Post-Independence Africa," in James S. Wunsch and Dele Olowu (eds.), The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions and Self-Governance in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.