A/HRC/17/33 report dedicated on the relationship between climate change and human rights,18 “the effects on human rights can be of a direct nature, such as the threat extreme weather events may pose to the right to life, but will often have an indirect and gradual effect on human rights, such as increasing stress on health systems and vulnerabilities related to climate change-induced migration. Particularly vulnerable are those living on the “front line” of climate change, in places where even small climatic changes can have catastrophic consequences for lives and livelihoods”. 2. Policy challenges: migration and adaptation strategies 53. The Special Rapporteur recalls that only recently has attention been paid to develop the knowledge base about the interrelationship between environmental pressures (including climate change) and migration, in order to develop informed policy and programmes. 54. Policy makers have been slow to identify potential responses to environmentally induced migration. Recent literature on environmentally induced movements emphasizes that migration can have positive as well as negative consequences – a factor that affects how policies are formulated.19 The more positive impacts occur when migration is a voluntary coping strategy that allows people time to weigh alternatives and to use migration as a way of reducing household risk. Concerning the negative impacts, the Special Rapporteur emphasizes that they stem particularly from emergency mass movements that are generally related to intensified natural disasters and to competition for resources. These movements most closely resemble refugee movements and would often require large-scale humanitarian assistance. 55. Experts have traditionally been categorized into two groups: the alarmists, who see the environment as a principal cause of population movements, emphasizing the forced nature of the migration process (and who use the term “environmental refugee”), and who project that hundreds of millions of persons will be affected, often without differentiating between those who will move short distances to safer ground and those who may move thousand of miles to new countries. The sceptics, by contrast, raise question about the models used to generate estimates of those who would be forced to migrate, emphasizing that pull factors in destination places are more important than push factors at home in determining whether, where and in what numbers people will migrate.20 56. Concerning the strategies to manage environmental migration adopted in developing countries, the Special Rapporteur would like to mention the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) which are considered the principal frameworks adopted by low-income developing countries to manage environmentally induced migration. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), NAPAs “provide a process for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs to adapt to climate change – those for which further delay would increase vulnerability and/or costs at a later stage”.21 The majority of NAPAs outline the adaptation strategies described as ways to reduce migration pressures and allow people to remain in their original settlements. The strategies generally seek to adapt agricultural practices, management of pastoral lands, infrastructure such as dykes and coastal barriers, fishing patterns and other strategies to reduce pressures on fragile ecosystems, thereby allowing populations to remain in place. 18 19 20 21 A/HRC/10/61, paras. 92-93 See note 5 above , p. 357. See note 12 above. See http://unfccc.int/adaptation/items/4159.php. 13