In the near future, Cameroon will experience a series of earthquakes that causes trapped sulphur fumes under ponds and lakes to be released into the atmosphere. Such an event occurred recently in Cameroon. This event causes a flood of refugees who leave their ancestral lands and enter the lands of another tribe. Low level conflict has broken out between the two groups.
The policy-maker can input the attributes of this new conflict into
a form available on the Web. The "preview" feature will rank this
new prospective case against other cases in terms of their
similarity. The scoring will be based on matching the attributes
in the 9 categories. Each match per category will equal 10 percent
with all categories added together for a final matching score on a
scale of 100 percent.
Two rules are associated with this system. First, each matching
will start with 10 percent under the assumption that this is
already a choice about a common case of environment and conflict.
Second, if some of the policy-makers categories are not complete,
perhaps because they are unknown, this will be counted as a match.
Because of these two rules the system is biased towards a relative
interpretation of matching.
The output results of the input attributes in the Cameroon case
might reveal a report that rates the existing case in terms of
their percent similarity to the hypothetical case. These
percentages then can be translated into high, medium and low
likelihood ranges.
1. Name: Cameroon
2. Continent: Africa
3. Region: West Africa
4. Country: Cameroon
5. Conflict Type: Civil
6. Conflict Level: Low
7. Conflict Fatalities: 100
8. Environmental Problem: Habitat Loss
9. Scope: Unilateral
10. Outcome: In progress
Preview Report on
Cameroon Scenario
Top 10 matches
Case Description % Similar Likelihood
1. OGONIOIL Nigeria Oil Conflict 80 High
2. NIGER Niger Desertification 80 High
3. KIKUYU Kenya Civil Conflict 70 High
4. KALIMAN Borneo Fires/Conflict 60 Medium
5. SAHARA Sahara Civil War 60 Medium
6. ANGOLA Angola Civil War 50 Medium
7. SUBIC Subic Bay/Pinatubo 50 Medium
8. MARSH Marsh Arabs 40 Low
9. SUDAN Sudan Civil War 40 Low
10. PETEN Guatemala Civil War 30 Low
The Cameroon case actually represents a minority of case types with respect to environment and conflict. In this case, a natural phenomena sets in place a series of event that lead to political conflict. These events are often climate-related and therefore more long-term in nature.
This case however deals with a short term natural environmental event as an impact on political and conflict processes. Such situations are likely to occur with greater frequency. As human populations become more dense and concentrated, the chance that a random climatic event would hit a densely populated area would certainly increase.
a. Short-term (4 years)
The short term recommendation (4 years) is to provide immediate economic, medical and military assistance to Cameroon. The assistance might include short-term loans, guarantees, and the like.
b. Medium-term (16 years)
The medium-term recommendation (16 years) is to set in place detectors on the release of natural chemicals in Cameroon. The first choice should be to assure that if such natural events coccur, populations have adequate warning to prepare. This reduces the chance that the response would be to come into conflict with another group rather than seeking solutions to their own human problems.
c. Long-term (64 years)
The long-term recommendation is to improve the general balance of
opportunities and levels of development in the societies in
Cameroon. If a random event can lead to a chaotic social
situation, the society is not sufficiently stable. More investment
into basic infrastructure would obviously help.
5. Ice Expert Upgrades
a. Based on the case matches, a set of recommendations can be
produced depending on the likelihood of match. These options are
thus delimited by policy parameters of high, medium and low.
b. As new cases arise, an area on the Web can be set aside for
discussion of the issue in the case that can qualitatively add to
the quantitatively-oriented matching system. These "chat" sessions
can also become part of the actual case studies. They might even
provide the basis for a "virtual" conference or workshop.