The aim of this paper is to develop a typology of displacement in the context of slow-onset environmental degradation linked to climate change (desertification, droughts and increasing temperatures, sea level rise (SLR), loss of biodiversity, land/forest degradation, and glacial retreat). We differentiate regions under environmental threat according to their social vulnerabilities, mobility patterns, and related policies, and identify twelve types of vulnerability/policy/mobility combinations.

Understanding the interactions of the social and biophysical drivers of land degradation is crucial for developing adaptive management actions for future sustainability. A research-praxis project, the ‘Tsitsa Project’ (TP), applies a social-ecological systems (SES) approach where researchers, natural resource managers, and residents collaborate to support sustainable livelihoods and improved natural resource management for the degraded Tsitsa River Catchment (TRC) in South Africa.

Articles 17 and 18 of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control address the environmental sustainability of tobacco as a contested agricultural crop. They require regulatory land-use policies to be introduced and designed to enhance a sustainability transition to diversified farming practices and/or alternative livelihoods.