Mali’s Environmental Crisis: The Link Between Climate Change and JNIM’s Rapid Expansion

Mali's climate crisis has been a boon for militant groups in the country, including the region's most dangerous

This is an article I recently wrote for the Global Network of Extremism and Technology (GNET). You can find the original link here.

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Mali has been in a climate crisis for over half a century, experiencing at least 40 climate-related shocks between 1970 and 2020. Last summer, the country withstood droughts and flooding, affecting some 400,000 people and costing some $9.5 million USD in annual crop revenues in one of the world’s poorest countries. These climate shocks have contributed to and exacerbated the country’s brutal and multifaceted civil war, which started in 2012, by driving recruitment and opening revenue-generating opportunities for militant groups. Although ethnic tensions in Mali’s arid and sparsely populated north gave rise to the conflict, it has since spread to the more salubrious south, with radical Islamist groups emerging as powerful contenders to unite the country’s disparate groups.

Jihadist militant groups have thrived amid Mali’s ongoing climate crisis. Malian people comprise roughly a dozen ethnic groups speaking 79 languages, and with 95% of the population adhering to Sunni Islam, Islamist ideologies are among any faction’s best chances to unite the various peoples of this complex and diverse land. The al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is the most powerful of these factions and is responsible for 64% of all violent events linked to Islamist groups in the Sahel since 2017. Its steady expansion and threat to the lives and livelihoods of Mali’s increasingly desperate population are an indirect consequence of the region’s worsening climate crisis.

Based in Mali’s extreme north and formed from a merger between four terror groups under the nominal leadership of longtime Tuareg warlord Iyad Ag Ghaly, JNIM has spread rapidly across Mali and into Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, and Benin. Much of this expansion results from the organisation’s ability to incorporate and co-opt other militant groups under its broad umbrella while capitalising on the Sahel’s worsening climate crisis. This Insight explores how JNIM takes advantage of the Sahel’s climate crisis regarding recruitment and revenue generation while gaining access to increasingly sophisticated weaponry and posing an ever-expanding regional threat.

Climate-Induced Desperation Drives JNIM Recruitment

Mali’s role in world history is inestimable. Its lands were once the cradle of great civilisations such as the Malian Empire, the world’s leading supplier of gold in the 14th Century, the influx of which to Europe was so great that it gave rise to the gold-backed currencies that defined modern states until the mid-20th Century. However, modern Mali has become increasingly inhospitable to human life, with the country’s average annual temperature rising by 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1960, its annual rainfall decreasing steadily, and its vast arid regions expanding rapidly. These trends have made much of the country’s north untenably dry, driving cattle herders such as the nomadic Fulani south into the traditional territory of the predominantly agricultural and sedentary Dogon, leading to intense competition over land and resources between two of the country’s largest ethnic groups. This conflict and others across Mali drive recruitment into armed militia groups, many of which JNIM has incorporated into its organisation.

Climate change drives jihadist recruitment in myriad ways. First, it and subsequent factional conflicts diminish people’s ability to produce income via stable means. For example, increased aridity and flooding result in reduced crop yields for farmers, while jihadist groups such as JNIM frequently prevent farmers from harvesting, using hunger and unemployment as means to drive recruitment and occupy new lands. The climate crisis also affects fishing as the increasing aridity of the Niger River’s flood plains, combined with overfishing, has left local fishers with fewer available stocks. This trend greatly limits the availability of dietary protein in the region, worsening the hunger crisis that continues to draw recruits to jihadist organisations. Moreover, al-Qaeda-linked jihadists, now organised under JNIM’s banner, frequently target local fishermen traversing the waterways, making their trade increasingly unsustainable.

A 2021 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) demonstrates a likely correlation between climate change and jihadist recruitment in Mali. Farah Hegazi, one of the report’s authors, claimed in a 2021 interview that data she and others collected suggests a relationship between rainfall in central Mali and child soldier recruitment, with families tending to send more children to armed groups as a form of income in drier periods and fewer during periods of higher precipitation. Since 2016, JNIM and other jihadist groups have increasingly relied on child soldiers to fill their ranks as the conflict over the Sahel intensifies.

Increased scarcity has exacerbated the disparity between local elites and lower-caste young men, fissures that jihadist groups such as JNIM exploit to drive recruitment. JNIM frequently uses Telegram and chat rooms such as Rocket Chat and Element to reach potential recruits, publicise its attacks, and distribute other propaganda to perpetuate narratives. These narratives tend to capitalise on local grievances related to the climate crisis, such as class and unemployment, as well as others, such as the junta government’s reliance on Russian Wagner mercenaries, which are broadly unpopular due to their penchant for excessive and often extreme force, widespread resource theft, and general failure to uphold their security mandate.

Climate Crisis Opens Revenue Streams for JNIM

Because Mali has fewer opportunities in agriculture, the sector that traditionally provides employment for the vast majority of the country, many young men have turned to illegal timber harvesting to earn a living. This trend has further exacerbated Mali’s climate crisis by contributing to widespread deforestation: over the past three decades, the country has lost over 20,000 square kilometres of forest due to illegal harvesting and increased desertification. This deforestation contributes to Mali’s flood vulnerability due to the land’s reduced ability to absorb rainwater, further devastating agrarian output. However, with a lack of fuel alternatives, the population has little choice but to cut down their dwindling forests for basic necessities such as cooking, with poachers even cutting down trees planted by activists for firewood.

JNIM has also capitalised on this trend by involving itself in the illegal trade of rare timbers. Mali’s illicit sales of precious hardwood species such as ebony and rosewood have spiked in recent years as demand from Chinese criminal syndicates, heavily involved in local harvesting and trafficking, has spiked. JNIM has extended its racketeering operations, already heavily involved in regional narcotics trafficking, to timber smuggling, providing protection services to illegal loggers in exchange for payment. Unverified local sources claim that some Chinese timber traffickers pay protection fees to JNIM in exchange for their services, and evidence suggests that Chinese domestic e-commerce platforms such as Baidu and Taobao market illegal Malian rosewood. JNIM’s widespread use of Chinese-made small arms and light weapons (SALW) also warrants further investigation.

Gold is another lucrative revenue stream for JNIM and is also an indirect consequence of the group’s capitalising on the climate crisis in Mali’s fertile and gold-rich southwest. JNIM has expanded its revenue from artisanal mines, acquiring new lands by driving away increasingly desperate farmers using hunger and other means. Although Mali has laws that apply to gold exports, illegal miners there and in several other countries across Africa export vast sums of gold each year, with major destinations including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Türkiye and others. Both countries are important hubs for international gold transactions, including online sellers, whom regulators have struggled to rein in regarding gold from illicit sources.

Advanced Weapons

JNIM’s expanding arsenal of advanced weaponry indirectly results from its ability to capitalise on the Sahel’s ongoing climate crisis. On one hand, JNIM’s ability to exploit the crisis and gain access to new revenue sources gives it the ability to purchase better weapons. On the other hand, JNIM’s improved ability to launch attacks with these increasingly advanced weapons gives it the ability to capture more advanced weapons from enemy forces. In this way, JNIM’s expanding militarisation is a self-perpetuating cycle firmly rooted in Mali’s climate crisis.

Chinese small arms and light weapons feature prominently in JNIM’s arsenal, allowing the group to inflict widespread attacks on government and civilian targets while expanding and maintaining its territorial holdings. The group also increasingly harnesses more advanced weapons such as mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and drones. JNIM tends to use modified commercial drones for offensive operations, outfitting these with explosives to drop on enemy targets or explode on impact in a kamikaze attack. Experts claim that drone usage by JNIM and other groups has increasingly levelled the playing field between conventional militaries and non-state actors in the region. Although little information exists as to how JNIM and other jihadist groups in the Sahel acquire commercial drones, the market for these items is extensive, with both local and international manufacturers fulfilling the region’s burgeoning demand. It is possible that JNIM sources some of these devices from intermediaries in neighbouring countries using e-commerce platforms; this also warrants further investigation.

Recommendations

There are no easy answers to Mali’s worsening and concurrent ecological and security crises. Since its 2021 coup, the Malian government has become increasingly isolated from much of the world, instead turning to Russia and China to fulfil its dire security needs. These partnerships have done little to advance security in the country. Russia’s Wagner Group, engaged in widespread atrocities and resource theft, generates little more than disdain from the local population and remains generally feckless in its counterinsurgency mandate. Meanwhile, a massive influx of Chinese weapons into the country has not given the military the tools it needs to engage in meaningful counterterrorism operations, with many of these items now wielded by militant groups such as JNIM.

Last September, Mali’s government announced a partnership with Chinese tech giant Huawei to aid in the country’s ‘digital transformation’, with the goal of enhancing security through digital surveillance and other means. The following month, the junta regime announced it was lifting its operational ban on US-based satellite internet company Starlink for six months to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework during this period. Clearly, the regime seeks partners from the global tech industry to help fulfil its security needs. Although Starlink’s operations in Mali remain controversial, this timeframe gives it and potentially other Western tech companies the opportunity to meaningfully engage the Malian regime in ways that could advance goals related to counterterrorism moving forward.

Cooperation between technology companies and Mali could help improve the country’s security through enhanced digital surveillance while facilitating dialogue between the regime and foreign governments that could provide invaluable solutions in counterinsurgency operations. Given the regime’s abysmal human rights record, companies should approach this prospect cautiously. However, anything that advances security in Mali could help ameliorate one of the world’s most dire ecological and humanitarian crises.

For example, under improved security conditions in Mali, legitimate mining companies could reinvest in the country’s vast and largely untapped mineral reserves. Moreover, an improved security situation in the countryside would likely provide a boon to the agricultural sector. Gold and cotton are Mali’s top exports, upon which it relies heavily to purchase fuel from the global market, with fuel representing 42% of its total imports by value. By improving the security situation to bolster these exports, Mali may import greater quantities of necessities such as fuel, taking pressure off its dwindling forests that are continually decimated for firewood. Moreover, reduced illegal logging for fuel would likely provide less cover to groups such as JNIM, who currently profit from the sale of rare timbers with impunity. This theoretical example is just one possible benefit that improved dialogue between Mali and the outside world could bring, and companies such as Starlink can help facilitate this through cautious first steps with a less-than-savoury regime.

There are also things tech companies can do to stem the flow of funds to JNIM, Mali’s most dangerous terrorist group, as a result of its profiteering from the country’s climate crisis. First, platform providers, including Apple and Google, can continue to pressure apps that fail to conform to their standards by permitting the dissemination of terrorist propaganda, such as Telegram and RocketChat. Second, social media platforms should work with global governments to strengthen the global regulatory framework for combating illegal gold transfers. Although the UAE and others have attempted to regulate the flow of illicit gold bullion into their countries, the problem persists, requiring enhanced global regulatory oversight. Until such enhanced oversight occurs, social media companies should carefully evaluate any company seeking to advertise online gold trading services on their platforms. Third, Chinese e-commerce companies should work to limit the sale of illicit rare timbers on their domestic platforms, for no other reason than the terrorist activity they help facilitate threatens Chinese interests and citizens working in Africa. Finally, e-commerce companies should work closely with regional and local law enforcement to map the sale of commercial drones to militant groups. This mapping likely requires extensive intelligence and data gathering, which are currently sorely lacking in the region.