One of the problems in migrationenvironment studies is the diiculty of establishing causal relations. In an EACH-FOR case study survey among 203 internal migrants from north-west Ghana, the vast majority mentioned environmental reasons for leaving their homes.1 The respondents – setler farmers living in rural areas of Brong Ahafo Region in Central Ghana – said they decided to migrate because of scarcity of fertile land, unreliable rainfall, low crop yields and/or food security problems.

 A minority mentioned non-environmental reasons for migrating – lack of nonfarm income opportunities, family conlicts, witchcrat, catle thet and the desire to be free and independent. The survey indings indicate that this group of migrants indeed experienced a degree of environmental push. However, such indings are not enough to adequately assess the environment-migration link. For example, respondents with low levels of formal education and poor access to information will not mention certain underlying causes of migration. Complex explanations of migration will be hard to distil from this type of interviews whereas the environment easily becomes part of local discourses on migration because farmers experience environmental conditions every day.