A Canadian farmer, a fisherman in the Maldives and a Brazilian peasant: they live poles apart, under widely varying socio-economic conditions. Yet they are victims of the same tragedy. They are among the 25 million people forced to move for environmental reasons - the new displaced persons, driven from their homes by toxic gases linked to petroleum development, rising water levels due to climate warming or intensive eucalyptus farming done for economic reasons. Their land has become dangerous, flooded, or sterile. While the number of ecological refugees now exceeds that of political refugees, their existence is scarcely recognized. Yet by 2050 they may well number a billion.