Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Climate Change, Community Governance, and Environmental Justice in Syria: Insights from the 3-year ECO-Syria Project

Date & Time
Jun 18, 2026 | 16.00 - 17.30

Participants
Chair: Stacy D. VanDeveer, University of Massachusetts Boston (United States)
Pinar Dinc (Türkiye)
Purnendu Sardar, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Sciences & Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University (Sweden)
Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University (Sweden)
Maria Andrea Nardi
Mo Hamza, Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University & Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden)

This panel shares final findings from the ECO-Syria project, which explores how climate change, environmental governance, and peacebuilding intersect in North and East Syria (also known as Rojava). Using tools like satellite imagery, surveys, interviews, and discourse analysis, the panel highlights how local communities and institutions respond to ecological stress and conflict. Presentations cover topics such as agroecology and decolonial peacebuilding, climate impacts on farming, pollution from oil ponds, and landscape-scale environmental change. A key theme across the panel is justice—especially ecological and intersectional justice—as expressed by farmers, civil society, and local governance actors. The panel moves from theory and governance to lived experience, offering grounded insights into how environmental futures are being shaped in AANES and broader Syria. The research was funded by the Strategic Research Area: The Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW) at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden.

Speakers and presentation titles:

Mo Hamza -- Experiments in Democratic Confederalism: The Rojava Case

Maria Andrea Nardi -- Decolonial peace and agroecology in North and East Syria

Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson and Lina Eklund -- Climate variability, rural livelihoods, and environmental peacebuilding in North and East Syria

Purnendu Sardar -- Climate Variability and Landscape Change in North and East Syria: Implications for Displacement and Resilience

Hakim Abdi -- Satellite-Based Mapping of Oil Ponds in Northeast Syria: Quantifying Conflict-Driven Pollution for Environmental Peacebuilding

Pinar Dinc -- Justice from Below: Farmers’ Perspectives on Environmental Justice in North and East Syria

Chair: Pinar Dinc

Discussant: tbc

Climate Change, Community Governance, and Environmental Justice in Syria: Insights from the 3-year ECO-Syria Project

Justice from Below: Farmers’ Perspectives on Environmental Justice in North and East Syria

Climate Variability and Landscape Change in North and East Syria: Implications for Displacement and Resilience

Climate Variability, Rural Livelihoods, and Environmental Peacebuilding in North and East Syria

Experiments in Democratic Confederalism: The Rojava Case

Decolonial Peace and Agroecology in North and East Syria