Making Peace with Nature: Contributions on Environmental Justice and Peacebuilding from Colombia [Video]
Publisher: Hiroshima NERPS
Author(s): Venesa Giraldo and Inge Valencia
Date: 2025
Topics: Conflict Causes, Extractive Resources, Governance, Land, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Colombia
In Colombia, the challenges of ecological degradation are deeply influenced by the dynamics of armed conflict in diverse and complex ways. Nature is a direct victim of activities related to illegal armed groups, drug traffic, and extractivism and has been used as a tool of economic power and territorial control. However, amid the escalation of the war, initiatives for territorial defense and socio-ecological justice emerge, challenging geopolitical, extractivist, or purely conservationist interests. This webinar presents a general overview of the recognition of nature as a victim of war in Colombia, the challenges and advances of national initiatives, and some local examples of environmental peacebuilding.
Vanesa Giraldo is an assistant professor at Icesi University. She has a BA in Anthropology, an MA in public health awarded by the National University of Colombia, and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts. A specialist in armed conflict, environmental peace, feminism and health anthropology. Vanesa is committed to education and research while working hand by hand with peasant organizations, indigenous communities, and survivors of armed conflict. She focuses on strengthening the capacities for learning grassroot knowledge and contributing to peacebuilding in different contexts.
Inge Valenica is an associate professor at Icesi University. She is an anthropologist who graduated from the National University of Colombia and holds a PhD in Anthropology at the School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. Among her academic interests are multicultural recognition policies, the dynamics of drug trafficking, organized crime, and peacebuilding in Colombia and Latin America. Her current research projects aim to understand the dynamics of violence in the post-agreement context and the increased securitization processes. She has been a fellow of programs such as the Factory of Ideas of the Center for Afro-Oriental Studies in Brazil, Visiting Researcher of Ciesas-Mexico of the Drug Security and Democracy program of the Social Science Research Council – Open Society and of the International Development Research Center of Canada.