Balancing Livelihoods and Human Health: Limitations of Environmental Provisions in Peace Agreements
Publisher: Security and Democracy Forum
Author(s): Bryan
Date: 2026
Topics: Livelihoods, Peace Agreements
Countries: Colombia
"Balancing Livelihoods and Human Health" examines a central limitation of environmental provisions in modern peace agreements: while such provisions can reduce the risk of renewed conflict by improving natural-resource governance and economic livelihoods, they often neglect the lingering effects of war-related environmental degradation on human health. Using a framework that considers the environment as a trigger, a degraded resource, a neglected asset, a means of control, and a vector of violence, the report argues that achieving a truly “positive peace” requires addressing not only direct and structural violence but also environmental violence—the long-term harm caused by pollution, contaminated land and water, ecosystem destruction, and other environmental consequences of conflict. Through case studies of Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Colombia, the report shows how peace agreements have tended to prioritize the economic management and distribution of natural resources while inadequately protecting environmental and human health. Sierra Leone’s postwar mining governance left communities exposed to heavy-metal contamination; Sudan’s peace agreement focused on sharing oil revenues without sufficiently addressing pollution from extraction; and Colombia’s extensive rural-reform provisions have coincided with increased pressure on forests and associated ecosystem services. The report concludes that peacebuilding should broaden its emphasis from natural resource management—primarily concerned with access, distribution, and use—to environmental management that explicitly protects human health and ecosystems from pollution and degradation. Doing so would better address the long-term environmental consequences of conflict and help create a more comprehensive and durable positive peace.