A Casualty of Peace? Lessons on De-Militarizing Conservation in the Cordillera del Condor Corridor (Chapter in "Collateral Values of Natural Capital")
Publisher: Springer
Author(s): Saleem H. Ali
Date: 2019
Topics: Extractive Resources, Governance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Programming, Renewable Resources
Countries: Ecuador, Peru
The resolution in 1998 of the armed conflict between Peru and Ecuador through environmental peace-building negotiations, creating a transboundary conservation area, have been heralded as an exemplar of how ecological factors can foster collaboration between adversaries (Ali SH, Peace parks: conservation and conflict resolution. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007; Simmons B, Territorial disputes and their resolution: the case of Ecuador and Peru. United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, 1999; Herz M, Nogueira JP, Ecuador vs. Peru: Peacemaking amid rivalry, International Peace Academy, occasional paper series. Rienner Publishers, Boulder: L, 2002). This was also a rare case of US mediation resolving a territorial conflict alongside Brazilian diplomacy. However, 20 years later the peace between the two countries has not reaped the conservation dividends expected as other extractive industry interests and drug gangs have found their way into this region. Some of the lessons from earlier peace settlements that went awry need to be considered (Hampson FO, Nurturing peace: why peace settlements succeed or fail. United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, DC, 1996). This chapter explores the lessons of public-private partnerships for conservation in a post-conflict demilitarized hinterland. It argues that “collateral values” of natural conservation that may be generated through conflict are vulnerable when peace is achieved without proper monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in place. The importance of finding better ways of not just attaining peace but sustaining conservation after peace is addressed through interviews with key stakeholders in a detailed retrospective of this extraordinary case.