Environmental Peacebuilding: Ecosystems-Based Approaches for Conflict Resolution: An ASPR Approach
Publisher: Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution
Author(s): Sandra Osztovits
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Cooperation, Renewable Resources
Countries: Libya
The White Paper on the Future of Environmental Peacebuilding tells us that “environmental peacebuilding exists at the intersection of peace, conflict, and the natural world. [...] And it offers the opportunity to harness common resources and shared environmental challenges as a reason for cooperation, rather than a cause of division.” Peacebuilding efforts now need to understand conflict not just from the perspective of human dynamics, but from the perspective of eco-systemic integrity and that of the relationships between human societies and their natural environment. [...] In a first step, responses to this multidimensional phenomenon should include an analysis of the drivers of natural resource extraction and environmental depletion in any given context, and 1 of the relationship to violence and conflict. [...] In a second step, peacebuilding initiatives will need to design processes and interventions that help to adapt to changing environmental circumstances, and wherever possible, support dialogue, cooperation and intervention frameworks that integrate environmental regeneration with conflict de-escalation and stabilisation. [...] In Western Africa the ASPR has been leading a comprehensive training programme on increasing the coherence of humanitarian capacities in cooperation with the Austrian Development Agency and the Austrian Ministry of Defence.