Environmental Peacebuilding
Publisher: BioScience
Author(s): Lesley Evans Ogden
Date: 2018
Topics: Conflict Causes, Renewable Resources
As the River Jordan meanders between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, disease-causing microbes that thrive in water contaminated with sewage pass over geopolitical lines without passports or border checks. By drinking or bathing in that contaminated water, children on each side of the border get sick. But proposed solutions could provide an opportunity to heal more than just disease. Cross-border investment in water treatment can be a mechanism for brokering peace.
This is the kind of thinking behind environmental peacebuilding, a new discipline in natural-resource management that stems from a growing realization that although natural resources can fuel conflict, they can also provide a focus for cooperation. Over the past 60 years, according to a 2009 United Nations (UN) report, 40 percent of conflicts between nations or states have links to disagreements over natural resources. With demand for resources increasing alongside the number of people inhabiting planet Earth, compounded by stressors such as climate change, conflicts are expected to intensify.