Environmental Peacebuilding: A Self-Paced Course and Toolkit for Conflict Analysis and Strategic Peacebuilding

Author(s): Ken Conca, Matthew Collucci, Ariana Lippi, and Kelcey Negus

Date: 2025

Topics: Assessment, Programming

This document contains a self-paced course that trains participants in key concepts and applications of environmental peacebuilding. Environmental peacebuilding is a field of research and practice based on two broad observations about the socio-ecological world. On the one hand, the use of natural resources and the transformation of ecosystems is often intimately linked with various forms of violence, on scales ranging from a patch of forest or a local 
watershed to entire nations and the international system. Yet, environmental interdependencies can also be powerful forces for peace: building trust, enabling cooperation, and stimulating other positive forms of interaction among stakeholders, peoples, societies, and nations. As a field of research, environmental peacebuilding seeks to understand these dynamics of peace and conflict as they intersect the natural world. And as a body of practice, environmental peacebuilding seeks to create or engage those connections in ways that reduce violence, enhance peaceful outcomes, and work for positive change.

This course is intended for early-career professionals, graduate students, members of community groups, and others seeking to understand, engage in, or launch environmental peacebuilding efforts. It gives participants a foundation in the history of the field, discusses the field’s conceptual basis, and reviews the empirical support and evidence base behind its core concepts. The main purpose of the course, however, is to provide hands-on experience with analytic tools in conflict analysis and the development of environmental peacebuilding strategies. To do this, we provide a step-by-step navigation through several useful tools, as well as a detailed case study to which the tools may be applied. The course also includes info on key organizations, intellectual resources, and professional development opportunities in the field.

This course is the result of the collaborative project “Charting New Pathways to Peace,” conducted by researchers at American University and Oregon State University, in partnership with the civil-society organization EcoPeace Middle East (https://ecopeaceme.org/). EcoPeace is a unique regional organization with Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian branches and a joint directorate. The research component of the project sought to derive lessons and insights from EcoPeace’s three decades of advocacy work at the intersection of environmental sustainability, conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

PLEASE NOTE:  We are having difficulties with the attachment.  While we are trying to fix the matter, if you would like a copy of the materials, please email association@environmentalpeacebuilding.org.