EnPAx Icon Environmental Peacebuilding: 2025 in Review

Jan 6, 2026 | Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Dear friends and colleagues, 

There are many ways to describe 2025 for the environmental peacebuilding community.  Brutal.  Painful.  Scary.  Demoralizing.  It was all that, and more.

2025 saw the rise of nationalism and populism in numerous countries, many of them global and regional powers.  It saw the erosion of rule of law at the international, national, and local levels.  Environment, development, and humanitarian budgets were slashed at the same time wars and their environmental impacts continued in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and elsewhere. Staff at organizations from CSOs to national agencies to UN bodies were let go in large numbers.  Some organizations closed, and others are struggling to survive.  International cooperation faltered. 

With slashed budgets and staff, many organizations started refocusing on their core mandates.  Environmental peacebuilding was particularly hard hit by this shift. Fundamentally, environmental peacebuilding bridges across missions and mandates to synergetically advance environmental, peace, and development objectives. 

Amid this chaos, the environmental peacebuilding community came together.  We provided moral support to one another.  We found ways to continue to collaborate, to develop visions of the world we want to see, and to work toward that.  More than 200 of us completed the manuscript for a glossary of terms for environmental peacebuilding and sent it to the publishers.  We are planning the Fourth International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding (in Ottawa in June), and there is strong interest from around the world (we had more than 5,000 applications for the Conference Fellows Program!).

Unfortunately, the turbulence will continue.  We have entered a new era, just as we entered a new era following the end of the Cold War in 1989-90.  But while that transition brought in an unprecedented level of international cooperation, we have entered a new era of division and conflict.

Many are, however, thinking strategically about how to continue advancing environmental peacebuilding in this new era.  The need for environmental peacebuilding has never been greater.  As the rapid growth of Environment & Security as well as the broader body of literature highlighted in the Environmental Peacebuilding Update highlight, the pace at which we are innovating and learning is inspiring. As a result, we know more about how to design, implement, and evaluate environmental peacebuilding projects than we did five years ago, or even last year. 

In this new era, there are many opportunities to continue to use the environment as a driver of peace – at the local level, at the national level, and between countries.  Shared interests over water, biodiversity, and disaster prevention will continue to provide opportunities for cooperation, trust building, and peacebuilding.  Like-minded countries, organizations, and individuals will continue to advance renewable energy and a just transition in conflict-affected countries.  And a growing number of conservation organizations and individuals are becoming conflict-sensitive (many of them taking advantage of the new free online course on Conflict-Sensitive Conservation).

All is not well.  We know that.  And we hold that truth in one hand, even as we hold the truth of our vision of a peaceful, just, and sustainable world in the other hand. 

2026 is likely to be another transitional year as we find our way across the new landscape. We will find that way together.  By engaging.  By sharing.  By listening.  But we will find it together.  We will do so at the Fourth International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding.  We will do it through the Path to Ottawa, leading up to the Fourth Conference.  We will do it through the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and its Interest Groups (if you are not yet a member, we encourage you to join!).  And we will continue to do it.  Together.

Carl Bruch
Executive Director, Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Erika Weinthal
President, Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Here are a few milestones from 2025:

  • In 2025, the Environmental Peacebuilding Association® (EnPAx®) continued its growth and maturation. Launched in 2018, by the end of 2025 the Association includes 408 individual members from 79 countries on 6 continents, and 27 institutional members. The membership composition is 85% professional and 15% student. By the end of 2025, the Association had thirteen Interest Groups (on Africa; Data and Technologies; Climate Change, Disasters, and Resilience; Education; Forests; Gender; Law; Middle East and North Africa (MENA); Monitoring & Evaluation; Transitional Justice; Urban; Water; and Young Professionals), and they were undertaking a wide range of activities.
  • The Environmental Peacebuilding Knowledge Platform (www.environmentalpeacebuilding.org/), the leading global platform on issues related to natural resources, conflict, and peacebuilding, continues to grow. This year, we added 250 Library items, 45 Announcements, 68 Events, 181 Jobs, 773 International News articles, and 263 Blogs & Opinion pieces. At the end of 2025, we have 7,800 Library items and more than 10,000 International News articles. In 2025, the Association continued to maintain and expand its dedicated microsites, including subsites on Palestine and Israel, Ukraine, monitoring and evaluation, gender, and data and technologies, among others.
  • The Environmental Peacebuilding Community of Practice added over 100 members this year. The Community is now almost 4,400 people strong, with members from more than 150 countries.
  • This year we celebrated twelve years of publishing the Environmental Peacebuilding Update, our biweekly e-newsletter highlighting recent developments relating to natural resources, conflict, and peace, with links to new publications, international news, upcoming conferences and events, and job openings. Today marks the publication of the 313th issue. When we consult members of the Environmental Peacebuilding Community of Practice and of EnPAx, they consistently highlight the value of the Update and the website.  We are deeply indebted to our editor, Joel Young, and the large team of volunteers who collect, code, and post materials, and then create the Update every two weeks. Under the leadership of Maddy Loll—with guidance from Silja Halle, Maryruth Belsey Priebe, and Natalia Jimenez Galindo—we have also continued our monthly Newsletter on Gender, Natural Resources, Climate, and Peace.
  • The Association held many virtual webinars, consultations, and skills-building events. By the end of the year, EnPAx had held 17 events.
  • 2025 was the third year that EnPAx and SAGE Publishing published the journal Environment and Security. Environment and Security has become the leading global outlet for peer-reviewed research and debates on issues at the intersection of environmental and security. Environment and Security is a quarterly journal that seeks to publish innovative research on the intersections between environmental and security issues, and to inspire debates by decision makers and practitioners. All research published in the journal will engage with and advance existing academic debates on the topic, either through presenting novel empirical findings, through theoretical elaboration, or through insights from practitioners. 

Editor’s Note 

As 2025 comes to a close, we hope you have enjoyed all of the selections offered through our Knowledge Platform. EnPAx is a small, volunteer-run, global organization with a dedicated team of contributors bringing to you the latest environmental peacebuilding initiatives, publications, news, job opportunities, events, and opinions from the field. Each of the pieces we publish to our website are carefully compiled, curated, and coded to ensure that the most relevant, interesting, and noteworthy developments in environmental peacebuilding are accessible to our community. We are grateful to receive submissions to the Knowledge Platform from both EnPAx Members and members of the broader Environmental Peacebuilding Community of Practice and are delighted to meet and discover emerging voices for environmental peacebuilding.  

Favorites of 2025: Editor’s Picks

2025 was a busy year for environmental peacebuilding which means there was a lot to read! 250 publications, videos, and other items were added to the online Library.  Here are some of our favorites from the year:

Of more than 1,000 news and opinion articles posted on the Knowledge Platform in 2025, here is a selection of some of our favorite stories:

We at EnPAx sincerely thank all our Members, volunteers, contributors, and supporters for helping us have another positive and productive year of building the Association and Community of Practice. As Editor of the Update, I humbly thank all our dedicated readers for tuning in to this newsletter every other week. I hope that you have as much enjoyment from reading the Environmental Peacebuilding Update as we do from publishing it. Ahead to 2026!

Joel Young
Editor, Environmental Peacebuilding Update