Environmental Peacebuilding Association Announces Recipients of 2019 Environmental Peacebuilding Awards

Oct 8, 2019 | Environmental Peacebuilding Association
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The Environmental Peacebuilding Association announced the five recipients of the 2019 Awards to be presented at the First International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding. These awards include the 6^th Al-Moumin Award on Environmental Peacebuilding, as well as the inaugural Environmental Peacebuilding Lifetime Award, the Award for Environmental Peacebuilding in Practice, and Environmental Peacebuilding Research Award, and the Award for Best Student Paper in Environmental Peacebuilding.

These awards honor groundbreaking research, practice, and contributions to the field of environmental peacebuilding. By acknowledging these exceptional awardees, the Association seeks to bring greater attention and recognition to the connections between environment, conflict, and peace. These awards emphasize the importance of looking at these linkages locally, regionally, and globally.

The Environmental Peacebuilding Lifetime Award will be presented to Mark Halle, a Senior Fellow with the International Institute for Sustainable Development – Europe. This award honors significant contributions to the fields of environmental peacebuilding across a lifetime of work and research. Mark Halle was an early leader in recognizing the linkages between environment, conflict, and peace, organizing workshops, publishing papers, and placing the issue on the policy agenda in the late 1990s. Halle established a joint IISD/IUCN Task Force focused on Environment and Security, and throughout his career, he has focused on increasing the evidence base and bringing attention to the connections between environmental security, sustainable development, peace, and conflict. “Mark Halle’s work has been transformative and in many ways led to the establishment of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association,” said Carl Bruch, founding President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and Director of International Programs at the Environmental Law Institute. “We are thrilled to honor him with this award.”

The 6^th Al-Moumin Award on Environmental Peacebuilding will be awarded to Nancy Peluso, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. This award recognizes leading thinkers who are shaping the field of environmental peacebuilding, which aims to improve environmental and natural resource management to prevent, end, and recover from armed conflict. It is named after Dr. Mishkat Al-Moumin, Iraq’s first Minister of Environment, a human rights and environmental lawyer, and an advocate for women’s rights. The Award is co-sponsored by the Association, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), UN Environment, and American University’s School of International Service. This award honors the contributions of Dr. Peluso’s work on natural resource policy and management, particularly her work on forest and land management, power relations, and conflict. Her work on political ecology provides nuanced views of the social, economic, political, and cultural factors that influence unequal access to and ownership of resources. She has also contributed significantly to the literature on resource-related causes of violent conflict. Her work is a crucial cornerstone for understanding complex power relations around natural resources. Dr. Peluso will also deliver the Distinguished Lecture on Environmental Peacebuilding at the First International Conference.

The Award for Environmental Peacebuilding in Practice will be awarded to Gloria Amparo Rodríguez, who is a professor at the Universidad del Rosario School of Law and a justice with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia. The award recognizes the exceptional practical work of an individual or organization involved in the field of environmental peacebuilding. Dr. Amparo Rodríguez has worked extensively on environmental issues, community rights, and environmental justice, as well as human rights and peace. She has particularly worked on protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, giving local communities in Colombia the knowledge and ability to legally protect their land rights and helping to reduce socio-environmental conflicts. She has also published several books on environmental law, citizen participation, and prior consultation and ethnic rights from a community-based perspective. In 2018, she was appointed as one of the 38 judges of the Transitional Justice System for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement in Colombia. The award recognizes Dr. Gloria Amparo Rodríguez’s influential work in Colombia, which has had broader relevance across Latin America and globally.

The Environmental Peacebuilding Research Award, honoring a recent outstanding and significant research contribution to the field of environmental peacebuilding, will be awarded to Alexandre Roulin of the University of Lausanne, and his co-authors, Mansour Abu Rashid, Baruch Spiegel, Motti Charter, Amélie N. Driess, and Yossi Leshem, for their piece, “‘Nature Knows No Boundaries’: The Role of Nature Conservation in Peacebuilding” (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2017). The paper focuses on the Birds Know No Boundaries Project, a transboundary project in Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, and exemplifies the cross-disciplinary and cross-country collaboration that is so important to the field of environmental peacebuilding. The study has been influential in academic, policy, and civil society groups, and paves the way for further study on conservation, peacebuilding, and ecology in the Middle East and other regions.

The Award for Best Student Paper in Environmental Peacebuilding, recognizing the best paper presented by a graduate or undergraduate student at the Environmental Peacebuilding Conference, will be awarded to Ousseyni Kalilou of New York University for his paper on “Understanding How Climate Change Mitigation through Gum Arabic Production May Lower the Levels of Violent Conflicts in the Sahel.”  Originally from Niger, Ousseyni recently graduated from NYU School of Professional Studies where he obtained his MS in Global Affairs. He also holds an MBA in International Business from Strayer University and an MPA in Diplomacy from Ecole Nationale d’Administration.  He has worked as a Foreign Service Officer for Niger’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Student Ambassador for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Holly Locke and Angela Chesler willreceive Honorable Mention recognition for their respective papers.

All awards will be presented at the Environmental Peacebuilding Gala at the 2019 International Peacebuilding Conference at UC Irvine, which will take place on Wednesday, October 23, 2019, at the Barclay Theatre in Irvine, California.

For further information, please contact conference@environmentalpeacebuilding.org.

Further information on the First International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding, including information on registration, is available here: https://environmentalpeacebuilding.org/2019-conference/