Protecting the Protectors: Environmental Defenders and the Future of Environmental Peacebuilding

Dec 16, 2019 | Erika Weinthal
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Early scholarship on environmental peacemaking recognized the important role that local civil-society can play in promoting regional cooperation while, at the same time, pressuring governments to protect the environment. For example, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Union for Defense of the Aral Sea and Amu Darya in Uzbekistan and the Dashowuz Ecological Club in Turkmenistan, were at the forefront of the fight to restore the Aral Sea and protect the region’s biodiversity.

Since 1989, the Goldman Environmental Prize has recognized the exceptional heroism of environmental activists (also referred to as environmental defenders) who take on great personal risk to bring to light environmental destruction in the face of intimidation, harassment, and retaliation