Beware the Dark Side of Environmental Peacebuilding

Jan 8, 2020 | Tobias Ide
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Environmental peacebuilding is a good idea. As a practice, it aims to address simultaneously environmental problems and challenges related to violent conflict. Examples include the promotion of environmental cooperation between rival states, conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change, and restoring access to land and water in post-conflict societies. As a concept, environmental peacebuilding directs researchers’ and politicians’ attention to cooperative adaptation as a response to environmental stress. It thus helps to correct one-sided narratives about environment-conflict links.

However, environmental peacebuilding also has a dark side. In other words, environmental peacebuilding practices can negatively affect development, chip away at environmental protection, and erode peace