The Urgency and Complexity of Environmental Peacebuilding

Feb 13, 2020 | Jeremy Moore
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Daily news headlines sometimes note, but often omit, the rise in violent conflicts linked to environmental shocks from our changing climate. People in parts of Central Asia have fought in recent years over water, and Nigerian farmers and cattle herders fight over shrinking grasslands in an episodic war that now kills more people than the violence of Boko Haram. This nexus recently led specialists on both problems—conflict resolution and climate shocks—to forge a new alliance for environmental peacebuilding. The need for such work is signaled in part by the rising violence against environmental activists, of whom 164 were killed in 2018 alone.