Environment Can Support the Peace Agenda

Mar 30, 2023 | Shabir Ahmad
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In 2016 Global Witness reported that an average of four people is killed per week defending their land and their natural resources from commercial development.

The relationship between environment, natural resources and conflict has a long pedigree and it’s important to stress that the causal arrow runs in both directions.

There are three separate risks to natural resources and the environment during armed conflict: financing conflict, environment as a weapon of war, and being damaged by the conflict. While people are often familiar with conflict resources and using the environment as weapon, the more common and often more serious environmental damages come from the breakdown of environmental governance and the short-term survival strategies that people have to adopt during armed conflict. 

It should be noted that the considerations and approaches for managing natural resources to build and sustain peace can and should be approached from multiple perspectives; from a security perspective, from an economic perspective, from a social perspective, from an environmental perspective, and from a humanitarian perspective. In this context, the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, are important.