As Ivory Becomes Bigger Issue, Environmental Peacebuilding Gaining Ground at IUCN World Congress

Oct 21, 2016 | Bethany N. Bella
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A traditional conservation approach to climate change (e.g., habitat restoration, species protection) has been a primary tenet of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) agenda for decades. But this fall at the quadrennial World Conservation Congress in Hawai’i there were new discussions about tackling climate change in the context of national security and environmental peacebuilding.

There has been discussion about environmental security and peacebuilding themes within IUCN for some time. In 1999, IUCN published a report examining the link between environment and security, in an attempt to “lay the foundation for a full and informed debate.” Climate change and international security resurfaced at a panel discussion at the 2008 IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, while recommendations about transboundary protected area were introduced at the 2012 Congress in Jeju, South Korea.

Last year’s National Geographic documentary and special issue on the “Warlords of Ivory” propelled the links between terrorism, national security, and the underground ivory trade into public discourse. Terrorist groups operating in Africa are now directly linked with the transportation of illegal elephant ivory to other African countries as well as East Asian consumer countries.