The Dark Side of Environmental Peacebuilding

art by Shamsia Hassani (Afghanistan)

Tobias Ide (Murdoch University)

Research, as well as project planning, implementation, and evaluation, must address the potential adverse effects of environmental peacebuilding.

Context

Environmental peacebuilding integrates environmental management into processes to prevent, resolve, and recover from conflicts.[i] Do tensions over a shared water source escalate between states or communities? Can shared environmental problems create entry points for hostile groups to work together? Are armed groups drawing on the extraction of diamonds, metals or timber to finance war? Should former combatants be provided with productive land to recover their livelihoods after a peace agreement? 

In these and many other cases, the proper management of natural resources can reduce tensions, facilitate peace and – in the best cases – mitigate both environmental problems and societal tensions. Environmental peacebuilding success stories have been reported from around the world and at international, national, and local levels.[ii]

Despite these success stories, I urge researchers and practitioners of environmental peacebuilding to use caution, as such approaches can also have adverse impacts in terms of peace, sustainability, and development. In most cases, these are unintended consequences that are outweighed by positive impacts, but they must nevertheless be addressed during project design, implementation, and evaluation. Even more problematic are instances where projects have massive negative impacts on the environment or a group’s livelihood, or where the label ‘environmental peacebuilding’ has simply been used as a cover for cooperative exploitation of the environment. A transboundary peace park between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, for instance, paved the way for increased state control and eventually oil exploration in the border regions.[iii]

What’s been done

Recent research has identified six potential adverse impacts of environmental peacebuilding projects, also known as the “six dangerous D’s”.[iv] First, depoliticization occurs when environmental cooperation between conflict parties focuses on technical aspects without addressing underlying political-economic causes of environmental destruction or conflict. Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian cooperation to build a channel from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, for example, could have increased water and energy availability for the involved parties. However, the project was unable to address highly unequal patterns of water access and decision-making, particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, and was cancelled in 2021. 

Second, displacement might occur when people have to leave their homes because they live in areas earmarked for transnational peace parks or cooperative hydro-energy schemes. Such displacement often has grave cultural and livelihood impacts. The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, for instance, was designed to build peace between Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, but also resulted in the exclusion of local communities from the protected area.

Third, environmental peacebuilding projects can be associated with discrimination against certain groups. These are either excluded from the environmental cooperation, do not benefit from it, or suffer the brunt of adverse impacts. Research shows that women, indigenous people and the poor are most likely to face such discrimination.

Fourth, resistance against the adverse impacts of environmental peacebuilding projects might result in a deterioration into conflict. A decade after the end of the civil war in 2002, for instance, Sierra Leone introduced some environmental and social standards for mining to avoid environmental destruction, the exploitation of workers, and the use of minerals to finance insurgencies. However, many artisanal miners were unable to meet these standards, which led to intense and sometimes violent resistance against state institutions and larger mining companies.[v]  

Fifth, there is a danger of a delegitimization of the state. This is possible, for example, if international actors and NGOs deliver essential environmental and social services (including conflict mediation), while state agencies are unable to do so. When aid agencies provided water pumps in post-conflict Timor-Leste, for example, local people benefited, but they were often unable to maintain the pumps. The transitional government did not respond to public requests for support, so people grew frustrated with the state.[vi]

Finally, environmental peacebuilding has also sometimes facilitated the cooperative degradation of the environment. Both community cooperation over groundwater extraction in Yemen and international agreement over water management in the Aral Sea basin have resulted in an overextraction of water resources. While these agreements eased tensions, at least temporarily, their long-term environmental consequences will be devastating.

Looking ahead

To maximize the benefits of environmental peacebuilding, we need to be aware of its potentially damaging effects. Researchers should spend more time studying these adverse impacts, while practitioners need to consider them when planning, implementing and evaluating environmental peacebuilding projects.

Footnotes

[I] Ide, T., Bruch, C., Carius, A., Conca, K., Dabelko, G.D., Matthew R. and Weinthal, E. (2021) ‘The past and future(s) of environmental peacebuilding’, International Affairs 97(1): 1-16.

[ii] Johnson, M.F., Rodríguez, L.A. and Quijano Hoyos, M. (2020) “Intrastate environmental peacebuilding: a review of the literature”, World Development 137(1): 1-18.

[iii] Barquet, K. (2015) “‘Yes to Peace’? Environmental peacemaking and transboundary conservation in Central America”, Geoforum 63(1): 14-24.

[iv] Ide, T. (2020) “The dark side of environmental peacebuilding”, World Development 127(1): 1-9.

[v] McKenzie, J.F. (2019) ‘Strong (green) institutions in weak states: environmental governance and human (in)security in the Global South’, World Development 122(1): 433-445.

[vi] Krampe, F. and Gignoux, S. (2018) “Water service provision and peacebuilding in East Timor: exploring the socioecological determinants for sustaining peace”, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 12(2): 185-207.