Building Peace Through Environmental Cooperation

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• Online Feature: Global Security
• State of the World 2005

Worldwatch Live Online Discussion

Ken Conca: Associate Professor of Government and Politics - UMD

July 14, 2005 - 2:00pm EDT

As a peacemaking tool, the environment offers unique opportunities for countries that may differ politically, socially, or economically to join forces towards a common and positive goal: improving their environment. Initiatives such as peace parks, shared river basin management plans, regional seas agreements and joint environmental monitoring programs that combine politics and ecology are making headway in both the environmental movement and the peacemaking process.

Join Ken Conca, Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and contributing author to State of the World 2005, to learn about the exciting ways in which environmental cooperation is being used as a peacemaking tool.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Welcome to this week's Worldwatch Live online discussion. Joining us today is Ken Conca, State of the World 2005 co-author and Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. Welcome, Ken. Could you tell us a little about yourself and what you do at the University of Maryland?

Ken Conca: Steve, thanks, it is a pleasure to be here and I look forward to the comments and questions of those who join us for this discussion. I am a political science professor at the University of Maryland, which is a large public institution in the suburbs of Washington DC. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in international relations, the environment, peace & conflict, and social movements. I also work with our campus's interdisciplinary undergraduate environmental program, and I direct a research center on globalization, global governance and the environment.

Unknown Location: What can the average, non-governmental, mildly-educated, time-constrained, working 1.5 jobs to support 2.5 kids Joe do to help achieve environmental progress on a global scale?

Ken Conca: A writer I have long admired, Wendell Berry, once wrote that nobody can save a planet, and that the challenge is not to save the planet but, rather, its countless landscapes and neighborhoods. That makes good sense to me as a starting point for choosing oneís path and actions.

That said, this is a huge, challenging question, but let me share a few quick thoughts. First, we should recognize that in between the desperation of a billion or more impoverished people and a billion or more overconsumers, we can find a diverse array of lifestyles and communities that more closely approximate sustainability. Alan Durning first made this point 15 years ago in a book called How Much Is Enough?, and it remains true today--even though those ìsustainerî communities are in many places around the world under siege from outsourcing, downsizing, economic marginalization, and other effects of economic globalization. We have much to learn from them, and we need to be concerned about their survival. We should all be looking for ways to push our own communities in that direction. And for those of us rich enough to have web access, that includes getting a handle on overconsumption.

Second, at least in my country (US), I find that many people treat their environmental responsibilities solely as individual consumer mattersóshop green, recycle, drive a smaller car, etc. That is fine, but very few Americans view advocacy, voting behavior, civic education, organizing, community-scale initiatives, etc. as equally ìenvironmentalî behavior. And our school curricula reinforce this individual, depoliticized viewówe tend to teach the problems as scientific ones and the solutions as better consuming. Breaking this trap and pursuing solutions that are community-wide and political, rather than just individual and consumerist, is a good place to start (but of course, still shop green).

Washington, DC: The UNEP Post Conflict Assessement Unit out of Geneva seems to be an exciting effort. What are the strenghts and limitations of this approach?

Ken Conca: I am glad to see this question because it lets me mention a little-known but important initiative. The UN Environment Programme operates with very meager resources. Right in your home area of metropolitan Washington, where I also live, there are 3 or 4 universities that have larger annual budgets than does UNEP, for example. In recent years, UNEP has begun to focus on environment-conflict links, with particular attention to the very serious problems found in war-torn societies (such as water quality, toxics, deforestation, and in some cases the effects of depleted uranium weapons). UNEPís Post-Conflict Assessment Unit has done several studies to assess environmental problems, in cooperation with local governments and communities, in places ranging from Liberia and the Balkans to Iraq and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Their website contains a wealth of information. The most important contribution is not the studies themselves but the processes they catalyze, of beginning to reconstitute environmental management and governance.

These settings provide obvious opportunities for environmental peacemaking, as shattered landscapes and shatter trust both need sustained repairing. By itself, however, UNEP is likely to be a cautious instrument of such workóit needs to preserve its neutral and non-political stance to be able to work in these sensitive cases, it cannot get out ahead of the UN member governments that comprise it, and it does not have a permanent, reliable budget for these initiatives. Since you are in Washington, perhaps you can help spread the word to the US Government about the importance of practical, grounded UN initiatives such as this one.

Reno, NV: Hi Ken. Sounds like you're doing really interesting work. My question is: in light of the recent terrorist attacks in London, and other such events, how realistic is it that people will focus on the environment as a peacemaking tool, as opposed to traditional military means?

Ken Conca: This is one of the really critical questions. Historically, many people, particularly in richer socities, have tended to view the environment as a luxury, less critical than central matters of economy and security. People who live closer to nature and rely on it for livelihoods have known all along that this is wrong all along, and the rest of us have been catching up. But there is still a tendency to see these issues slip off the agenda when more pressing concerns arise.

With specific regard to the terrible bombings in London, I think it is indeed going to be very hard to keep the focus on the underlying roots of human security. Certainly that has been the case in the US since 9-11. People are afraid, understandably, and there are politicians who know how to exploit that fear effectively for various political agendas. But in the long run, it seems to me that the main messages of these events are that we need a fairer world where people have a decent chance at sustainable livelihoods, in order to negate the appeal of fringe movements that would use violence to achieve their means. That means demiliarizing foreign policy, rejoining multilateral initiatives, taking the Millennium Development Goals seriously, etc. That message is not carrying the day right now in the US and Britain, but it is important that it keep getting out there.

The Australian National University.: Peace remains at constant when the input energy equals to the output energy. Peacemaking can be achieved when the same principle is applied. To my belief, the tension is always there e.g. North and South. This dues to inequality occurs in most places. Given the fact that I am convinced by what you proposed; yet, the reality turns out a pretty grey picture. Any ideas for the case in Vietnam, my nationality is Vietnamese. Please take into accounts that the most update population is appr. 83 millions and the total land area only covers 330,000 square kilometers. How can peacemaking be built in the Vietnamese environment?

Ken Conca: Thanks for your perspective and for an important dose of realism. I am certainly not an authority on Vietnam, but clearly your country faces major challenges, some of which are hinted at by your math. At a time when your country is changing rapidly, much will depend on how it chooses to pursue deeper engagement with the rest of the world. Will it emulate Chinaís approach to engaging the West and embracing globalization, with the devastating ecological toll and growing social unrest that model has spawned, even as it has boosted the incomes of many (but certainly not all) Chinese? Or will it take a more measured approach, one that keeps in mind the importance of environmental protection for public health and long-term economic well-being? A country with 80 million people, and some very good university programs focused on these questions, can learn from the mistakes of others. The Westís interest in trade and investment in Vietnam (80 million people is a large untapped market, from that perspective) gives Vietnam some leverage in negotiating the terms of its growing economic ties that other smaller countries do not have. This is not to deny your point about North-South inequality, with which I concur.

There is also an important civic dimension to this question. I focus much of my own work on water issues, because I see water as an important source of both conflict and cooperation. I am struck that in discussions around the Mekong River, one does not see an array of NGOs and other societal actors to the same extent from Vietnam that one sees from, say, Thailand (although, again, my understanding of the situation in Vietnam is not that of an expert and your country is obviously undergoing some rapid and significant changes). Moving the conversation beyond narrow state-to-state dialogue is a critical step.

Washington, DC: As a professor of environmental issues, what is your impression of young people's interest in these issues today? Is it stronger or weaker than in the past? Do you see genuine concern and committment in these "future leaders of tomorrow"?

Ken Conca: In my fifteen or so years of experience as a college instructor, I find that there has been a pretty steady stream of serious interest and concern among studentsóboth those I teach in the US, and those I encounter on various international travels and teaching opportunities Iíve had in China, Brazil, Southern Africa, Europe and other places. They get it, intuitively, that we have to find peaceful and effective ways of dealing with these issues, and that we are not doing so. The main issues of concern vary depending on their particular life experiences, but not so much the level of interest and concern. I do find that where they tend to look for solutions can vary over time and from place to placeóAmerican students seem to me to be skeptical about government these days, and looking to local initiatives, NGOs, and the private sector as important centers of activity.

If I do have a worry, it is that we serve them poorly in educational terms on these matters. Many universities have created environmental studies majors, and some of these are really quite good, challenging, enriching programs. But it is still a struggle to get these issues taken seriously in the mainstream departments, be it Chemistry or English or Economics or my own field of Politicl Science. We need to break down some of those disciplinary barriers to make the curriculum better fit the problems we face.

San Diego, CA: The current water, energy, and, in some places, food shortages are creating a perfect insecurity storm especially when juxtaposed with very real environmnetal and potentially devastating infectious health insecurity. How can cross-issue challenges be addressed by an increasingly polarized, specialized, and competitive world?

Ken Conca: An important point and a great question. As I suggested in respons to the previous question, our tendency to look at problems in isolation is a big part of the problem. One of the points that my colleagues and I have tried to make in our work on environmental peacemaking is that more durable cooperative bargains can sometimes be found by linking rather than compartmentalizing issues and problems. This goes against the grain of traditional thinking, which says that problems are easier to solve when they are reduced and broken apart. This may be true technically, but not necessarily politically. For example, one country may be upstream on a river basin, creating a power asymmetry over its downstream neighbors that makes cooperation very difficult. The same can be true of upwind/downwind relationships, or between communities or countries that are on the sending and receiving end of toxic waste. Bringing a wider area of ecological interdependencies into the conversation may allow for better balance.

One large barrier to getting there is that modern nation-states tend to be organized to compartmentalize and separate problems. Almost no country in the world, for example, has effectively integrated land use management and water resources management, despite the complex and critical linkages between land and water. So getting a wider range of civil-society voices, including actors who are less enamored of these compartmentalizations, into the mix is probably essential. We also need better interdisciplinary educational programsósomething environmentalists and others have been saying for decades, but which again runs into a poor fit with prevailing institutions, in the sense that universities tend to favor traditional disciplinary models. Innovative programs pop up all the time, but they often donít survive the first few downturns in their universityís budgetary cycle.

Geneva, Switzerland: Hello. I am wondering if there is any connection between what you are talking about and the World Heritage sites. Do they consider peacemaking in their agenda? Please inform. Thank you.

Ken Conca: I do think that there is a connection, in that part of the World Heritage Movement is to encourage a sense of broader community by identifying both natural and social places as part of everyoneís heritage. Most of these cites are nationally defined rather than transnational, so the link is indirect in terms of the international conflict resolution emphasized in my work, but breaking down exclusionary barriers of identity is an important part of the larger process.

Something similar can be seen in the international ìpeace parksî movement, which the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and others have been promoting for some time now. As we discussed briefly in our chapter in State of the World 2005, the idea is to transform zones of separation and conflict into zones of cooperation and shared management. Parks of course are controversial, because historically they have often been about expelling local peopleóarmed guards and barbed wire--rather than incorporating them democratically into nature conservation initiatives. So much depends on the particular design with which such initiatives are approached.

Washington, DC: Are there threats to the environment in peace negotiations? What have been the environmental costs of getting all the parties to the table?

Ken Conca: Another good question! We like to think of peace processes as a chance to reduce warís impact on the environment, but it is true that the deal-making that is put in place to broker an end to the fighting may sacrifice environmental consideration for larger political purposes. For example, it has been suggested that the means of luring rebel groups in the Philippines to the bargaining table has been to give them essentially unrestrained opportunities to promote logging and deforestation. This may give them an important incentive to come to the table, but it is hardly a recipe for long-term sustainability and stability. A different example is Angola: in the negotiations that led to the end of conflict between the government and the UNITA rebels, the ministries responsible for land management and water resources management were allocated to political groups that had been on opposite sides of the conflict--which must complicate enormously the prospects for effective, sustainable watershed management. It is critically important to establish cease-fires and bring rival parties to the table, negotiators must use the resources available to them, and no one would suggest that the environment is the only value to be pursued. But we know enough about environment-conflict links to know that ecologically unsustainable foundations for peace agreements are unlikely to yield a robust peace.

Delhi: Hello. I am writing because I agree very much with this approach to communication through environmental issues. my question is, how can the average person (me, a school teacher) get the politician and other people to accept this approach? how can we be involved? or do we just have to wait for the "powerful people to wake up to this on their own?

Ken Conca: Well, I do not mean to dismiss the very great obstacles, and much will depend on local conditions and circumstances. But I would say that both in your country (India) and mine (USA), the trends of positive social change that I have observed in my lifetime have occurred when people worked to press their political system in an organized fashion. Richard Nixonócertainly on my short (but growing) list of candidates for worst president in American history, given his criminal activitiesówas also one of the greenest. He was responsible for most of our most important environmental legislation. He followed popular sentiment rather than leading it, because the pressures were loud, persistent, and above all, well organized.

Traditionally, the logical steps following from what I said above would be to work either in education or in social movements/popular organizations/NGOs. I certainly see those as important parts of the struggle, but I would add the increasingly important domains of popular culture and the media. Screenwriters who dismiss climate change as left-wing nonsense, as we have seen in a recent example from Hollywood, have an enormous impact. In our increasingly "post-Fordist" world economy, how people construct and consume knowledge and entertainment is a critical arena more so than ever before. But as a teacher, you are also sitting in one of the most important pivot points for change.

Unknown Location: Dear Ken If shared water can be used as a basis for cooperation between states, what about between traditionally-opposed groups?

Ken Conca: this is an important question but a complex one. Most of our work has focused on interstate dynamics, but of course that is not the only violence problem in todayís world. In many ways, diplomats, military commanders, and government elites in different countries are a more homogenous group than the rival factions that one might find in many local/domestic/subnational conflicts. So the problems of mistrust and histories of grievance and non-cooperation may run even deeper and more difficult. That said, I think some of the same basic principles such as creating cooperative knowledge and lengthening the ìshadow of the futureî in decision making, still apply. But the institutional setting for sustaining cooperation may be weaker and more fragmented, particularly if there has been substantial violent conflict. This why initiatives such as UNEPís post-conflict work, which I mentioned earlier, are so important.
With specific regard to water, Brazil is an example of a country that has embraced a ìstakeholderî model of water management that takes managing water conflicts among different social actors as perhaps the central task of sustainable water governance. Brazilís new national water law, which emerged from the aftermath of military rule in that country, creates mixed-membership bodies at both the basin-specific and national levels that have conflict-management mandates.

Apeldoorn Netherlands: If you want a beter world (economy) based on questions and answers, isn't it the first step to work harder at consumer education to learn to ask better questions?

Ken Conca: The challenge is for consumers to be able to know. If you shop at a farmer's market, there is a pretty good chance you will know about the production process that went into what you are buying. In a world of global commodity chains that snake in and out of countries several times, it's not so easy. The product certification movement--shade-grown coffee, forest products, dolphin-safe tuna, and the like--is aimed at shortening these distances by giving consumers better info about what went into the things they are buying. The same is true of the corporate responsibility movement and various shareholder initiatives that try to shame or otherwise pressure companies into better practices. But this has barely begun to scratch the surface of a very difficult problem of poor information.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Thanks for joining us today, Ken!

Ken Conca: Thank you for having me, Steve. And my thanks to all who participated, for their interest, questions and observations.