Environmental Peacemaking. Edited by Ken Conca and Geoffrey
D. Dabelko. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. 200p.
$35.00 cloth, $17.50 paper.
This book explores the proposition that cooperation on environmental
issues can be instrumental in resolving local conflicts caused by
environmental degradation and scarcity of resources. Such conflicts are
not a new phenomenon. However, in the early twenty-first century,
continuing degradation of the environment, coupled with ever-increasing
pressures on resources due to an expanding population, has substantially
increased the incidence of violent conflicts on environmental issues.
Moreover, most of the present threats to peace are major intrastate
conflicts (e.g., civil war and genocide) or ones that are occurring along
ecologically fragile border regions, implying that researchers should
concentrate on the regional or local level of analysis. At the same time,
as the cause of such conflicts has risen on the political and discourse
agenda, a corresponding large body of research has emerged, increasing our
understanding of the ways in which environmental destruction can lead to
conflict.