Ecological peace: Exploring the possibilities of environmental peacebuilding for future conflict and resource security

可持续地管理自然资源对人类的长期生存至关重要。与气候变化相关的影响可能会暴露脆弱的社区或国家，加剧现有的紧张局势，并围绕获取和控制重要资源挖掘新的冲突。[1]大多数关于环境建设和平的文献--围绕生态资源建立合作--关注的是促进资源共享以防止冲突。[2]研究人员已经发现了几个冲突群体在面对共同的环境挑战时搁置分歧并进行合作的案例[3]。较少探讨的是跨界环境和平建设在避免区域冲突和环境问题方面的潜力。本研究将探讨环境建设和平在预防潜在冲突或作为和平谈判切入点方面的应用，同时探讨环境建设和平是否能导致跨境资源保护，从而改善当前和未来冲突热点的特定领域，并从成功案例中得出一套原则。本项目使用“冲突生态学”将政治生态学与和平建设联系起来，探讨了一个新的角度对气候变化相关的影响和资源使用者和政府的行为之间的关系，并提供了一个新的角度对决策途径，从地方到区域一级。在这样做的时候，它挑战了将环境冲击与冲突和暴力联系起来的规范性研究，而不是指出和平与保护潜在生态问题的合作机会。具体来说，这项研究调查了是什么使社会容易受到环境压力和暴力冲突的影响，环境合作对3个不断变化的群体间关系的影响，（从合作到暴力，反之亦然），以及围绕生态资源的合作取得成功并因此减少冲突的条件。利用跨界环境建设和平[4]和区域资源保护[5]的理论，本研究借鉴了一个成功的案例研究，证明了多层面治理的重要性，以突出和提取这一现象的因果条件。将这些条件应用于7-10个进一步的环境和平建设案例的定性比较分析（QCA），研究将产生一系列可推广的原则，这些原则可能有助于更好地理解催化共享自然资源如何将冲突转变为和平，并确保更高水平的资源保护。

Sustainably managing natural resources is essential for humanity's long-term survival. Climatechange-related effects could expose vulnerable communities or nations, execrating existing tensionsand unearth new conflicts around access and control of vital resources.[1] The majority of literatureabout environmental peacebuilding - building cooperation around ecological resources - isconcerned with catalysing shared resources to prevent conflict.[2] Researchers have identifiedseveral cases where groups in conflict have put aside their differences and cooperated in the face ofshared environmental challenges [3].Less explored is the potential of transboundary environmental peacebuilding to avert both regionalconflict and environmental problems. This research will examine the use of environmentalpeacebuilding to prevent potential conflict or act as an entry point to peace negotiations, and at thesame time explore if environmental peacebuilding can lead to cross-border resource conservationthat improves the specific areas of present and future conflict hotspots, arriving at a set of principlesfound in successful cases.This project links political ecology and peacebuilding using 'conflict ecologies', examines a newperspective on the relationship between climate change related effects and behaviours of resourceusers and governments, and offers a novel perspective on decision pathways from the local to theregional level. In doing so, it challenges normative research linking environmental shocks to conflictand violence, instead pinpointing the cooperative opportunities of peace and conservation ofpotential ecological problems. Specifically, the study investigates what make societies vulnerable toenvironmental stress and thereby violent conflict, the influence of environmental cooperation on 3changing intergroup relations (from cooperation to violence and vice versa), and conditions underwhich cooperation around ecological resources succeed and conflict therefore reduces.Using theories of transboundary environmental peacebuilding [4] and regional resource conservation[5], this research draws on a successful case study demonstrating the importance of multiple scalesof governance to highlight and extract causal conditions of the phenomenon. Applying thoseconditions to a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of 7-10 further environmental peacebuildingcases, the research will result in a series of generalisable principles that could contribute to a greaterunderstanding of how catalysing a shared natural resource can transform a situation from conflict topeace and secure greater levels of resource conservation.