Mainstreaming the environment into postwar recovery: The case for 'ecological development'

International Affairs

Volumn 88, Issue 5, 2012, Pages 1083-1100

  Milburn, Richard ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84866390575     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01120.x     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Thor Hanson, Thomas M. Brooks, Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca, Michael Hoffmann, John F. Lamoreux, Gary Machlis, Cristina G. Mittermeier, Russell A. Mittermeier and John D. Pilgrim, 'Warfare in biodiversity hotspots', Conservation Biology 23: 3, 2009, pp. 578-587.
2. Jeffrey A. McNeely, 'Biodiversity, war, and tropical forests', Journal of Sustainable Forestry 16: 3-4, 2003, pp. 1-20.
3. The outputs of the Biodiversity Support Programme at, accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/aboutus.html
4. Ken Conca and Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Environmental peacemaking (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)
5. This is the current working definition for ecological development, constructed by the author. A key point to note is the phrase 'management and development'. While sustainable development tends to focus on the sustainable extraction of existing resources, ecological development goes one step further by promoting the expansion of environmental resources to increase the quantity and quality available, and then the institution of management mechanisms to ensure their sustainable extraction: for example, planting more trees around a forest. This is discussed further in the DRC case-study below.
6. These conclusions derive from the author's Master of Arts thesis in postwar recovery studies at the University of York, UK, 'Guerrillas in the mist: are transboundary protected areas an effective tool to promote peacebuilding and development in a post conflict environment?' (unpublished, 2011), based on primary field research carried out in the eastern DRC and western Rwanda.
7. James Shambaugh, Judy Oglethorpe and Rebecca Ham, with contributions from Sylvia Tognettie, The trampled grass: mitigating the impacts of armed conflict on the environment (Washington DC: Biodiversity Support Program, 2001), p. 11.
8. Murl Baker, Robert Clausen, Ramzy Kanaan, Michel N'Goma, Trifin Roule and Jamie Thomson, Conflict timber: dimensions of the problem in Asia and Africa (Burlington, VT: ARD Inc., 2004), pp. 137-151.
9. World Bank, Going, going, gone: the illegal trade in wildlife in East and Southeast Asia (2005), http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/EXTEAPREGTOPENVIRONMENT/0, contentMDK:20806207~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:502886,00.html, accessed 20 July 2012.
10. Hanson et al., 'Warfare in biodiversity hotspots'.
11. James R. Seyler, Duncan Thomas, Nicolas Mwanza and Augustin Mpoyi, Democratic Republic of Congo: biodiversity and tropical forestry assessment, final report, 118/119 (Washington DC: USAID, 2010).
12. EU paper 'Climate change and international security', S113/08, 14 March 2008, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/reports/99387.pdf
13. UN Security Council statement SC/10332, 20 July, both accessed 20 July 2012. 2011, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10332.doc.htm
14. Jamie McCallum, vice-chairman of the IUCN WCPA transboundary specialist group, advanced this idea in an informal discussion with the author, 3 Nov. 2011.
15. Conca and Dabelko, Environmental peacemaking. This argument will be expanded in the sections below.
16. Alexander Carius, Environmental cooperation as an instrument of crisis prevention and peacebuilding: conditions for success and constraints, study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), (Berlin, 2006).
17. N. Mirumachi and J. A. Allan, 2007, 'Revisiting transboundary water governance: power, conflict, cooperation and the political economy', International Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management, 12-15 Nov., Basel, Switzerland. 2007
18. Carius, Environmental cooperation as an instrument of crisis prevention and peacebuilding. Perhaps the best real-world example is the continual river system management work carried out between Jordan and Israel, and Israel and the Palestinians, even while they were still engaged in conflict with each other.
19. Rolf D. Baldus, Rudolf Hahn, Christina Ellis and Sarah Dickinson DeLeon, 'Connecting the world's largest elephant ranges: the Selous-Niassa corridor', in Saleem Ali, ed., Peace parks: conservation and conflict resolution (Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 2007).
20. Milburn, 'Guerrillas in the mist'.
21. Rosalind Aveling, Helena Anthem and Annette Lanjouw, 'A fighting chance: can conservation create a platform for peace within cycles of human conflict?', in Nigel Leader-Williams, William M. Adams and Robert J. Smith, eds, Trade-offs in conservation: deciding what to save (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
22. Ken Conca and Jennifer Wallace, 'Environment and peacebuilding in war-torn societies: lessons from the UN Environment Programme's experience with post-conflict assessment', Global Governance 15: 4, 2009, pp. 485-504.
23. Randy Tanner, Wayne Freimund, Brace Hayden and Bill Dolan, 'The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park: conservation amid border security', in Ali, ed., Peace parks, pp. 183-199.
24. Ali, ed., Peace parks, p. 335.
25. Ali, ed., Peace parks.
26. Kent L. Biringer and Air Marshal K. C. Cariappa, 'The Siachen Peace Park proposal: reconfiguring the Kashmir conflict?', in Ali, ed., Peace parks, pp. 277-290.
27. This point is discussed further in the case-studies below.
28. The REDD+ scheme, which offers a promising approach to overcoming these issues, is discussed in the DRC case-study below.
29. Milburn, 'Guerrillas in the mist'.
30. For example, the inclusion of an environmental component within the UN's Human Security Framework and the development of the 'environmental peacemaking' theory and ongoing work in this area at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC.
31. It is currently under development at the Marjan Centre for the Study of Conservation and Conflict within King's College London's Department of War Studies: see, accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/research/groups/marjan/index.aspx
32. The term 'conservation logic' is explained in the DRC case-study below.
33. Adrian Martin, Eugene Rutagarama, Marke Gray, Anecto Kayitare and Vasudha Chhotray, Transboundary natural resource management in the greater Virunga (Enterprise, Environment and Equity in the Virunga Landscape of the Great Lakes), accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.virunga.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2010/11/ LL-Transboundary-Natural-Resource-Management.pdf 2009
34. Adrian Martin, Eugene Rutagarama, Marke Gray, Stephen Asuma, Mediatrice Bana, Augustin Basabose and Mark Mwine, 'Linking development interventions to conservation: perspectives from partners in the International Gorilla Conservation Programme', Society and Natural Resources 24: 6, 2011, pp. 626-636.
35. Annette Lanjouw, 'Building partnerships in the face of political and armed crisis', Journal of Sustainable Forestry 16: 3-4, 2003, pp. 89-110.
36. From research carried out for Milburn, 'Guerrillas in the mist'; see also Great Ape Trust, accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.greatapetrust.org/forest-of-hope/
37. Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the glory of monsters (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
38. See 'Inventing REDD+', document produced by DRC, and the UN-REDD programme website, both accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.cd.undp.org/mediafile/REDD+_brochure_Inventer_anglais.pdf.http://www.un-redd.org/AboutREDD/tabid/582/Default.aspx
39. Author's field research; see also, accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.polepolefoundation.org
40. Yellow is chosen as the colour to distinguish the concept from both the green helmets and the current blue berets of UN peacekeeping troops, but maintain a 'soft' colour, in keeping with the blue of UN peacekeepers.
41. 'Bosco Ntaganda: Congo's "Terminator" troops defect', BBC News, 5 April 2012, accessed 2 April 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17629500
42. The UN is chosen here simply because of its current presence in MONUSCO, and therefore the increased ease with which it could take over a yellow-beret command role.
43. For this case-study, see UNEP, UNEP in Afghanistan: laying the foundations for sustainable development (2009), http://www.unep.org/pdf/UNEP_in_Afghanistan.pdf
44. UNEP, The UNEP programme in Afghanistan: annual report (2010), http://www.unep.org/dnc/portals/155/dnc/docs/afg/Afgh_AR10_web.pdf
45. UNEP, Afghanistan's environmental recovery: a post-conflict plan for people and their natural resources, all accessed 20 July 2012. 2007 http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_afghanistan_lr.pdf
46. From UNOPS website, accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.unops.org/english/whatwedo/unopsinaction/pages/afghanconservationcorps.aspx
47. http://www.wcs.org/where-we-work/asia/afghanistan.aspx, accessed 20 July 2012.
48. From a presentation delivered by David Connolly, University of York, at the seminar 'Digging the dirt with the Yellow Berets', King's College London, 20 March 2012.