6th Science Policy Forum for Biodiversity COP 16 Cali S14

Description of the session

Environmental peace can be broadly defined as the set of “approaches and pathways through which the management of environmental problems is integrated and can support conflict prevention, mitigation, resolution, and recovery” (Ide et al., 2021, p. 2), incorporating a critical view of the environment, power, and inequality. In this context, the “environment” can be understood, first, as a catalyst for cooperative relationships between actors in conflict, which de-escalates violence and enables the transformation of relationships between these actors and with the environment on multiple scales (Dresse et al., 2019); and, secondly, as an actor who is part of the conflicts, contributes to the configuration of their dynamics, and is affected by them.

From the perspective of environmental peace, conflicts can be opportunities for change and social transformation, including behavioural changes in individuals, their relationships with others, and the environment. Likewise, they refer not only to environmental conflicts but also, for example, to armed conflicts. In particular, environmental conflicts are understood as multidimensional since they involve social, political, economic, and even ontological dimensions.

There are multiple conflicts at the global level, many of which are taking place in biodiversity hotspots. (Hanson et. al.,2011). Likewise, the planet is facing a triple crisis characterized by the loss of biodiversity, climate change, and pollution, with a significant impact on human well-being, beyond the effects on the environment, which may have repercussions on the emergence and intensification of conflicts (Kerber et al., 2021; Mach et al., 2019). Therefore, environmental peace is an enabling element to achieve the goals and objectives established in the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming-Montreal framework and to promote just transitions towards sustainability; that is, to overcome the structural conditions that give rise to conflicts, ensure the fair and equitable distribution of the burdens and benefits derived from the sustainable use of biodiversity, and build social agreements “in order to achieve desired conditions of the territories to turn them into “resilient territories”, promoting shifts in the trajectories of change”. (Andrade et al., 2018, page 10).

Currently, both in Colombia and in the world, there are experiences of prevention and transformation of environmental and armed conflicts, that have incorporated nature in the construction of agreements between actors, in processes of reconciliation and reconstruction of the social fabric, and that, in some cases, have led to the recognition of the rights of nature.