E3G

Environment and Security: An inventory of policies and practices

By Nick Mabey

Security issues where resource and environmental factors play key roles are the stuff of day-to-day foreign policy: from land conflicts between pastoralists and agriculturalists in Darfur; to the role of oil in fuelling and sustaining of separatist conflict in the Niger Delta and Aceh. Many countries already face significant challenges in coping with existing climate variability; for example, the World Bank estimates that floods and drought in Kenya in the late 1990s resulted in direct economic costs of $4.8 billion, or 22% of GDP per annum.

Though each particular crisis or conflict has its own unique dynamic based on local politics, economics and history; strong patterns are clear. The corrupting influence of point source revenues – whether from natural resources, drugs, pipelines or weapons - on elites is the most powerful source of underdevelopment and failing economies. The World Bank estimates that over the last 40 years developing countries without major natural resources have grown 2-3 times faster than those with high resource endowment. Politicised revenue allocation from natural resources based around ethnic, religious or regional lines has been a major driver of internal conflict. Natural resource revenues are feeding corruption and organised crime, which destabilise governments and at the
extreme finance conflict and provide a logistical infrastructure for international terrorism.

Politicised allocation of water and land is constantly driving low level conflict, which can spark into major violence when linked to ethnic, national and other divisions. Migration inside countries, from Africa to Latin America.

There is no lack of tools and policy options to address these issues. A wealth of experience exists on managing environmental disputes, designing governance systems,
anti-corruption measures, resource allocation mechanisms and participative resources management that could be used to reduce instability risks. There are also a wealth of international agreements – on forests, water, environmental democracy, desertification, conflict resources – which could be strengthened as foreign policy tools.

However, despite a few high profile exceptions such as the action to control trade in “conflict diamonds”, there has been a lack of concerted international effort to address the resource and environmental roots of instability. Cases which have been addressed have required extensive campaigning from non-governmental groups to secure action.

In a world of rising scarcity this reactive approach will not preserve security and stability. Strategists always caution against fighting the last war, and the need to explore future threats away from the biases of current priorities. However, despite a plethora of recent reports - from the Africa Commission, the UN High Level Panel and even the Pentagon - identifying competition for oil and gas supply, resource scarcity and climate change as key drivers of political stress and conflict; the impact on practical action has been weak.