Diverse Understandings and Values of Nature at the Peace–Environment Nexus: A Critical Analysis and Policy Implications towards Decolonial Peace
Publisher: Ecology and Society
Author(s): Maria Andrea Nardi, Torsten Krause, and Fariborz Zelli
Date: 2024
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Prevention, Governance, Renewable Resources
Scholarship in peace and conflict studies is paying increasing attention to the role of the environment for conflict transformation and peacebuilding. However, a closer analysis on how different understandings of “nature” implicate policy proposals and approaches to peacebuilding is lacking. In this study, the authors provide a critical reflection on the diverse understandings and valuations of nature at the nexus of peace and environment. The authors do this from a decolonial approach and with a particular focus on the concept of sustainable peace. The authors first discuss our theoretical approach based on a critical and pluralistic understanding of “environment” as “nature” and a decolonial stand on peace. The authors then construct an analytical framework based on the values framework developed by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that highlights different worldviews, approaches, notions, and conceptualizations of nature’s contribution to human well-being and implications incorporating Indigenous and local systems of knowledge. Drawing on academic publications that provide empirical and conceptual discussions on the role of nature and environment in peace transformation from diverse regions of the world, the authors interpret the diverse understandings and valuations of nature in relation to peace. The authors find that a limited understanding and valuation of nature (and peace) limits the transitions towards a more profound re-mending of the social-ecological relationships that are needed for sustainable peace. The authors argue that future research should focus on overcoming the ontological bias that persists in the literature at the nexus of peace and the environment.