Cultivating Peace: Conflict and collaboration in natural resource management

When the guns are silenced, those who have survived armed conflict need food, water, shelter, the means to earn a living, and the promise of safety and a return to civil order. Meeting these needs while sustaining peace requires more than simply having governmental structures in place; it requires good governance. Natural resources are essential to sustaining people and peace in post-conflict countries, but governance failures often jeopardize such efforts. This book examines the theory, practice, and often surprising realities of post-conflict governance, natural resource management, and peacebuilding in fifty conflict-affected countries and territories. It includes thirty-nine chapters written by more than seventy researchers, diplomats, military personnel, and practitioners from governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations. The book highlights the mutually reinforcing relationship between natural resource management and good governance. Natural resource management is crucial to rebuilding governance and the rule of law, combating corruption, improving transparency and accountability, engaging disenfranchised populations, and building confidence after conflict. At the same time, good governance is essential for ensuring that natural resource management can meet immediate needs for post-conflict stability and development, while simultaneously laying the foundation for a sustainable peace. Drawing on analyses of the close relationship between governance and natural resource management, the book explores lessons from past conflicts and ongoing reconstruction efforts; illustrates how those lessons may be applied to the formulation and implementation of more effective governance initiatives; and presents an emerging theoretical and practical framework for policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and students. Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative to identify and analyze lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management. The project has generated six books of case studies and analyses, with contributions from practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books in this series address high-value resources, land, water, livelihoods, and assessing and restoring natural resources.

Violent conflict invariably disrupts people's livelihoods, the natural environment, social and political institutions, and the economy at all levels. Restoring peace and rebuilding society can be arduous, but immediate action at the cessation of conflict is essential. This book examines how conflicts degrade natural resources and addresses the consequences for human health, livelihoods, and security. This book provides a concise theoretical and practical framework for policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and students.

For most post-conflict countries, the transition to peace is daunting. In countries with high-value natural resources – including oil, gas, diamonds, other minerals, and timber –the stakes are unusually high and peacebuilding is especially challenging. Resource-rich post-conflict countries face both unique problems and opportunities. They enter peacebuilding with an advantage that distinguishes them from other war-torn societies: access to natural resources that can yield substantial revenues for alleviating poverty, compensating victims, creating jobs, and rebuilding the country and the economy. Evidence shows, however, that this opportunity is often wasted. Resource-rich countries do not have a better record in sustaining peace. In fact, resource-related conflicts are more likely to relapse. Focusing on the relationship between high-value natural resources and peacebuilding in post-conflict settings, this book identifies opportunities and strategies for converting resource revenues to a peaceful future. Its thirty chapters draw on the experiences of forty-one researchers and practitioners – as well as the broader literature – and cover a range of key issues, including resource extraction, revenue sharing and allocation, and institution building. The book provides a concise theoretical and practical framework that policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and students can use to understand and address the complex interplay between the management of high-value resources and peace. High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative led by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the University of Tokyo, and McGill University to identify and analyze lessons in natural resource management and post-conflict peacebuilding. The project has generated six edited books of case studies and analyses, with contributions from practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books in the series address land; water; livelihoods; assessing and restoring natural resources; and governance.

Sustaining and strengthening local livelihoods is one of the most fundamental challenges faced by post-conflict countries. By degrading the natural resources that are essential to livelihoods and by significantly hindering access to those resources, conflict can wreak havoc on the ability of war-torn populations to survive and recover. This book explores how natural resource management initiatives in more than twenty countries and territories have supported livelihoods and facilitated post-conflict peacebuilding. Case studies and analyses identify lessons and opportunities for the more effective design of interventions to support the livelihoods that depend on natural resources – from land to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and protected areas. The book also explores larger questions about how to structure livelihoods assistance as part of a coherent, integrated approach to post-conflict redevelopment. Livelihoods and Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative to identify and analyze lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management. The project has generated six books of case studies and analyses, with contributions from practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books in this series address high value resources, land, water, assessing and restoring natural resources, and governance.

Eight contributions written by professors of political science, government, and politics as well as researchers and program directors for environmental change, energy, and security projects provide insight into the process of environmental peacemaking, based on their experiences in a variety of international regions. An initial chapter makes a case for the process; successive chapters address the Baltic, South Asia, the Aral Sea basin, southern Africa, the Caspian Sea, and the US-Mexican border. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

In the name of international and domestic security, billions of dollars are wasted on unproductive military spending in both developed and developing countries, when millions are starving and living without basic human needs. This book contains articles relating to military spending, military industrial establishments, and peace keeping.