Conflict and Cooperation: Making the Case for Environmental Pathways to Peacebuilding in the Great Lakes Region

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes, genocides, and civil wars have plagued countries in the Great Lakes Region in recent years. The region’s nations rely heavily on natural resources—water, minerals, land—for their economic development, as well as for the livelihoods of their people, and many of the region’s conflicts are connected to these resources or other environmental factors. Opportunities for environmental peacemaking in the Great Lakes Region have not yet been isolated, even though there are many examples of cooperation at the national, regional, sub-regional, and local levels. This brief examines the possibility of using environmental management as a pathway to peace in the region.With its prevalence of conflict and transboundary ecosystems, the Great Lakes Region could be a potential model for a future worldwide initiative in environmental peacemaking