Environment and Security: Transforming risks into cooperation

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Environment and Security

Understanding the relationships between the environment and security

Links between environment and security are the subject of heated debate in the academic community. This report is based on the as-

sumption that multiple stress factors may cause insecurity, whereas other factors may promote security for individuals and groups of people:

Security-promoting vs. Insecurity-promoting mechanisms

Systems

Security-promoting mechanisms

Insecurity-promoting mechanisms

Economic

Wealth and welfare Wealth policies

Poverty Inequity

Political

Law Legitimate force

Corruption Unlawful use of force

Cultural

Social identity Justice

Discrimination Injustice

Demographic

Low birth rate Urbanization

High birth rate Rapid population flows

Ecological

Life support Natural resources and raw materials Stable climate

Scarcity Degradation Lack of access Disputed right of resource use Extreme natural events and climate changes Disease and epidemics

Adapted from Dabelko et al., 2000 and Maltais et al., (2003)

Although still very broad in its scope, the ta- ble above underlines the need to look at the problems and issues that lower the resilience of groups and societies, in other words their capacities to absorb shocks, and make them more vulnerable to tensions and threats, in- cluding the threat of violent conflict. For this reason, the analysis needs to assess the complexity of the relationship between different security or insecurity-promot- ing factors, not only at a local and national

level, but also in a world of rising connectivity and progress, both in the regional and global dimensions. In general, one can say that re- source scarcity and degradation, access to critical resources on which people may de- pend, competition to extract and control valu- able commodities and outbreaks of diseases are significant non-military threats to security and prosperity of nations and individuals.

In more vulnerable areas, such as arid plains, mountain areas with highland-lowland inter-