Sustainability Plays Role in Reducing Conflict 
In the eighth and final installment of the Connecting Sustainability and Health lecture series, Geoffrey Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discussed the role of environmental preservation in the context of conflict and security around the world.
Dabelko said that people must realize that environmental stability is not just for rich “tree-huggers,” it is critical to national economies, healthy ecosystems and peaceful societies. In various pockets of the world, conflicts have arisen over commodities such as diamonds or coltan, a mineral used in electronics. Profits from these portable, lucrative goods perpetuate a cycle of conflict, he said.
While environmental scarcities are not the sole cause of violent conflict, repairing the environment is a key ingredient to rebuilding society and restoring livelihoods, Dabelko said.
However, calling these efforts “environmental peacemaking” often doesn’t get you as far as framing it more broadly in an economic or development context, Dabelko said. By staying flexible on these definitions and labels, you can maximize the actors working on an issue and hopefully maximize positive solutions as well.
The Connecting Health and Sustainability lecture series was co-sponsored by the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, the program on Global Sustainability and Health, and the Center for a Livable Future. Audio files of the lectures and more information about the speakers from the Connecting Health and Sustainability lecture series is available in the highlighted features section of the CLF website.
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