Social Aspects of Environmental Security and Vulnerability

There are a wide range of issues related to environmental security and vulnerability. IUCN is concerned with the promotion of peace and human rights, and empowerment of vulnerable communities such as indigenous peoples, as these are fundamental conditions addressing environmental security - in turn a critical element of sustainable human development and biodiversity conservation.

Development, poverty alleviation and sustainable management of the environment ultimately depend on social stability and peace. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, conflict is increasingly fought within, rather than between nations, and is killing and displacing civilians as never before. Likewise, the frequency and impacts of disasters are on the rise, driven in part by an unpredictably changing climate. The poor and the marginalized are disproportionately affected by conflicts and disasters, and are the least equipped to recover. Evidence is emerging that natural resources and the environment can drive conflict and shape disaster vulnerability. Resource mismanagement that leads to degradation and scarcity, as well as inequitable access and benefit sharing, factor in to the growing threats of conflict and disaster.

In 2000, IUCN and IISD convened an international Task Force of leading experts to assess the linkages between environment and security. It concluded that resource degradation and natural disasters affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people around the world, especially those in indigenous and traditional communities. Loss of livelihoods, in turn, leads to social tension, migration and settlement in inappropriate areas, and often to conflict. Hence investments aimed at environmental conservation and the promotion of sustainable and equitable use of natural resources may be significant factors in mitigating disaster risk, reducing social tensions and avoiding conflicts that cause human misery and environmental degradation.

See IUCN’s Working Group on Environment and Security