Rethinking Environmental (In)Security

Environmental issues emerged in the late 20th century as a major focus of international concern and activity. Understanding the causes and impacts of global environmental change has become a core issue on the international agenda. The need to develop effective responses has also been a major concern.

Environmental issues have been analyzed from many distinct perspectives by different schools of thought. The perception of natural resources as global common goods has triggered an international debate on the need for collective action. By challenging the inevitability of the “ external pageTragedy of the Commonscall_made,” or unilateral abuse of finite resources, 2009 Nobel Prize winner external pageElinor Ostromcall_made has shown that common pool resources (CPR) are not always degraded, as individuals and societies adapt by devising rules and enforcement mechanisms. To foster the governance of natural resources, rules need to evolve over time, conflict resolution measures should be available, and the duties in preserving the common resource and the benefits from exploiting it should be balanced. Others have pointed out that inequitable access to natural resources can trigger conflict, especially when these resources are embedded in larger intra-state political conflicts or where limited economic diversification restricts the range of policy options open to governments.

Evolution of security concept

The debate has also permeated academic circles. Security studies have traditionally focused on military and economic threats to a state’s territorial integrity and political autonomy. Critical or non-traditional security studies have introduced a new perspective on threats to national security, broadening the agenda from traditional threats (military, economic) to include a comprehensive list of national, political, economic, social and cultural threats to human security. The external pageUNDP's Human Development Report of 1994call_made, for example, defines human security as including freedom from war and occupation; freedom from repression; freedom from want; and freedom from ethnic and religious oppression. Furthermore, security was perceived as linked to the physical environmental factors that contribute to human affairs.

Environmental security

The concept of environmental security has made its mark on the pre-existing debate on resource-oriented conflicts. Environmental factors were first integrated into the concept of security in the early 1980s, with contributions from theexternal pageStockholm Peace Research Institutecall_made (SIPRI) and the external pageInternational Peace Research Institute of Oslocall_made (PRIO), and further developed in the 1990s. This development was also driven by national intelligence services trying to redefine their role in a post-Cold War world. Environmental “change” or “degradation” was increasingly seen as either a cause of political conflict, social stress and ethnic tensions or as a contributing factor to armed conflict, of which causes and intensities have been thoroughly quantified and their limits identified. Hence, a link between environmental insecurity and intra/interstate conflict was established, whereby territorial disputes became identified as pretexts for conflicts over other scarce resources, such as minerals, energy, food, water, forest resources, etc.

Pessimist or neo-Malthusian perspectives, touted in the 1990s by the external pageToronto Schoolcall_made and more recently by the external pageBern-Zürich Groupcall_made, claimed that resource scarcity led to very high risks of violent conflict because of acute change or stress in resources due to population growth, resource consumption and socially inequitable distribution of resources. Water scarcity and food-related scarcity were also evaluated as serious threats to the national security of developing countries in their growth policies. Homer-Dixon has recently external pageenlarged his analysiscall_made to include the relationship between climate change, world energy consumption and violent conflict. Others external pagehave arguedcall_made that the link between environment and security was already established and the threats to US security interests previously identified.

The concept of environmental security was often likened to the protection of national resources. Four categories of environmental change were identified as resulting in potential transboundary problems: degradation (pollution), scarcity (shortage), maldistribution (inequitable access) and disaster. Furthermore, a series of transnational environmental problems, such as climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, land degradation, soil erosion and desertification were identified as threats to the territorial integrity and political stability of states. Some experts have warned, however, that the concept of environmental security will become too loose if all global threats are looked at through a national security paradigm. Some scholars have called for greater rigor in the use of security as a concept; others have objected to any direct causal linkage between environmental change and violent conflict or population-induced resource scarcity and armed conflict across countries. For example, tenants of the “resource curse theory” external pagehave arguedcall_made that abundance, rather than scarcity, of natural resources (oil, diamonds, other) leads to low economic growth, corruption, poor governance and resource capture. It can further be argued that he link between environmental degradation and/or change in water resource allocation can be considered a threat to state security without it being a prime reason for armed conflicts. The role of securitizing agents is also crucial, as they seek to draw attention to the perceived plight of natural resource management by couching their communications in an alarmist manner. This reveals that ‘security is in the eye of the beholder’ – a question of whose security is at stake, and how threats are perceived and used, rather than whether they are real.

Scholars from North America, central and northern Europe have made key contributions to the debate on environmental security. Meanwhile, developing countries have raised concerns that developed countries are trying to impose resource use, population and development policies on the global south. The role played by threat perception as an interceding variable thereby is central, because it is through this mechanism that environmental issues such as resource depletion become perceived as national security threats, therefore driving securitization dynamics. This securitization of threats helps to legitimize exceptional measures in the guise of defending national survival by taking the threat out of the normal domain of politics, and placing it in the security domain where it receives greater attention and means but is also alienated from the general public. Actors are often not merely concerned over the enforcement of an optimal distribution of resources, but ultimately seek to achieve enforceable security arrangements. The definition of security is, therefore, broadened to include the protection from threat (whether real or perceived) and the absence of fear.

Water wars?

The predictions of water shortage and water stress were so alarming – particularly in some semi-arid regions – that by the mid-1990s, the idea of ‘water wars’ reached academic and policy-making circles, notwithstanding the media. Alarmist visions and deterministic approaches also impacted on international policy choices. They have, for example, inspired the neo-Malthusian focus of foreign aid policies adopted by former US President Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s. Access to strategic resources, perceived as linked to national security issues and potentially impeded by population growth, triggered policies in favor of population control in sensitive areas. Transboundary waters have been of exceptional importance in this regard, especially in developing nations and amongst the poorest communities, which rely most heavily on natural resources. It is noted that more than 50 percent of the continental surface area lies in international river basins. Increasing water stress, the notion of an emerging threat to national resources and inequitable distribution have contributed to the securitization of water. Research findings on the part of PRIO indeed external pageconfirm the linkcall_mademade between scarcity and conflict, but probabilities for increased military conflict seem to rise when rivers cross borders rather than forming them, as this creates upstream/downstream dynamics.

However, with the surprising result from a external pagedatabase study at Oregon State Universitycall_made, disclosing that there have hardly been any ‘water wars’ in human history, perceptions shifted. An analysis based on a total of 1,831 events connected to transboundary ‘basins at risk’ shows that riparians in fact tend to cooperate rather than enter into conflicts. Other empirical studies have soon followed, with at least four distinct schools currently known to be in existence – in Oregon, Oslo, Maryland and Tshwane (South Africa). Water wars did not take place, even in highly scarce regions such as the Middle East, but social conflicts over water are increasingly important. Rather than military conflicts, weak water management and governance contributes to emerging 'social' conflicts over water, by affecting poor and rural communities and creating a new category of “environmental refugees.” Social unrest seems the more likely problem. Sub-national conflicts are, hence, of growing importance, and their potential is enhanced, as ever-increasing pressure is placed on the availability of vital resources.

Beyond conflict: Toward environmental cooperation

Over the last decade, views have matured and begun emphasizing options for cooperation. Recognition of the cooperative side of shared water resources, and more broadly natural resources, became a mantra in the subsequent debate. "Cornucopian" or optimistic views, influenced by Condorcet amongst others, rejected inherent resource scarcity by stressing technological innovation, human progress, market pricing and resource substitution. The key issue remains the utilization of natural resources in a sustainable manner, while at the same time reducing poverty and ensuring that violent conflicts do not occur. Characterized as a possible driver of regional integration, the management of natural resources is also perceived as playing a major role in developing the foundation on which the future economic growth and prosperity of an entire region can be based. The best examples are found in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). When South Africa joined the SADC in 1994, the very first Protocol that was signed in terms of the SADC Founding Charter was the external pageProtocol on Shared Watercourse Systemscall_made, which became the foundation for regional economic integration. Even when military conflict was being waged in specific river basins, cooperation still occurred between water resource managers. Cooperation over the environment could indeed be enhanced, with a view to alleviating poverty, preventing conflict, and promoting economic and social development.