Across the globe and for several decades, conflicts have enormously damaged the environment leading to severe ecological degradation. In this paper, we look at ecological degradation in conflict and post-conflict societies and analyze how these could be managed. To attain this goal, we carry out a review of published literature and survey the vast resources sourced from various civil society organizations. We observed that the environment is rarely viewed as an important aspect during conflicts or after conflicts despite being in a context of ravaged infrastructure, lost livelihoods and disrupted institutions. Moreso, these conflicts do extraordinary damage to the ecological component as people struggle for clean water, sanitation, food and fuel. We surmise that, in periods of conflicts and post-conflicts, severe environmental challenges emerge which necessitate the establishment of environmental governance especially of the natural resource base, creation of administrative capacity and seeking sustainable trajectories for environmental recovery as well as reconstruction.
Keywords: Environmental Degradation, Conflicts, Post-Conflicts, Forest Resources, United Nations, Toxic Wastes
Environmental degradation in conflict and post-conflict regions
Year: 2016
