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Climate change mitigation in forests: Conflict, peacebuilding, and lessons for climate security

Answered questions around the relationships between (a) climate change mitigation efforts related to forest landscapes and (b) conflict, peace and security issues in forest areas that might have affected the success of avoided deforestation or forest degradation.

Background

Climate change was widely recognised as a global threat to security (Rüttinger et al. 2015). Security was based on a wide range of social, cultural, economic, environmental and political factors that were highly dynamic. The fact that climate variability exacerbated insecurity was increasingly recognised in academia, development, and policy. However, a common understanding of mechanisms and impact pathways was still lacking. Further, less attention had been paid to climate change mitigation initiatives and how they related to peace and conflict. Climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions (CCMIs) might simultaneously have increased and decreased security for different people, and insecurity compromised the inability to implement climate mitigation efforts or to adapt appropriately to climate change. The effects of climate variability, climate change,  mitigation and security on one another were particularly salient in forest areas, which were a major focus of climate change mitigation, a locus of vulnerability for local communities, and a hotbed of insecurity.

Set within a wider debate on climate security, this review explored linkages between climate change mitigation related to forest areas and conflict, violence and peace. The review also explored how (in)security and conflict affected forest mitigation schemes, exploring different types of mitigation and different forms of conflict. 

The review helped highlight pathways between climate change mitigation interventions and peace/conflict and in so doing identified ways in which safeguards to prevent conflict and facilitate peace could be enhanced in climate change mitigation interventions. By drawing on lessons from the peacebuilding literature, the review also identified ways in which mitigation could be better designed in conflict scenarios.

The Climate Security Mitigation Nexus Literature Review sought to answer questions around the relationships between (a) climate change mitigation efforts related to forest landscapes and (b) conflict, peace and security issues in forest areas that might have affected the success of avoided deforestation or forest degradation. These were analysed in the context of forest conservation and regeneration, and climate change mitigation measures, along with indicators of changes in the condition of the forests and/or the people who lived in and near forest areas.

The key authors of the report were:

  • Micah Fisher
  • Rahayu Harjanthi
  • Cecilia Luttrell
  • Mary Menton
  • Rodd Myers

Approach

In this report, we considered human security “as a condition that exists when the vital core of human lives is protected, and when people have the freedom and capacity to live with dignity” (Adger et al. 2014, 759). While this approach was useful, this specific enquiry focused on security in relation to conflict and violence (including damage and loss of property) and how they affected, and were affected by, other aspects of human security. In this sense, we considered (human) security as bringing together “the many threats, fears and uncertainties of the present with a strong recognition of agency over the future. It draws attention not only to the insecurities that are prevalent today and perpetuated through deeply embedded systems, structures, behaviours and beliefs, but also to the capacities of individuals and communities to change them” (O’Brien, Sygna, and Wolf 2013, 3). We considered that climate vulnerability amplified mechanisms that led to insecurity and violence (Schubert et al. 2009), shown in Figure 1, below. We therefore expected that, for example, climate change mitigation measures that would require shifts in, or further entrenchment of, powers over forestlands could agitate land claims by indigenous people and local forest users resulting in increased conflict. Conversely, we expected that changes in security could strengthen governance structures that could alleviate conflict and violence through facilitating recognition of local people’s rights, engaging them in processes about land use, and developing sustainable forest resource planning that avoided deforestation. 
Le Billon and Lujala (2020) estimated that about a third of socio-environmental conflicts involved direct forms of violence and that they were focussed in Asia and Latin America. They showed that there were at least 1734 murders of environmental defenders between 2002 and 2018. In this sense, insecurity included conflict (war, ethnic conflict, land-use conflicts, boundary conflicts, and criminality/lawlessness leading to violence), destruction of property, including forest resources, and the poverty, inequalities and injustices that were perpetuated by conflict. Further, women were the specific targets of many forms of this violence (Tran et al. 2020).

Results

Forests in low and middle-income countries were at the centre of climate change mitigation efforts. But these forests were also areas of high levels of insecurity and were found in fragile states with weak governance, especially over forestlands. Nations affected by conflict held 40 per cent of the world’s tropical forests (Donovan et al. 2007). No fewer than 25 of 64 countries with REDD+ initiatives were experiencing or emerging from armed conflict (Castro-Nuñez et al. 2017; UN-REDD 2017). The debate about ‘climate security’ had focussed on the way climate change can exacerbate threats and dangers, but less attention had been placed on the security issues associated with the responses to climate change such as mitigation. Climate change mitigation initiatives could have a significant impact on peace, conflict and security by reinforcing existing inequalities or influencing new forms of forest governance and relations among forest actors. When CCMIs contributed to peacebuilding through improved land tenure security for marginalised and Indigenous peoples, enhanced livelihoods opportunities, equitable benefit distribution, and fair processes for governance and conflict resolution, CCMIs could play a constructive force in stabilising security contexts. However, when these dynamics were lacking, they could destabilise forest areas and lead to escalated conflict and insecurity.


We answered the following questions: (1) What were the ways in which CCMIs and peace/conflict influenced one another? (2) How did different dynamics result in different impacts for people and forests? We also aimed to explore CGIAR’s contribution to the literature on peace/conflict and climate change mitigation in forests, and what the opportunities for CGIAR might be for future research directions. The framework we developed for this review considered various types of CCMIs and influences of peace/conflict. We took an inductive approach and began by defining variables and search parameters from the literature, and followed the contours of an integrative literature review that aimed to study complex relations. We reviewed 1147 publications that addressed climate change mitigation and peace/conflict. The geographic scope spanned Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Then, using filtering protocols, we selected 42 that robustly addressed the relationships between the two. We focused on 18 key case studies and three literature reviews that addressed the focus of the review most and used other relevant additional literature as needed. Our key case studies mostly focused on a particular set of programmatic interventions that included payments for ecosystem services (PES) like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and Nature-Based Solutions. We also briefly touched on renewable energy initiatives that had implications for forests. 


We identified four dynamics by which CCMIs and peace/conflict influenced one another, listed in the table below, and their associated outcomes in forests. The rise of interests, studies, and policy initiatives aimed at articulating and framing climate security raised concerns that they could potentially exacerbate conflict dynamics without careful consideration of these dynamics.


The products that were produced were:

  • A literature review approximately 30–40 pages long addressing the aims of the consultancy, and
  • A 2-page summary brief designed to demonstrate the pathways that linked climate change mitigation and security and CGIAR’s contribution to the pathways.

Publications