Key Message

Conservation activities can contribute to, be affected by, and help resolve conflict.

Understanding and addressing the links between conservation and conflict can strengthen efforts to preserve ecosystems, enhance livelihoods and build peace.

Conservation and Conflict

How are Conservation and Conflict Linked?

What's New in Conservation and Conflict?

  • MEAs, Conservation and Conflict: A case study of Virunga National Park, DRC (PDF - 2.4 mb)
    The protection of unique ecosystems like Virunga National Park (PNVi) in DRC was one of the driving forces behind the creation of many of the UN’s multilateral environmental agreements. However a survey of the conventions shows that few are equipped to deal with environmental protection in times of conflict, although some ad hoc tools and mechanisms do exist. Full protection and on-the-ground conservation are of course outside of the mandates of the Conventions and their Secretariats; national sovereignty has to be respected. But more can be done in times of conflict, using these international policy instruments, to protect the globally significant biodiversity hotspots they were created to save. Using PNVi and the Great Lakes conflicts as a case study, this paper analyzes where entry points exist for policy-makers and conservationists to use existing international environmental agreements to better protect biodiversity and ecosystems in times of conflict. While not an exhaustive study, the paper will identify some of the shortcomings of existing agreements, where entry points might exist and what other international policy instruments and fora could be used to help protect important ecosystems like PNVi.

Many of the world's high priority biodiversity hotspots are located in socially and politically unstable settings. As practitioners on the frontlines of environmental management, conservationists working in these areas are faced with conflict issues in a number of ways. For example, conservation activities can:

The links between conservation and conflict are complex, oftentimes shaped by a range of intervening factors such as history, identity, governance, regional politics and socio-economic trends. IISD has been working with conservation and development partners around the world in an effort to better understand these links and offer practical recommendations to conservationists dealing with conflict issues.

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