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?

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    Check out Oli Brown's blog during his field work in Africa this month.

    "The Albertine rift, where Virunga National Park lies, covers the eastern border of DRC, and western areas of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. It is home to some of the most remarkable biodiversity in the world: in the 1980s it was estimated to support the largest biomass of mammals per square kilometre on the planet. The area is also rich in minerals, such as gold, tantalum and copper (DRC alone has one tenth of the world's supply). And recently oil has been found on the Uganda-DRC border."

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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