"Peace Ecology" presents a cutting-edge exploration of an emerging paradigm that links the essence of peace and nonviolence with the tenets of ecology and the principles of environmentalism. Looking at issues including food justice, water sharing, climate change, peace zones, and the free economy, this book considers examples and illustrations from around the world where people, communities, and nations are employing the teachings of ecology as a tool for mitigating conflict and promoting peace. "Peace Ecology" presents an integrative perspective that bears directly upon the most pressing issues of our time, constituting both the ecological realm of peace and the peacemaking potential of ecology. The volume examines the rich history, contemporary relevance, and transformative future potential inherent in this dynamic nexus of theory and action. Its overarching aim is no less than moving the current scarcity-conflict paradigm to one of cooperative resource management and, ultimately, toward peaceful coexistence both among ourselves and within the balance of nature.To read the Common Dreams excerpt of "Peace Ecology" Click Here.Talk Nation Radio Interview with Randall Amster and David Swanson here."

"Peace Ecology" presents a cutting-edge exploration of an emerging paradigm that links the essence of peace and nonviolence with the tenets of ecology and the principles of environmentalism. Looking at issues including food justice, water sharing, climate change, peace zones, and the free economy, this book considers examples and illustrations from around the world where people, communities, and nations are employing the teachings of ecology as a tool for mitigating conflict and promoting peace. "Peace Ecology" presents an integrative perspective that bears directly upon the most pressing issues of our time, constituting both the ecological realm of peace and the peacemaking potential of ecology. The volume examines the rich history, contemporary relevance, and transformative future potential inherent in this dynamic nexus of theory and action. Its overarching aim is no less than moving the current scarcity-conflict paradigm to one of cooperative resource management and, ultimately, toward peaceful coexistence both among ourselves and within the balance of nature.To read the Common Dreams excerpt of "Peace Ecology" Click Here.Talk Nation Radio Interview with Randall Amster and David Swanson here."

Unpacks key assumptions about the 'environment', its relationship with violent conflict, and the justification for its protection underlying international law.

This book has peer-reviewed chapters by scholars from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the USA that were presented to the Ecology and Peace Commission (EPC) of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) in November 2012 in Japan. The chapters address these themes: Expanding Peace Ecology – Peace, Security, Sustainability, Equity and Gender; Two Discourses on Global Climate Change Impacts: From Climate Change and Security to Sustainability Transition; Peace Research and Greening in the Red Zone: Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace; Social and Environmental Vulnerability in a River Basin of Mexico; Mobile Learning, Rebuilding Community Through Building Communities, Supporting Community Capacities: Post Natural Disaster Experience; Transforming Consciousness through Peace Environmental Education; Building Peace by Rebuilding Community; Ability Expectations and Peace and on Satoyama Sustainability and Peace.

Addressing global environmental challenges from a peace ecology perspective, the present book offers peer-reviewed texts that build on the expanding field of peace ecology and applies this concept to global environmental challenges in the Anthropocene. Hans Günter Brauch (Germany) offers a typology of time and turning points in the 20th century; Juliet Bennett (Australia) discusses the global ecological crisis resulting from a “tyranny of small decisions”; Katharina Bitzker (Canada) debates “the emotional dimensions of ecological peacebuilding” through love of nature; Henri Myrttinen (UK) analyses “preliminary findings on gender, peacebuilding and climate change in Honduras” while Úrsula Oswald Spring (Mexíco) offers a critical review of the policy and scientific nexus debate on “the water, energy, food and biodiversity nexus”, reflecting on security in Mexico. In closing, Brauch discusses whether strategies of sustainability transition may enhance the prospects for achieving sustainable peace in the Anthropocene.

The connection between ecology and conflict has been the object of extensive study by political scientists and economists. From the contribution of natural resource 'scarcity' to violent unrest and armed conflict; to resource 'abundance' as an incentive for initiating and prolonging armed struggles; to dysfunctional resource management and environmental degradation as obstacles to peacebuilding, this literature has exerted a huge influence upon academic discussions and policy developments. While international law is often invoked as the solution to the socio-environmental challenges faced by conflict-affected countries, its relationship with the ecology of war and peace remains undertheorised. Drawing upon environmental justice perspectives and other theoretical traditions, the book unpacks and problematizes some of the assumptions that underlie the legal field. Through an analysis of the practice of international courts, the UN Security Council, and Truth Commissions, it shows how international law silences and even normalizes forms of structural and slow environmental violence.

The purpose of this book is specific and ambitious: to outline the distinctive elements, scope, and usefulness of a new and emerging field of applied ecology named warfare ecology. Based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, the book provides both a theoretical overview of this new field and case studies that range from mercury contamination during World War I in Slovenia to the ecosystem impacts of the Palestinian occupation, and from the bombing of coral reefs of Vieques to biodiversity loss due to violent conflicts in Africa. Warfare Ecology also includes reprints of several classical papers that set the stage for the new synthesis described by the authors. Written for environmental scientists, military and humanitarian relief professionals, conservation managers, and graduate students in a wide range of fields, Warfare Ecology is a major step forward in understanding the relationship between war and ecological systems.