Founder and director of International Peace Park Expeditions discusses how transboundary conservation can be a force for peace
Todd Walters, who attended the Salzburg Global session The Next Frontier: Transboundary Cooperation for Biodiversity and Peace, part of the 10-year Parks for the Planet Forum, is the founder of International Peace Park Expeditions (IPPE). Through partnerships with universities, IPPE run expeditions and trips that provide students with experiential learning in the field of environmental peace building. These expeditions take place in transboundary conservation areas – areas that straddle international boundaries and are managed cooperatively for conservation purposes.
While in Salzburg, Walters took some time to discuss the importance of transboundary cooperation and, in keeping with the theme of the session, to argue that transboundary cooperation can be an important factor in spreading peace across borders. This is known as “environmental peace building,” which Walters defines as “using the environment as a framework to build cooperation platforms across multiple disciplines and borders.”
Having completed multiple expeditions in the Balkans on the Albania-Kosovo-Montenegro border area and in a peace park on the border between Panama and Costa Rica, Walters’ next expedition will be in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, a seemingly unlikely area to prioritize conservation.
However, as Walters explains: “The Korean War created a 4km wide strip that spans the Korean peninsula, where almost no human has set foot for over 60 years.... This has allowed the ecosystem to restore itself and for endangered species to return.” The deep political divide and lack of human interaction has allowed biodiversity to flourish – making it an important area for conservation.
In environments as politicized and precarious as the DMZ, environmental peace building “provides an opportunity for states to cooperate over ’soft diplomatic issues’ – not economic, military and political,” says Walters. This cooperation can be held up as “an example of what can be done if the two countries actually cooperate.” For example, in the DMZ, this cooperation takes the form of communities engaging in studying the land, sharing research data or indeed, IPPE running an expedition to conduct research within the DMZ, and sharing the results.
This cooperation contributes to peace building by creating livelihoods and encouraging the local populations to invest in these areas. People on both sides of the borders begin to appreciate and rely on these areas and each other. “What you’re doing is creating a critical mass of people on both sides of the border that are opposed to a return to conflict,” says Walters.
By engaging the local communities either side of the border, this can mitigate against the common challenge of peace-building initiatives lasting longer than most politicians’ tenure in office.
“These people have more to lose from a resurgence in hostility – you create a population of citizens on both sides of the border that are actively working for peace in the two communities.”
This grassroots, “bottom-up” approach also complements the “top-down” approach taken by the international community.
“It’s a combination of both approaches that’s the most effective,” says Walters.
“You need people pushing from the bottom up, but also to bring in the international community through [organizations] like the UN... When the government is hearing it on both sides [that] is the point in time when they actually listen.”
The opportunities presented by environmental peace building are not exclusive to the DMZ. Environmental peace building is “one of the few tools we have that can help us protect the most important places on the planet... [because] very few things on the planet have the potential to involve the full spectrum of stakeholders in the discussion.” As Walters explains, environmental peace building “incentivizes governments, international institutions, local communities and indigenous populations” and this intersection is where its potential lies.
When all these actors can agree to work toward a common goal it “begins the process of building trust” between the groups, and from a position of trust and interdependence, peace looks like an increasingly attractive option.
Todd Walters was a participant in the Salzburg Global session The Next Frontier: Transboundary Cooperation for Biodiversity and Peace, which is part of the multi-year Parks for the Planet Forum. This session is being hosted in partnership with IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), MAVA Foundation, Arcus Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, German cooperation (Deutsche Zusammenarbeit), Huffington Foundation, Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Foundation, and others. More information on the session can be found here: http://www.salzburgglobal.org/?id=7583