The Peacebuilding and Environment Nexus: healing land, systems and communities

There are moments in our work when the “nexus” stops being a jargon term and becomes something you can feel and see in the way people interact with each other and with the land: a flooded field where a family once harvested together. A hillside that slips after a mining road is cut into its foundations. A community meeting where people speak, sometimes for the first time, about what was taken from them: safety, livelihood, place, dignity.

When we talk about the peacebuilding and environment nexus, we’re naming a simple reality: ecological change and ecological harm shape the conditions for conflict and for peace. Natural resources can become drivers of fragility and violence, especially where governance is weak, inequities entrenched, or the relationship to nature is extractive. And just as importantly, environmental cooperation can also be an entry point for rebuilding trust, restoring services, and supporting durable peace.

This is the place where “climate security” conversations often begin, but they don’t end there. When responding to environmental conflict it is as important to recognise the impacts of conflict on people and communities and their need to come together to heal. Collective trauma is one of the most under-acknowledged bridges between environmental harm and cycles of violence.

Re-Alliance’s approach to regenerative peacebuilding thinks in 'nested wholes': rebuilding relationships with the self, with community, with the wider world, and always grounded in relationship with nature and Place. We recently launched a guide exploring how communities can be first responders to trauma, and we also explored this in a podcast with Re-Alliance members Timothy Salomon and Perpetua Tuncha.

From “environment as a threat” to environment as a relationship

One of the most moving threads in Tim Salomon’s reflections in this recent podcast is how trauma and ecology can sit on top of each other, especially in places shaped by land dispossession, extractive projects, and repeated disasters:

“So much of our ... work deals with this in relation to trauma and is related to land grabbing or ecological degradation and the natural disasters… being part of a very climate change vulnerable geography.”

But he moves on, from seeing nature as the enemy, and toward understanding the relationship that has been damaged. Referencing a flood that displaced entire communities, he said:

“Water is not evil. It’s how we have a relationship with the mountain and the river that brought us so much hurt.”

This matters because many climate-and-conflict discussions can become overly linear: drought = scarcity = violence. The reality is more complex. Current research urges more careful attention to local dynamics and to the ways violence, cooperation, institutions, and inequality interact. (For example, Sändig et al)

When Tim talks about trauma healing, he’s not describing a retreat from politics, but sense-making that can hold both accountability and complexity:

“Although there is some level of healthy anger because we do need to seek accountability… But we also need to come to peace, as we, as a society… historically we have exploited nature… it is also structural.”

That word, structural, is one of the quiet keys to the nexus.

Regenerative peacebuilding means healing systems, not only symptoms

In peacebuilding, we often ask: What reduces violence right now? In environmental work, we often ask: What restores ecosystems and livelihoods over time?

A regenerative approach insists we ask both, and then goes further: What are we regenerating in the relationships between people, place, and power?

Tim puts it plainly:

“We need to look at it… not only from an individual perspective, but from a systems perspective, because the very reasons that the conflicts or the disasters are there are systemic.”

And even more sharply:

“The greed of the few instead of the need of the many is the very reason why people are unsatisfied with their… quality of life.”

If systems drive harm, then part of healing is restoring agency and repairing the conditions that made people vulnerable in the first place, through land governance, inclusive adaptation, livelihood sovereignty, and conflict-sensitive programming.

Trauma in the centre of the nexus

Trauma is often treated as an individual experience, but many communities live trauma as something communal and environmental: it’s in displacement, in loss of territory, in disrupted seasons, in broken rivers, in fear of what the next storm will take.

Tim names the risk when the “source” of trauma is everywhere:

“That is difficult to heal because it’s the rain and the mountains, it's all around us.”

And he names a careful practice challenge too:

“Sometimes trauma healing also needs to have that consciousness raising… [but] if you do this consciousness raising when people are not ready, sometimes it turns into… anger towards certain parties.”

This is where the peacebuilding-and-environment nexus becomes deeply practical. It asks us to design interventions that:

• support psychosocial safety and pacing,

• strengthen community agency, and

• avoid turning climate narratives into blame spirals that deepen division.

  
  

Five principles for practice at the peace–environment nexus

1) Start with the lived and local experience

Begin with what people notice: water tastes different, forests are thinner, grazing routes have shifted, land access is contested. Then connect that experience to risks and options, together.

2) Make cooperation visible (and resourced)

Environmental peacebuilding emphasises sustainable (and regenerative) resource management before, during, and after conflict as a way to reduce fragility and build “positive peace.” (Krampe et al) This can look like shared water governance, land dispute resolution linked to livelihoods, or community-led restoration that rebuilds trust.

3) Do “conflict-sensitive adaptation,” not adaptation that fuels tension

Adaptation projects can unintentionally intensify grievances if they shift benefits, land access, or power. Practical guidance on conflict-sensitive adaptation exists for exactly this reason. (Eg.Tänzler and Scherer)

4) Treat agency as part of healing

Tim’s phrasing is worth holding onto:

“…restoring their capability to act and to control their lives instead of being traumatised and feeling helpless.”

Agency can mean governance, rights, access, safety, and voice.

5) Measure what is actually valuable

If the goal is both peace and ecological resilience, monitoring has to reflect both, without forcing communities into technocratic reporting. Make reporting meaningful, easeful and multi-use for all stakeholders.

What this means for the stories we tell

The public narrative about climate and conflict often gravitates toward fear.

But environmental peacebuilding offers a stance of practical hope rooted in relationship, and in the hard work of changing the systems that make harm more likely. As Tim said:

“On one hand, we need to heal the individuals, we need to heal the communities, but also we need to heal the systems that brought about the destruction.”

If we can hold that “on one hand… and on the other…”, if we can design for trauma healing and for land justice, for dialogue and for restoration, then the peacebuilding and environment nexus stops being a buzz-phrase and begins to influence practice, and hope.

FAQs

What is environmental peacebuilding?

Environmental peacebuilding is an approach that uses environmental management, cooperation, and governance (land, water, ecosystems, resources) as entry points to reduce conflict risks and support peace. Re-Alliance invites us to add a lens of regeneration, which could mean also healing our broken relationship with nature.

Does climate change cause war?

Climate change can increase risks of conflict by worsening livelihood pressures and institutional strain, especially in contexts already experiencing inequality, but outcomes vary widely. Local politics, inequality, community cohesion, and governance shape whether stress turns into conflict or cooperation.

How does nature relate to conflict?

Competition, exclusion, land dispossession, and weak governance around resources can contribute to grievances and violence, yet shared resource governance can also create pathways for cooperation. Restoring a right relationship with land can also challenge underlying tensions and offer more pathways toward lasting peace.

What is conflict-sensitive climate adaptation?

It means designing climate adaptation so it does not exacerbate tensions, and ideally contributes to stability and lasting peace.