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Photo above: Evambe Thompson at his tree nursery in Vasingi Village, Cameroon. Photo by Boris-Karloff Batata Vasingi Village in Buea, Cameroon, sits near the biodiverse but ecologically threatened Mount Cameroon National Park. Farmer and apiculturist Evambe Thompson leads an ambitious project called “Green Village” aimed at reforesting Mount Cameroon by planting over 1,000 trees. Thompson has a nursery where he is nursing both fruit trees and ‘non-timber forest product’ species for distribution and planting. Within the space of one year, Thompson has already planted 200 trees and distributed 600 to neighbouring communities around Mount Cameroon. In order to generate nature-based livelihoods, Thompson integrates bee keeping into the programme. He trains local people on safe and bee-friendly apiculture, as opposed to wild honey harvesting which sometimes can threaten the biodiversity on Mount Cameron. According to Thompson, some people who harvest wild honey use fire to flush out the bees, which has led to wildfires spreading. Mount Cameroon National Park Forest Guard Ikome Nelson adds, “Every year, you see fire on the mountain. From investigation, it shows people have been collecting wild honey … and in the course of collecting this honey they abandon their fire in the forest and the fire goes wild.” Mount Cameroon is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Cameroon, including  endangered forest elephants, chimpanzees, and the elusive primates called Drills. Thompson believes that nature-based livelihoods are essential for supporting forest-edge and forest dwelling communities. While not all beekeeping can be considered nature-friendly, Thompson believes that with good practice, apiculture can go hand-in-hand with reforestation efforts. Bees can thrive in a forested area, so alongside his 48 hives and 28 colonies, Thompson plants fruit trees and other trees, helping to buffer the edge of the forest and keep tree cover.  Thompson has seen how climate change is negatively affecting bee keeping activities. “During this era of climate change, there are seasons when before the bees [are able to] harvest enough nectar, the rains already come and knock the blossoms off the trees.” He goes further to explain that sometimes, due to the changing climate, the trees do not bloom at all. According to Ikome Nelson, since 2021, the Mount Cameroon National Park has supported 114 bee keepers with 1,000 bee hives. Within this time, the farmers have harvested more than 1,000 litters of honey, amounting to a profit of more than FCFA 5,000,000 (~ USD $9,000). As the climate keeps changing, communities must find ways to build resilience through mitigation and adaptation practices like Thompson’s Green Village project. With the necessary support, these projects can support communities to thrive while standing against the negative effects of climate change.

In refugee and IDP settlements across the world, a mobile phone can be a lifeline for the people who live there. But keeping phones charged in these contexts can be costly, unreliable, or even unsafe. That’s where the Wind Mobile project steps in, blending local ingenuity and resources, renewable wind power, and global collaboration to create real-world solutions that work where they’re needed most. An exploded diagram of a design using timber blades that can be built using recycled components Launched by School of the Earth  and supported by Re-Alliance , Wind Mobile set out to tackle a deceptively simple challenge: how can communities in refugee camps charge phones and power small devices using locally made, low-tech wind turbines ? Rather than developing a one-size-fits-all product, the project adopted a phased, community-driven design approach , working with four different networks across Africa and Europe: Wind Empowerment  (West Africa) – For early technical R&D using salvaged hoverboard magnets. Africa Maker-space Network  (East Africa) – To adapt and prototype turbines using recycled loudspeaker magnets. Habibi.Works  (Greece) – For hands-on, refugee-led manufacturing workshops. Re-Alliance Network  – To extend and test designs for diverse humanitarian contexts. One of Wind Mobile’s most inspiring aspects is its commitment to appropriate technology by building what’s needed, using what’s available. Whether it was hoverboard magnets in Côte d'Ivoire or speaker magnets in Uganda and Kenya, each turbine design was shaped by what local communities could find and fabricate themselves . E-waste proved a reliable source of magnets while the skills of simple carpentry and car mechanics could be transferred to manufacturing the turbines. Upcycled speaker magnets were used in the East African designs in Kenya and Uganda Designs were carefully tested, including in university labs and international competitions, proving that hand-crafted turbines made with salvaged parts  can deliver meaningful energy outputs, up to 500 watts in some cases! In October 2024, the Wind Mobile vision came to life in a makerspace near the Katsikas refugee camp  in Greece. Participants from Kenya , Uganda , and Ghana  joined local and refugee makers for a week-long workshop at Habibi.Works . They built turbines, exchanged skills, overcame language barriers, and left with the tools and confidence to replicate the work in their home communities. The event became a melting pot of ideas, cultures, and practical know-how - exactly what the project hoped to achieve. Read the full end-of-project report below.

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.

Discover the partnerships and programmes which are showcasing regeneration in action alongside communities. Projects & Partnerships Re-Alliance works alongside trusted partner organisations to co-create and implement regenerative projects throughout the world. Re-Alliance's role is usually in strategic design, project co-design and management, research, as well as producing educational materials, M&E, and disseminating information. See below for more information on some of our recent and current projects and collaborations. Special thanks to our generous funding partners from the public as well as Trusts and Foundations, including but not limited to Treebeard Trust , the JAC Trust and Lush Cosmetics. Regenerative Refugee Settlement in Nakivale Uganda Co-designing and building a Regenerative Settlement with 20 households in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda + In partnership with: YICE Uganda, Arup, Re-Alliance Regenerative Camps and Settlements: Piloting Interventions Partnering with Re-Alliance members to showcase regenerative interventions in displacement contexts. + In partnership with: Re-Alliance Members Mobile Wind Power Community designed micro-wind turbines for camps and settlements. + In partnership with: School Of The Earth Growing Mushrooms in Reusable Buckets Minak Projects trialled mushroom growing in reusable, upcycled containers in a refugee settlement. + In partnership with: Minak Projects First Response to Trauma Psychosocial support and community building for trauma healing. + In partnership with: SACOD Vermicomposting Toilets In Bekaa, Lebanon, Farms Not Arms built three vermicompost toilets for refugee families. These innovative toilets use worms to convert human waste into compost. + In partnership with: Farms Not Arms Urban rooftop garden in Al-Buriej Refugee Camp Growing food gardens on rooftops in Gaza, showcasing urban growing in places with limited access to land. + In partnership with: Gaza Urban & Peri-Urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP) Regenerative Urban Agriculture MOCGSE led a project focussed on supporting conflict-affected areas with regenerative urban agriculture demonstration and education. + In partnership with: Mount Oku Center for Gender and Socioeconomic Empowerment (MOCGSE) Regesoil: Community Composting Collective community composting sites in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. + In partnership with: Unidos Social Innovation Centre Ecosan Composting Toilets Urine diversion, dry composting toilets in a barrel, enriching soils for more nutrient-rich crops and healthier people. + In partnership with: YICE Uganda Reimagining Urban Ecosystems in Greece, with Sporos A community-led initiative transforming urban spaces in Greece into resilient, biodiverse ecosystems through regenerative design and education. + In partnership with: Sporos Regeneration Institute Building Treebogs in Kakuma Refugee Settlement FHE built several twin Treebog composting toilets in Kakuma Refugee Settlement. These are raised composting toilets which feed 'humanure' directly to perennial plant roots. + In partnership with: Farming & Health Education (FHE) Lime-Stabilised Soil Building in Cox's Bazar Disaster resistant eco-buildings made from locally sourced materials in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. + In partnership with: Bee Rowan & International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Non-Digital Communications for Capacity Building Analogue learning materials for regenerative food growing in refugee camps and settlements. + In partnership with: Kajulu Hills Ecovillages, Green Releaf Grey Water and Rain Water Harvesting for Food Growing in Syria Piloting Grey water and Rain water harvesting and irrigation for food growing in Syria. + In partnership with: Syrian Academic Expertise, Malteser International Re-Alliance Members' Film Collaboration Participatory filmmaking to share stories of regeneration in action. + In partnership with: Re-Alliance Members

< back Date of completion: 1 Dec 2021 Grey Water and Rain Water Harvesting for Food Growing in Syria Piloting Grey water and Rain water harvesting and irrigation for food growing in Syria. This capacity strengthening project included the development of vegetable gardens in IDP camps in Northern Syria with partner organisation Syrian Academic Expertise. Working in three IDP camps in A’zaz and Jarablus in Northwest Syria, this pilot project tested the viability of creating vegetable gardens to grow food, partially irrigated by harvested rain water and grey water. The project started with training events including five successful webinars for our INGO sponsors and the production of a grey water booklet by SOILS Permaculture Association Lebanon . The growing plots varied in size, from home gardens to community gardens in A’zaz, and a school garden in Jarablus. The aims included introducing regenerative strategies to improve food security, mental health and community cohesion. Working with a large INGO, Re-Alliance acted in an advisory capacity, with our subcontracted partners, Syrian Academic Expertise, providing research, training and mentoring support. The gardens were successfully established with food grown, harvested and eaten. The gardens were highly popular with camp residents, with many more requests for participation than the pilot could facilitate. Bi-weekly mentoring visits were undertaken by our partners while Re-Alliance conducted monitoring and evaluation and the production of learning materials including an NGO guide to using harvested rain and grey water .

< back Date of completion: 1 Apr 2022 Non-Digital Communications for Capacity Building Analogue learning materials for regenerative food growing in refugee camps and settlements. This project pilots the use of radio and non-digital forms of communication to promote Permaculture and food growing within refugee and IDP camps in the Philippines and Kenya. Locally grown, low cost, nutritious food growing builds health and resilience for communities facing crises. Gardens offer additional wellbeing benefits of green space and meaningful occupation. Despite this, there is a barrier to uptake of regenerative food growing practices. Re-Alliance worked with partners to explore how ideas and practices could be amplified and spread beyond people coming to training events. In Kenya, we worked with Kajulu Hills Ecovillages to design and trial a radio programme with inbuilt good growing messages. They broadcasted eight episodes of a radio soap opera using local actors. The program tells stories about the benefits of growing food with a Permaculture approach and advertises a demonstration site in the camp that listeners can visit. Green ReLeaf in the Philippines trialled a gamified approach integrating emergency food growing information with a card game, which can be shared with people in remote, disaster-prone locations.