Environmental Peacemaking. Edited by Ken Conca and Geoffrey D. Dabelko. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. 200p. $35.00 cloth, $17.50 paper.

This book explores the proposition that cooperation on environmental issues can be instrumental in resolving local conflicts caused by environmental degradation and scarcity of resources. Such conflicts are not a new phenomenon. However, in the early twenty-first century, continuing degradation of the environment, coupled with ever-increasing pressures on resources due to an expanding population, has substantially increased the incidence of violent conflicts on environmental issues. Moreover, most of the present threats to peace are major intrastate conflicts (e.g., civil war and genocide) or ones that are occurring along ecologically fragile border regions, implying that researchers should concentrate on the regional or local level of analysis. At the same time, as the cause of such conflicts has risen on the political and discourse agenda, a corresponding large body of research has emerged, increasing our understanding of the ways in which environmental destruction can lead to conflict.