Elevating nature and environment in peace: connecting peace-positive conservation to efforts to evolving regional and global peace and security agendas

Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation are increasingly recognised as systemic risks with implications for peace, security and stability. Healthy ecosystems provide essential services on which societies depend, including food, water, clean air, climate regulation and natural resources. Yet the integration of nature into peace and security policy remains fragmented, with most attention typically focused on the impacts of climate change as a risk multiplier. This captures only part of the environmental risk landscape, as not all environmental risks relevant to peace and stability are climate driven. 

The Pacific region provides a positive example of a more comprehensive approach. The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Declaration recognise peace, resilience and environmental stewardship as mutually reinforcing foundations for regional prosperity and stability. Experience from the field is equally important for informing policy development. Peace-positive conservation, which protects, restores and sustainably manages nature while strengthening resilience, stability and social cohesion, is a core component of environmental peacebuilding. WWF has been embedding conflict sensitivity across its conservation portfolio, spanning forests, freshwater, climate and ocean programmes. 

This session brings together practitioners and policymakers from national, regional and global levels to explore how nature and environmental considerations can be better integrated into peace and security frameworks and cooperation mechanisms. Participants will deepen their understanding of how biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation intersect with contemporary peace and security challenges and engage with emerging approaches at the nature-environment-peace nexus.