Collective management of natural resources for post-conflict recovery

According to the UN, in the last 60 years, at least 40% of all intrastate conflicts have been linked to natural resources. Crucially, when conflicts are resource-related, they are five times more prone to relapse within the first five years. This heightened risk stems from the fact that resource disputes tend to persist unless the underlying governance and distribution issues are addressed.

Therefore, in states where institutions lack the capacity to manage resources effectively or mediate competing claims, pressures arising from scarcity or degradation are more likely to translate into instability and violence. Climate change intensifies these dynamics by acting as a threat multiplier that exacerbates existing resource stress.

However, recognising the impact of climatic pressures also highlights the potential for well-designed adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerability and build resilience. Emerging research increasingly shows that vulnerability to climate-related conflict is shaped far more by political and social resilience than by environmental characteristics alone. 

As a result, the most effective climate security policies are often not climate-specific at all but those that strengthen governance, promote inclusive economic development, and build social cohesion.  

The role of natural resources in post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding

It is at this nexus that the concept of environmental peacebuilding has emerged. Environmental peacebuilding is a theoretical framework which proposes that the natural environment can play a constructive role in post-conflict recovery. Rather than viewing nature as a neutral backdrop to conflict, this approach argues that the way natural resources are managed can influence whether societies move toward stability or relapse into violence.  

In many fragile settings, natural resources are deeply tied to people's livelihoods, and when resources become scarce, powerful groups may seize control over remaining assets in ways that undermine peace. This behaviour, often described as ‘peace spoiling’, reflects the idea that, in times of scarcity, personal access and control of these resources outweighs interest in collective stability.

Reframing resource incentives for cooperation

The role of natural resources evolves across the lifecycle of a conflict: during a period of conflict, they often intensify competition and instability. However, during the transition out of fragility, natural resources can help diversify the economy, mobilise finance, and engage formal and informal sectors in revitalising rural livelihoods. Therefore, environmental peacebuilding theorists argue that the post-conflict period offers an important window to reshape these incentives in a way which makes the collective management of natural resources more beneficial than zero-sum competition. 

In other words, the same resource-based incentives that drive self-interested competition can be redirected toward peace and social cohesion when institutions are in place which make the collective management of these resources materially beneficial.

By contrast, when peacebuilding efforts remain siloed, and former adversaries are treated as separate groups without fostering cooperation, the natural environment may continue to be instrumentalised as a weapon of war, perpetuating competition and individual gains.

Importantly, the environmental peacebuilding model proposes that as conflict intensity declines and societies enter the peacebuilding phase, the shared management of natural resources can offer a comparatively neutral arena for interaction. The idea is that joint governance of common-pool resources creates structured opportunities for dialogue and negotiation through less politically charged domains than other areas of post-conflict reconstruction. 

What does environmental peacebuilding look like in practice?

Colombia offers an interesting context for examining these dynamics as it represents the overlapping challenges between post-conflict peacebuilding, rural reform, and resource exploitation. During the decades-long civil conflict, armed groups frequently relied on illegal economies that drove large-scale deforestation and threatened rural communities. Following the 2016 peace agreement, natural resources became central to post-conflict reintegration efforts, particularly as a large proportion of ex-combatants returned to agriculture-based livelihoods through disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) efforts. 

By bringing together ex-combatants and smallholder farmers into value chains for native forest products, training rural producers in sustainable harvesting, and ensuring access to formal markets, these programmes have created shared incentives for cooperation and collective conservation of local forests in areas that were once sites of violence and contested control. 

Another example is in Nepal, where decades of deforestation heightened localised competition for timber and firewood between neighbouring communities in the lead-up to its civil war. During the conflict, the breakdown of formal governance and Maoist insurgents’ control of forest areas disrupted access and contributed to livelihood stress for forest-dependent communities. 

After the war, Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) grew in importance as key peacebuilding institutions, bringing together villagers from different castes, displaced families, and returning ex-combatants. They also supported livelihoods through providing timber and loans for rebuilding homes and small businesses, and acted as an important institutional intermediary for disputes over land and resources.

Similarly, following the Sudanese civil war of the late 20th century, local peace agreements in Darfur focused on reconciliation through joint management of natural resources. 

The Near East Foundation (NEF) implemented two complementary initiatives – the ‘Resources, Economic Security and Peace Project’ and the ‘Resources, Livelihoods, and Security Project’ – to foster collaborative resource management while enhancing livelihoods and food security. NEF worked with local partners to recast community institutions as inclusive and participatory platforms for managing land, water, grazing, and other resources.

From resource competition to cooperation

These examples collectively demonstrate how a community’s ability to develop sustainable livelihoods can serve as a successful conflict-prevention mechanism by initiating a positive transformation process toward building community resilience in the face of environmental and socioeconomic stresses. 

Common environmental concerns may also increase levels of empathy through creating a ‘community of sufferers’ where engaging in cooperative behaviours becomes an act of regional solidarity and a practical pathway for rebuilding lives after conflict. In this way, securing livelihoods for vulnerable populations not only reduces the incentive for individuals to join armed groups but also reinforces the social and institutional foundations needed for long-term cohesion.

However, despite this evidence, policy convergence around investing in social and political resilience remains far weaker than the appetite for climate-centric defence measures such as flood barriers or early warning systems. These technical interventions appear much more tangible and politically saleable than decades-long development programmes designed to strengthen institutions and diversify rural economies in fragile states.

Therefore, as climate change and natural resource pressures increasingly shape conflict dynamics, the challenge will be to move beyond this siloed approach and integrate strategies that treat climate adaptation and conflict prevention as mutually reinforcing pillars of a broader strategy towards community resilience.

The previous blog in this series provides an in-depth discussion of how resource scarcity can contribute to civil unrest.