Building sustainable peace through environmental cooperation in the island of Ireland: modelling transboundary conservation

ABSTRACT

As Brexit becomes reality, concerns are growing over environmental degradation due to differences in environmental policies on both sides of the border. At the same time, post-conflict peace occupied by neoliberal ideas remains fragile. However, there is no research that explores the nexus between environmental cooperation and peacebuilding in the Irish context. To narrow this loophole, first, this essay engages with the theory of environmental peacebuilding and sheds light on the role of environmental cooperation as an instrument for peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. Then, it proposes three models for environmental peacebuilding that likely fit in the Irish context. While not singling out one most feasible model, the paper concludes that the island of Ireland already has institutional arrangements and resources to implement any of the proposed models. Building a sustainable peace requires an approach to not only facilitate good relationships between divided human communities, but also resolve the human-nature conflict.

KEYWORDS:

• Transboundary conservation
• environmental peacebuilding
• peace park
• Irish border

1. Introduction

Human-made borders are subject to continuous reconfiguration. They are newly created, redefined or dissolved by various socio-political events such as political integration and conflicts (Hataley & Leuprecht, 2018). For example, the European Union (EU) has removed its internal borders between the Member States by political, cultural, economic, legal and social integration while expanding the territory of the European Community. Boundaries between the EU countries are perceived as no more than administrative and geographical lines. However, the issue of ‘the Irish backstop’ during Brexit negotiations represents the opposite case that political borders can revive and carry the possibility of contestation of sovereignty.

By contrast, nature does not recognise national borders. An analogy of the butterfly effect is useful to epitomise the transboundary nature of environmental problems, which shows that even a tiny environmental change can deliver unpredictable and irreversible outcomes to the world. That is, the natural world is a webbed chain of ecosystems wherein humans reside. Therefore, tackling environmental problems successfully hinges upon transboundary efforts in a well-orchestrated manner. Those actions range from institutionalising environmental agreements and regimes to non-state collective actions like environmental activism and indigenous rights movements across the world.

Studies suggest that successful environmental cooperation across borders promotes mutual confidence and delivers more coherent effective environmental actions between governance actors, even if those are in antagonistic relationships (Westing, 1998; Ide, 2019). However, environmental protection in borderlands is subject to complexity as it can be challenged when neighbouring countries have different – sometimes contradictory – environmental rules, standards and policies, which impedes the development and implementation of cross-border environmental cooperation. This accounts for the situation on the island of Ireland, where concerns over negative impacts on transboundary conservation in the Irish border are growing as the UK departs from the EU. Although there was a time when Michael Gove, the then UK Secretary for the Environment declared a vision for a green Brexit, which in his view would create an opportunity for ‘post-Brexit Britain’ to evolve ‘into an environmental and economic superpower’ (House of Commons, 2019). However, it is more likely that policy differences between the UK and the EU would result in failures in joint environmental regulations, enforcement and governance, and Brexit would strengthen ‘the dominance of economic growth and a market-oriented philosophy in its decision making on the environment’ (Lee, 2017, p. 90; see Charlotte & Neil, 2018; Hilson, 2018; Gravey, 2019 for more details).

Northern Ireland witnessed the official end of the Troubles with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. However, the formal ‘peace’ was costly. Instigated by intergroup sectarian violence over the territorial dispute, the Northern Ireland conflict caused thousands of casualties and memories over the past are contested (Gilmartin, 2021). Legacies of the history continue to impede the widening of intergroup contact to facilitate conflict transformation and social reintegration in post-Agreement Northern Ireland. Local communities with sectarian identities are still grouped either as Protestants-Unionists-Loyalists or Catholics-Nationalists-Republicans (Brewer, 2018). Sectarian violence and paramilitary activities are ongoing (Jupp & Garrod, 2019), and residential segregation remains high (Lepp, 2018; Dixon et al., 2020).

Moreover, for Northern Ireland, environmental challenges emanating from Brexit are clear. The country is the only devolved region which shares a land border with the European Community via the Republic of Ireland, and the future of cross-border cooperation in the post-Brexit period is a critical issue not only for environment protection but for peace and security. North–South cooperation is currently ensured by a two-tiered system. The first layer is arranged by EU treaties and the other by the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) signed in 1998. In a nutshell, the former has enforced Northern Ireland to transpose European environmental regulations, the latter ensured the environment as one of cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The UK withdrawal from the EU placed the Irish border at the critical juncture. Either it can fall prey to socio-ecological problems originating from poor environmental governance and regulations, or it be utilised as a place where stronger North–South and UK-EU environmental cooperation can take place (Stevenson, 2017; Gormley-Heenan & Aughey, 2017).

Considering the context of the Northern Ireland conflict, both sides of the Irish border can utilise transboundary environmental cooperation as an instrument for peacebuilding. The theorising of peacebuilding through environmental cooperation in post-conflict societies has recently attracted many researchers and practitioners, who argue that divided communities or states in adversarial relationships can rebuild their trust by tackling common environmental challenges together (Ide, Bruch, et al., 2021; Johnson, Rodriguez, & Hoyos, 2021; Krampe, Hegazi, & VanDeveer, 2021). In contrast to massive EU funding to the Northern Ireland peace process and cross-border cooperation projects (Hayward & Murphy, 2018), the intersection between peacebuilding and environmental cooperation along the Irish border is severely undermined and understudied. Therefore, this article aims to address this knowledge gap by exploring three models of peacebuilding through transboundary conservation and apply them to the Irish context. By doing so, this piece of research can be understood by policymakers as a feasibility study to explore potential action programmes that can integrate transboundary conservation and peacebuilding into one policy framework. For the academic audience, this research contributes to the understanding of the role of environmental cooperation in promoting new social relationships between agonistic actors in societies affected by non-environmental conflicts. The paper is structured as follows. In the first section, it investigates the concept of environmental peacebuilding and provides a brief critique to the neoliberal approach to peacebuilding. It further conceptualises sustainable peace, which requires not only facilitating social reconciliation between divided human communities but also resolving the human-nature conflict. Taking this view as a point of departure, the paper sketches three models for transboundary conservation entwined with peacebuilding. Those are IUCN park for peace, UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and Anglo-Irish Green Belt. The essay will make two concluding remarks that, in spite of post-Brexit challenges, favourable conditions for environmental peacebuilding are ahead for the Irish border, but sustainable peace only comes with a post-liberal approach to peacebuilding – decoupled from the concept of neoliberal peace.

2. Environmental peacebuilding and sustainable peace

Over the decades, peacebuilding practitioners and researchers have paid attention to the possibility of environmental cooperation as an instrument to promote durable peace in post-conflict settings (Carius, 2008). Against this backdrop, a concept of environmental peacebuilding emerged based on the premise that antagonistic groups can rebuild their broken relationships by pursuing joint actions to common environmental problems that otherwise they cannot effectively tackle and promote sustainable development within a stable security milieu (Dresse, Fischhendler, Ostergaard & Zikos, 2018). As such goals require a long-term plan and reciprocal understanding over the process of environmental peacebuilding, parties to the conflict are encouraged to understand their interdependence for survival against ecological decay and reduce tensions between them that would have once led to violence. For instance, biodiversity loss in borderlands is a common threat to adversarial states, but different environmental standards and policies emerge as obstacles to a solution (Gritchting, Alfaraidy, & Ali, 2019). Thus, through negotiations and dialogue the parties can reach an agreement that comes with legislative and administrative amendments to the status of the border and societal support to them.

The framework of environmental peacebuilding is applicable to various conflict contexts, both interstate and intrastate conflicts. Moreover, it can be designed and implemented whether or not environmental concerns constitute the deep-seated cause of violent conflict. Two types of environmental peacebuilding exist in practice. The first one addresses environmental conflicts and aims to find conflict resolution mechanism that can mitigate adversaries’ colliding interests, grievances, and actions in particular relation to natural resources. Paradoxically, copious natural resources like minerals, oils and water that yield high economic profits are attributors to the (re-)emergence of armed conflict in many countries. As climate breakdown is intensifying resource scarcity, it is increasingly alarming that conflicts over resources have recently tended to be more violent (Wennmann, 2011; Ogden, 2018). Despite this daunting fact, advocates of environmental peacebuilding argue that a well-tailored intervention in this resource curse will break the vicious cycle of the unsustainable zero-sum competition and pave a way for parties to the conflict to build a secure and peaceful environment wherein they collaborate for the sustainable use of natural resources. For instance, governance reforms can be devised to be more inclusive, equal and representative so that communities excluded from the access to natural resources and services of ecosystems can stand as an equal partner to other parties. In addition, ensuring the fair distribution of benefits from natural resources is of importance to building a sustainable peace (Nichols, Lujala, & Bruch, 2011; Sandbu, 2012). International water basins, which often spark intrastate military tensions, can be transformed into a space of mutual confidence and borderless cooperation (Ide & Detges, 2018).

The second approach to environmental peacebuilding demonstrates that conflict transformation through environmental cooperation is viable even if environmental issues are not deep-seated roots of violent conflict. As Carius (2006, p. 7) puts, groups in adversarial relationships can circumvent the direct cause of their confrontation that is not easily solvable and pursue a platform for dialogue and cooperation by building an initiative to cope with common ecological risks ‘when other political and diplomatic approaches have failed’. Such collaborative environmental management helps adversarial countries or groups to avoid excessive resource competition, which can inflame violent conflicts (Matthew, Brown, & Jenson, 2009; Rustad & Binningbø, 2012). Since the 1970s, in the middle of the Cold War, countries in the Baltic Sea Region showed that the perception of common environmental risks can lead states to agreements for partnerships. The Baltic Sea was vulnerable to eutrophication, over-fishing, and rapid industrialisation. Accordingly, in March 1974, during the Cold War, seven states in the Baltic Sea Region, namely Sweden, Finland, Denmark, West Germany, East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union, signed the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (so-called the Helsinki Convention). The signatories were concerned with the impacts of environmental degradation on their socio-economic development and could come to the agreement (Kern, 2011). The HELCOM was established to fulfil the Helsinki Convention and its scale grew as the European Union joined. Transboundary environmental cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region has been amplified by collaboration between states, civil social organisations, local governments, scientific and technology groups, and private businesses. That economic incentives played a significant role in HELCOM is a representative case that demonstrates cross-country partnership for environmental cooperation, despite political differences between states, which can endure geopolitical insecurity and conflict (VanDeveer, 2011).

When the conflict is protracted and the adversaries are barely reconcilable, those cooperation efforts are facilitated by civil society. Some cases suggest that environmental peacebuilding can be a bottom-up process that can be steered and practised by social organisations. Amid the Israel-Palestine conflict, educational programmes for environmental peacebuilding have brokered new social relationships across the contested border. The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is a pioneer which finds the potential of environmental cooperation in fostering regional peace and security in this case. Since its beginning in 2006, the institution has hosted hundreds of students from diverse nationalities and ethno-religious backgrounds, but mainly from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, USA and Canada. Those who registered in the education programmes are given knowledge and insights into environmental challenges that Middle Eastern countries commonly face, such as severe drought and water and energy scarcity that leads to food crises, as well as opportunities to increase everyday contacts with their perceived foes (Ide & Tubi, 2020). As Schoenfeld, Zohar, Alleson, Suleiman, and Sipos-Randor (2014, p. 190) write, taking common environmental insecurities as ‘a point of departure for personal and collective journeys’, students learn to coexist, communicate and sympathise with others. Huda (2021) sheds light on environmental peacebuilding actions by local communities and their contributions to geopolitical stability in South Asia. Facing the society-wide risks of climate breakdown, grassroots communities in India and Bangladesh, in spite of an interstate territorial dispute and their ethno-religious differences, established collaboration for water and forest management by widening intergroup contact through cross-border visits and youth education. Observing the revival of the local culture that bans harvesting within a certain time in Timor-Leste after its independence in 2002, Ide, Palmer, and Barnett (2021) highlight the (re)creation of social cohesion and shared values in conflict-shattered communities. By doing such spiritual rituals, divided local communities find their common desire to protect their natural environment and engage with others.

The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding has been stressed by many scholars such as Mac Ginty and Richmond (2013). The peacebuilding field has been preoccupied with (neo)liberal ideas, which stress political settlements to ensure power equilibrium between warring parties in the post-war political system and governance and security sector reforms to assist ‘neoliberal marketisation’ for post-war recovery. Based on the premise that once the conflict-shattered state is reconstructed to guarantee political stability, foreign investments will flow into its market and the ‘trickle-down’ effects will contribute to peace and development (Paris, 2010). However, this traditional approach to peacebuilding has been a target for criticism, for it assumes a universalist, essentially Western-biased and linear, concept of peace and development without the sufficient consideration of local contexts and emphasises elite-level compromise rather than society-wide reconciliation for swift conflict management (Taylor, 2010).

Studies that examined environmental cooperation coupled with the neoliberal approach valorise Ide’s (2021) conceptualisation of the adverse effects of environmental peacebuilding, which include environmental discrimination and conflict relapse, to name a few. Neoliberal environmental peacebuilding or transboundary conservation projects negate power asymmetries between powerful actors, often international donors and the state, and local communities (Le Billon & Duffy, 2018). Thus, what it generates at the local level is the exclusion or marginalisation of local communities in conservation projects from planning to implementation and forced resettlement of communities by the state which owns land as property (Lunstrum, 2008; Buscher, 2010). In response, a post-liberal approach to environmental peacebuilding is required to outweigh positive outcomes of environmental peacebuilding over undesirable consequences. Here, the concept of post-liberal peacebuilding can be defined, following Mac Ginty’s idea of everyday peace, as an approach to promote social reconciliation by daily inter- and intra- group activities with reciprocity in shared spaces (Mac Ginty, 2014). From this perspective, environmental peacebuilding projects should be conflict-sensitive, bottom-up and accountable.

More specifically, this means that environmental peacebuilding programmes should be equipped with institutional arrangements that can invite a variety of stakeholders, especially representatives from adversarial groups. By doing so, participants in environmental partnerships can (1) identify common environmental risks they will tackle together, (2) design governance arrangements and action plans, and (3) implement programmes and disseminate outcomes, (4) receive feedback from a wider public to enhance the quality of partnerships and programmes for environmental peacebuilding. A post-liberal approach puts an emphasis on the participation of marginalised communities and local practices of peacebuilding (Ratner et al., 2018; Morales-Muñoz, Löhr, Bonatti, Eufemia, & Sieber, 2021). Therefore, all stakeholders should be equally recognised, trained, and provided information in order to participate in decision-making processes and environmental actions. Where appropriate, affirmative policies to ensure participation from those who have been traditionally excluded from political governances, for instance indigenous peoples, should be taken (Mac Ginty, 2008; Devere, Te Maihāroa, Solomon, & Wahrehoka, 2020).

Moreover, what can be inferred from the (neo)liberal theory of environmental peacebuilding is its goal is to remediate social cleavages between human communities by utilising the environment as a natural resource that provides ecological services for human flourishing. This anthropocentric perspective on human-nature relations can lead to a win-win framework of environmental peacebuilding, which enables former warring parties to maximise their exploitation of the environment, risking another conflict over environmental degradation. From an eco-centric perspective, what is fundamentally problematic in anthropocentric environmental peacebuilding is that the concept embraces the modernist human/nature divide as ‘natural’ and thus justifies the human domination of nature (Chandler, 2020). This kind of conflict resolution approach derogates nature from being respected for its own sake but on the basis of utility value for human actions and contributes to deteriorating the human-nature conflict. Thus, peace in the human world created by the traditional practices of environmental peacebuilding is essentially unsustainable in two ways. First, it is vulnerable to social-ecological risks that post-conflict societies may not be capable of reacting to. For instance, peacebuilders passionate for good governance and liberal markets are now witnessing extreme climatic events tied with a massive flow of climate refugees (Abrahams, 2020). Advocates of an eco-centric perspective have developed an argument that climate change is an ‘ecocide’ waged by the human world to the whole planet, which manifests itself in a broken human-nature relationship that necessitates more radical environmental decisions and responses than ‘business-as-usual’ that rigidify the existing political, economic and social practices of production and consumption (White & Kramer, 2015). Dalby puts in this way:

Peace building is about building things that are sustainable without having violent repercussions either locally or at a distance. Thinking about buildings, and the possibilities of structures that draw on local materials rather than distant concrete factories, solar energy rather than fossil fuels, and local social survival mechanisms rather than the instant solutions of foreign expert contractors, suggests a much more ecologically sustainable mode of providing security than many of the modernizing modes of development that are still practiced by many neo-liberal contractors and state elites (Dalby, 2009).

Although it is safe to say that the deep-seated cause of the Troubles was not directly related to environmental problems, it is still tangible to experiment the second approach to environmental peacebuilding in the island of Ireland. In a stark contrast to the absence of thorough research that explores the intersection of peacebuilding and conservation in the Irish context, the island as a whole is facing several environmental insecurities such as climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, air pollution, groundwater and land contamination, and transnational environmental crime. These can be effectively tackled only when the two jurisdictions in collaboration with the UK, the EU and the global society have adequate settings. So far, the open border has been conducive to constructing robust cooperation between them, but the situation is rapidly changing as Brexit became reality. Therefore, how cross-border environmental cooperation, while avoiding commodifying people and nature for profits, can sustain in a different and difficult environment is a question.

3. Modelling transboundary conservation in the Irish context: park for peace, transboundary biosphere reserve and Anglo-Irish green Belt

According to a risk analysis report on the environment after the Brexit, nature and ecosystems under the jurisdiction of the UK and the EU are both subject to a higher likelihood of ruptured regulations and enforcement. As per the report – under any circumstances – the EU Habitats and Birds Directives, that requires robust cross-border coordination of policies and resources, are in great danger (Burns, Gravey, & Jordan, 2018). So far, the two conservation policies have been rewarded with the successful protection of wildlife birds and species, but post-Brexit challenges like non-compliance by the UK government risk the well-orchestrated policy implementation and development. While no UK-wide policy has been developed to address this issue, but only hollow promises like ‘green Brexit’, the Northern Ireland government published its policy document on the Conservation Regulations (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) 2019 which substituted the EU Habitats Directive in December 2020. However, while the NI government promised a new programme like a UK network of protected sites equal to the EU Natura 2000 in the paper, it did not address its remaining duties or lay out a concrete action plan on the cross-border dimension of environmental protection. For instance, according to the EU Habitats Directive Appropriate Assessment, both sides of the border are required to coordinate their planning actions, but it is far from clear to the public which policy options or key ideas are being considered – or have been taken – to co-manage environmental issues in the post-Brexit Irish border. To address this gap, this section proposes three models for transboundary conservation and discusses the applicability of them in the Irish context.

3.1. Methodology

Three models for environmental peacebuilding were selected based on two criteria. First is the international recognition of their significance in transboundary conservation. There are well-established international institutions in the environmental sector, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), UNESCO, and UNEP. They have devoted their attention to linking transboundary conservation to peacebuilding. Thus, these organisations play a significant role in acknowledging and disseminating particular models for environmental cooperation and peacebuilding. The existence of proactive interventions/efforts for transboundary conservation is the second determinant for selection. In some war-affected countries, borders become buffer zones where human footprints are highly restricted. The de-militarised zone (DMZ) in the Korean Peninsula is one example. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the DMZ was created as a buffer zone between North and South Korea, where civilians cannot enter without permission. Now, in the long absence of human presence, the site, 4 km wide and 2,000 km long, is a habitat of endangered and special wildlife species and accommodates several cultural heritage sites. However, while there have been academic studies and campaigns for the creation of DMZ peace parks, due to the protracted conflict between two Koreas and the geopolitical tensions in East Asia, such an idea could not see the light of day in spite of international recognition of the ecological importance of the DMZ. Therefore, this case may be categorised as passive rewilding—the rebuilding of ecosystems without human intervention. But this could be excluded in this study because it does not fit into either peacebuilding or substantial environmental cooperation.

Table 1 below shows a summary of three models for environmental peacebuilding that can be applied to the context of the island of Ireland. Detailed descriptions for each model will follow. After reviewing the main characteristics of the three models, how a post-liberal approach to peacebuilding can be adopted will be explained in the concluding section.

Table 1. Three models of peacebuilding through transboundary conservation.

	Type I. Park for peace	Type II. Transboundary biosphere reserve	Type III. Anglo-Irish Green Belt
Primary Actors	Governments	Governments	Local Communities & ENGOs
Global Donors	IUCN	UNESCO	United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the European Union
Potential Governance Arrangements	A cross-border independent foundation for park management	North-South Ministerial Council	A civil association for the Anglo-Irish Green Belt
Potential Areas for Action	Lough Foyle, Lough Foyle, Lough Melvin, and Carlingford Lough	Natura2000 sites, the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark	the Irish border

3.2. Model I. IUCN park for peace

The first model is a peace park, which is understood as a way of active cross-border environmental cooperation in post-conflict settings as it needs nation-states to open their borders for common goals (Brock, 1991; Ramutsindela, 2017). The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is one of the global pioneers that has practised the idea of peace parks since 1997. The IUCN’s model, parks for peace, are special designations ‘that are formally dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and to the promotion of peace and cooperation’ (Sandwith, Shine, Hamilton, & Sheppard, 2001, p. 3). An area that falls into any category of transboundary conservation areas – transboundary protected areas, transboundary conservation landscape and/or seascape, transboundary migration conservation area – are recognised by the international body and can be considered for the designation of peace park. However, for the border area to be acknowledged as a special site for peace and nature, the IUCN clearly states that cooperative mechanisms should be established between neighbouring countries or jurisdictions. By doing so, a holistic approach to biodiversity conservation in the border area can be taken, which subsequently creates political, social, and economic benefits and values by promoting mutual confidence and bridging new relationships between adversaries. The IUCN highlights the benefits of transboundary conservation areas, including parks for peace, as below:

as large contiguous habitats that protect biodiversity while also facilitating dialogue between the staff of the concerned sites and local communities, creating economic opportunities, encouraging good political relations between neighbouring countries, and contributing to peace are a valuable asset to global efforts to ensure the conservation of nature and protection of its services for future generations (Vasilijevic & Pezold, 2011, p. 70).

Now, parks for peace initiatives are seen not only in Africa and Latin America, but they also exist in post-conflict zones in Europe and Central Asia. One of the most famous parks for peace is the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KaZa TFCA), which lies in the Kavango and Zambezi River basins shared by Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana. This magnificent terrain, established in 2011 in an area twice the size of the UK, provides habitats and shelters to a range of species. It is home to the largest population of elephants in the planet (Cumming, 2008). Supported by the World Bank, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, the five countries that share the world’s largest transboundary conservation area agreed to establish a secretariat and commissioned the Peace Parks Foundation as an implementing organisation. Eco-tourism is a major source for socio-economic outputs from the KaZa, and the partner states – especially Zambia and Zimbabwe – have developed an experimental immigration system that grants visitors a common visa to cross the national borders within the conservation area. In spite of limited studies on the system, it is expected that this cross-border arrangement would contribute to the growth of the regional economy and integration (Myambo & Zengeni, 2019).

The island of Ireland can enjoy several advantages in building an initiative for its park for peace. First, it has sites. According to the 2007 UNEP-WCMC Global List of Transboundary Protected Areas, the UK and Ireland share several natural spots in the Irish border, such as Lough Foyle, Lough Melvin and Carlingford Lough. Considering the history of the Troubles – that severely damaged peace and security in border counties – and the division over the Irish border issue during the Brexit negotiations, there is a certain level of resistance against cross-border activities. However, greening the border as a symbol of sustainability and common prosperity can be an attractive option for it does not negate but can circumvent the territoriality problem and promote all-island cooperation. Second, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can have the EU and the UK government as financial sponsors to their transboundary conservation initiative. Third, an Irish park for peace can embrace the idea of ‘the Great Ulster Forest’ mentioned in ‘the New Deal, New Approach’, a cross-party deal to restore the Stormont assembly in January 2020. Some found this afforestation project bizarre in its inclusion in the agreement, but Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister suggested that this woodland initiative will be for people in Northern Ireland to enjoy and celebrate the 100th year of the Partition. To an assembly question whether the Great Ulster Forest is linked with the centenary, the Minister responded that ‘it will be there in 100 years’ time, still in Northern Ireland, for people to enjoy and celebrate’ (Northern Ireland Assembly, 2020, p. 16). His comment did not attract much public outcry at the time, but the project, if it comes to reality like he said, is likely to backfire as legacies of the Troubles still permeate society. The consociational political system is limited in facilitating societal reconciliation as intercommunity contacts remain scant and sectarian violence continues. Dissident paramilitaries refuse to disarm and affiliate with cross-border criminal networks for profiteering and terrorism (Nagle, 2018; Hourigan, Morrison, Windle, & Silke, 2018). Against this backdrop, the ‘celebration’ of the centenary is no more than adding insult to the injury of the divided society. Instead, a much better way to associate the environment with the history of Northern Ireland and common prosperity for the island of Ireland is investment in transboundary conservation. One way to do so is reconceptualising the Ulster Great Forest as a symbol of reconciliation and cooperation across the divide, instead of a great forest that only satisfies a certain ethno-religious sect in Ulster. The governments across the Irish border could establish an independent foundation for a park for peace, like the way the Loughs Agency in Derry operates, to manage the landscape and strengthen transboundary environmental cooperation.

3.3. Model II. UNESCO biosphere reserve

The UN Man and Biosphere (MAB) Committee states, UNESCO Biosphere Reserves are ‘sites for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity’. The Biosphere Reserve (BR) consists of three zones, which are: the core area, the buffer zone, and the transition zone. The core zone is where human footprints are strictly prohibited in order to achieve the function of conservation. That is, to protect the key ecosystems and biodiversity. The buffer zone, which surrounds the core site, provides avenues for the function of logistics, which includes environmental research, monitoring and education activities that promote better knowledge on conservation and development. Finally, the transition zone, the outskirts of the BR, are places where local communities pursue everyday activities in harmony with sustainable development. Currently, 701 BRs across more than 100 countries in the world are registered in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, which contribute to augmenting global collaboration in conservation and biodiversity management sectors.

This UNESCO conservation model is different from IUCN’s model in two ways. First, unlike the latter, the former does not necessarily include transboundary zones. Thus, the management of the site is under the discretion of national governments and as part of global cooperation, they are responsible for submitting a periodic review to the MAB Committee. Second, in relation to the first point, cross-border cooperation is not a prerequisite and therefore, peacebuilding elements are not prominent in this conservation framework. However, such differences do not exclude the possibility of the BR embracing peace and security discourses. Where possible, UNESCO, as ‘a neutral solicitor’, has collaborated with national governments to designate Transboundary Biosphere Reserves (TBR) to facilitate cooperation and peace between divided communities (German Commission for UNESCO, 2015, p. 15). A TBR can be consisted of two separate biosphere reserves across a border, as long as concerned parties come to a formal agreement for a common conservation framework.

Where transboundary cooperation is not feasible or well established, in spite of the significance of international efforts in conservation, a biosphere reserve on one side of the border can have potential in preparing for a larger space for cross-border cooperation. For instance, the Gangwon Eco-Peace Biosphere Reserve (GEBR) in South Korea, which was designated in 2019, lies on the ecological backbone of the Korean Peninsula and is adjacent to Mt. Kumgang Biosphere Reserve in North Korea. Although there is currently no cooperation between North and South Korea to adopt an integrated approach to two BRs, there is a potential that these areas with rich ecological values necessitate joint conservation actions that can be associated with peace-making effects (Brady, 2021). In harmony with sustainable development goals, local residents are engaged in ecotourism in the BR and perform active roles in the management of the ecosystems and landscape. If the GEBR is to build a tie with its counterpart across the north of the border, a deeper consideration of promoting coexistence between humans and nature – and between socio-politically different communities – should be regarded as a crucial element to its success.

In the Irish context, border counties in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – especially whose protected natural areas are contiguous across the border – can start a dialogue for an Irish TBR, or at least the designation of a BR on one side of the border. At the governmental level, the North–South Ministerial Council (NSMC) vis-à-vis the UK and the EU can serve as a platform where a common strategy for North–South cooperation in conservation is devised. The Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark across the Irish border demonstrates how shared landscapes can facilitate cross-border environmental cooperation and harmonise local economic development with sustainability. This park was initially consisted of two main sites: One is the Marble Arch Caves in Fermanagh that opened in 1985 and the other Cuilcagh Mountain Park in 1998. The site has significantly expanded across the border, embracing parts of West Cavan in the Republic of Ireland and gained several ‘first’ titles, like the first European Geopark and the first UNESCO Global Geopark in the UK, it has expanded significantly across the border. Although it does not explicitly spell out peace as its core value, it certainly has hosted EU-funded collaborative activities across communities and the border in conservation, ecotourism, and education (Farsani, Coelho, & Costa, 2014). Likewise, border counties that have Natura2000 sites, like Fermanagh and Derry in Northern Ireland, can initiate a local-based conservation projects in collaboration with their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland. If the idea for all-island BR becomes a reality, Northern Ireland will have its first internationally recognised biosphere, and the Republic of Ireland will have its third. As a TBR in the island of Ireland, like the IUCN model, it can attract global and local attention as a pioneering place of sustainable development, and also communities across the divide can pursue well-orchestrated efforts for their common prosperity and harmony with the environment.

3.4. Model III. An Anglo-Irish Green Belt

The third model that I propose, an Anglo-Irish Green Belt, is an imaginary one that is built on the European Green Belt (EGB) as a benchmark case. In a nutshell, the EGB is borne out of the Iron Curtain that once divided the Capitalist and the Communist Blocs. Despite the spectre of the Cold War, efforts for transboundary conservation have been pursued by scientists and NGOs who recognised the ecological values of the demarcation line where human presence is scarce (Kortelainen, 2010). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the greening-the-border activity gained stronger momentum and saw the formal inauguration of the European Green Belt Initiative in 2003, which set its vision as ‘to create the backbone of an ecological network, running from the Barents to the Black Sea that is a global symbol for transboundary cooperation in nature conservation and sustainable development’ (Terry, Ullrich, & Riecken, 2006, p. viii). The EGB is subdivided into Fennoscandian, Baltic, Central European and Balkan regional routes, where various ecosystems, cultural heritages and legacies of the war coexist with human communities.

In 2013, representatives from national governments of the organisation signed the Declaration of Intent on the European Green Belt, which is not legally binding but an important charter that emphasises the shared vision and their commitment to reshaping the former Iron Curtain as ‘the backbone of a Pan-European ecological network’ (Geidezis & Kreutz, 2012, p. 12). To professionally manage the 12,500 km-long line that penetrates the continent, the EGB Initiative established the European Green Belt Association in 2014 as an implementing body, which is represented by members from the four regional lines. Given its global reputation, it is safe to say that the EGB model showcases one of the successful transboundary protected areas. Beginning as a grassroots movement, the EGB model is the outcome of active public participation in transboundary conservation compared with the IUCN and UNESCO models. While the latter necessitates national governments’ endorsement in the designation of a transboundary protected area, the former does not. However, this fact should not disguise the active role of governmental actors in the EGB Initiative. For instance, the Board of the Association is comprised of governments and NGOs (Zmelik, Schindler, & Wrbka, 2011). Funding comes from public and private sectors, which invests in research to protect the EGB and facilitate transboundary cooperation for sustainable development and European integration along with it.

On the annual European Green Belt Day in September, the transformation of the former Iron Curtain is celebrated across Europe through community-led events. The Pan-European Green Belt Conference is a forum where a broad range of information and ideas for sustainable development and nature conservation is exchanged and close interactions across various actors from different regions take place. The core theme of the latest conference in 2018 was utilising the EGB in harmony with the development of green infrastructure. Some important decisions were taken during the conference, such as the foundation of the EGB Association that replaced a previous loose network for activity coordination and tightened the governance structure. According to the EGB Initiative, its conservation activities carry a high importance in achieving global goals and environmental agreements, such as the EU Habitats Directive, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Bern Convention, to name a few.

As the membership criteria is not exclusive, it may be possible for British and Irish actors to join the EGB Initiative. However, what is more urgent and necessary for now is picturing an all-island environmental movement for the transformation of the post-Brexit Irish border into a green belt. On the hopeful side for realising the idea, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland already have vibrant networks of environmentalists, think-tanks and community activists who have mobilised cross-border social and environmental campaigns. Their vibrant activities have contributed to the amelioration of the sectarian fault-lines in Northern Ireland (Nagle, 2013). Likewise, an all-island campaign for an Anglo-Irish Green Belt can yield two-fold effects. One is raising public awareness of cross-border conservation and the other is peacebuilding through environmental cooperation. In terms of financial resources, the UK and the EU can be major sponsors. In spite of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy a funding scheme, Peace Plus, from the European Community and the UK until 2027. This financial programme aims to promote common prosperity and good relations across border counties on the island of Ireland, mainly in the form of investment in community projects. Like the pioneers who sought transboundary conservation across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, environmentalists in the island of Ireland can utilise the funding scheme as seed money for their cross-border environmental cooperation, which can build towards an Anglo-Irish Green Belt. However, for a better outcome, citizens should consider action to invite governmental actors to come to an arrangement to commit themselves to effective transboundary conservation.

4. Concluding remarks: fostering sustainable peace on the island of Ireland

There has been a plethora of studies on the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process (O’Leary, 2019). However, none of them effectively answered this question, whether the Irish border can endure challenges emanating from environmental and geopolitical changes and be a buffer zone where environmental peacebuilders intervene. The answer requires caution, but this study demonstrated that the opportunities are plenty. The Troubles were far from a conflict inflicted by the problem of who gets more access to natural resources. However, given Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland share the single geological entity, one-sided environmental actions are destined to deliver limited outcomes in addressing climate breakdown, border-crossing water management, wildlife conservation and organised environmental crime such as illegal dumping, to name a few. Both jurisdictions in collaboration with the UK, the EU and the civil society are under pressure to coordinate their environmental decisions and actions and tackle common environmental insecurities. In this setting, a moment of ‘peace formation’ (Richmond, 2013) emerges, which denotes local peacebuilders maintaining the central role in peacebuilding while engaging with international donors. On the brighter side of this, in spite of Brexit, the Good Friday Agreement remains to guarantee all-island environmental cooperation and the North–South Ministerial Council is an implementation body for cross-border dialogue. Another favourable setting for cross-border environmental cooperation is that the signatories of the deal evaded a hard Brexit which would have set up border controls on the Irish border – a potentially worse threat to peace and security.

Against this backdrop, when focusing on transboundary conservation, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could utilise three pathways for environmental peacebuilding, which are the IUCN-endorsed park for peace model, the UNESCO biosphere model, and the EGB-style Anglo-Irish Green Belt. Although it was not the purpose of this research to pick the most feasible option for the Irish context, each shares some similarities and differences. For the commensurable points, they are already applicable to the Irish context as the island already has transboundary protected sites. Moreover, the three models can contribute to well-orchestrated human actions for environmental sustainability as well as add momentum and refresh global attention on Irish cooperation for peace and security. Each has some characteristics that others do not share. For summary, the park for peace model involves global acknowledgement and assistance, especially from the IUCN, the largest global conservation organisation, which can play the role of a negotiator in facilitating peace and environmental cooperation for transboundary conservation. The Biosphere Reserve (BR) does not necessarily require transboundary efforts, opening the border for example, as each part of transboundary BR remains under the management of each jurisdiction. Thus, it imposes a lower hurdle especially for Northern Ireland, where the border issue remains highly contested, to engage in transboundary conservation as compared with the IUCN model. The Anglo-Irish Green Belt, the final prototype, is an imaginary one drawing upon the European Green Belt that traverses the former Iron Curtain. It is a bottom-up project for transboundary conservation, which hinges upon the active role of civil society in increasing and consolidating community activities for sustainable peace. Endorsements from national governments are not prerequisites, but catalysts. However, the official acknowledgement of the Anglo-Irish Green Belt may not be feasible at this moment, given the perpetuation of political grievances over the Irish border even after the signing of the Northern Ireland Protocol to resolve the border dispute (Pinos & McCall, 2021). It should also be emphasised that although the IUCN and UNESCO models can be instigated by partnerships between national governments across the Irish border, it is local communities that can sustain such cooperation in the long term. In this regard, given that youth engagement is essential and significant in peacebuilding programmes to transform the contested border as a space of cooperation (Laganà & White, 2021), peacebuilding through transboundary conservation should also be designed to facilitate youth participation in producing shared identities through environmental cooperation.

Whichever is opted for, the core argument is that sustainable peace becomes reality only when environmental cooperation is steered to heal the social cleavages in divided communities as well as resolve the zero-sum conflict between human and nature. To do so, the framework of environmental peacebuilding should be decoupled from the concept of neoliberal peace, which is deeply embraced in the Northern Ireland peace process. As many argue, what the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought was ‘elusive peace’ entwined with poverty and social polarisation to which the consociational pact paid insufficient attention. Indeed, while private businesses enjoy relative peace and maximise their profits in the free market in the new social setting, the society is struggling with complex social problems such as severe youth unemployment, low-level sectarian conflict including paramilitary attacks and punishments, dissident republicans scaling up with criminal gangs across the border and muted intercommunity contact. McCabe (2012) claims the doctrine of ‘double transition’ that stresses peace as relative political stability and neoliberal growth permeated post-conflict recovery projects in Northern Ireland. Moreover, as Barry (2009) criticises, peace coupled with neoliberalism enabled the political ruling class in Stormont to see environmental regulations as an obstacle to the free market and thus eclipsed the idea of sustainable development by its market-oriented policies for economic growth. For others it is attributed to systematic failures of environmental governance and law in Northern Ireland (Brennan, Purdy, & Hjerp, 2017).

To prevent transboundary conservation projects in the post-Brexit Irish border from falling prey to neoliberal peace, environmental peacebuilders should facilitate North–South cooperation both from governmental and community levels and be sensitive to dissenting voices from communities against transforming the borderlands into an open space. Decision-making processes should involve diverse actors from both sides of the border, while institutions that are responsible for transboundary conservation should establish mechanisms to redress power inequalities between the participants, especially between the governments and local communities. Building sustainable peace, in contrast to neoliberal peace, also requires a different economic approach to transboundary conservation. In this vein, Duffy’s critical perspective on ecotourism is alarming as it proliferates in transboundary protected areas. The critic finds that ecotourism commodifies nature and justifies the privatisation of the natural world as human property under the name of conservation and sustainable development (Duffy, 2008). Behind the scenes, there are huge investors like international financial institutions who see ecotourism as a thrust for neoliberal economic growth. Therefore, while this issue begs another research paper, environmental peacebuilders ought to put their practices under scrutiny for sustainability. If the three models proposed in this paper are to challenge the neoliberal approach to peacebuilding and conservation, they should be designed to serve nature and people, not profit-making businesses, by introducing mechanisms to ensure public participation in decision-making processes and embrace democratic disagreements over the management of the conservation sites.

Adding to this point, from an eco-centric perspective, it is imperative to consider how their coordinated interventions in nature will protect ­– not damage or commodify – the full functioning of ecosystems and the very existence of non-human beings. The Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark certainly is a good practice, but it needs peers to generate more robust cross-border activities. The island of Ireland is at a crossroads. So far, North–South environmental cooperation has played a minor role in building peace between divided communities, as well as human and nature, while the concept of neoliberal peace has actually worsened social and environmental problems ahead of the Irish border. Yet, if Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can accommodate their shared frontier as a place to experiment a path-breaking transboundary conservation project within the framework of environmental peacebuilding, sustainable peace still can be an achievable reality.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department for the Economy.

Notes on contributors

Juneseo Hwang

Juneseo Hwang, PhD researcher currently working on environmental peacebuilding, green criminology, and the politics of sustainability.