Conflicts

ISSUES

War and the environment

In 2007, 67 of the 328 conflicts in the world (of variable intensity) were linked to natural resources. Most were in Africa and Asia. (1) These conflicts were sometimes about the ownership of certain resources. Conversely, resources could also be used to fund conflicts. The two sides of the problem were often linked.
Wars over resources
There are many examples of wars over resources. The colonial conquests were obviously aimed at seizing more wealth. More recently, during the First Gulf War, Iraq invaded Kuwait to take over its oil and currency reserves. Such conflicts have occurred on all the continents, and not only between North and South. Thus, in the Saltpetre war, around the turn of the 1880s, Chile, Peru and Bolivia were fighting over the control of nitrate reserves among other things. (4)

NEWS

Sorry, most of the news are only available in French language for the moment.

SOUTH AFRICA - JOHANNESBURG - Armes dernier cri, hélicoptères, lunettes à infrarouge, gilets pare-balles, tranquillisants: des...

BOTSWANA - Africa's oldest inhabitants pitched against autocratic Botswana government are forced to truck water 300 miles across...

CYPRUS - Turkey signed an agreement Monday with the the breakaway Turkish statelet in Cyprus on a long-standing project to build...

Univers GoodPlanet par Netvibes

DEBATES

The Sino-Indian Water Divide

Brahma Chellaney

As its power grows, China seems determined to choke off Asian competitors, a tendency reflected in its hardening stance toward...

Will the Jordan River Keep on Flowing?

The River Jordan has flowed freely for thousands of years,...

Climate Change and Water Security

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently...

INITIATIVE

The Great Mother of the hornbills

She has managed to turn poachers and illegal woodcutters into guardians of nature. For many long years, Pilai Poonswad, a microbiologist and professor emerita at Bangkok University, held endless talks with the Muslim communities in southern Thailand. The aim: to...

VIDEOS

08/07/2010	Face au problème du prix du café, l'association Ubuntu aide les habitants...	01/06/2010	The Sunderbans forest in Bangladesh is home to the world's largest tiger...
26/05/2010	Three decades ago the Chagos islanders were forced from their homes by an...	04/05/2010	Près de 33 000 enfants et adolescents démobilisés entre 2004 et 2009, 90%...

GREEN TIPS

Water and peace in the Middle East

In Israel, Gidon Bromberg, the director of ecoPeace – Friends of the Earth in the Middle East, brings...

INDICATORS

Ecological footprint

CHECK OUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD ON OUR 3D GLOBE