ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the structural conditions of environmental threats generated by modem political economy, and the impact of competition for scarce resources on inter-group relations. It discusses how environmental conflict can be managed to prevent violence, and investigates obstacles to environmental conflict resolution. Environmental security is affected by a variety of activities made at different levels of a social system. Environmental conflict belongs to the core of peace research through its efforts to understand the sources of violence and conflict. In a broad notion of national security, environmental issues have also been linked to the causes of violent conflict which require outside military intervention. Securitisation of the environment is related to the questions of what needs to be protected as well as who defines security for the environment. Securitisation of the environment is qualitatively different from controlling military threats. In the political ecology of modern history, organised violence was used to bring about large scale environmental changes.
