ABSTRACT
Evidence has concluded that under certain conditions, natural resources can trigger armed conflict. Over the last two decades, natural resource governance reforms have been implemented by international actors and national governments to end conflicts and assist the difficult task of building peace. I argue in this chapter that these governance reforms have overwhelmingly focused on two objectives: security and development. While these reforms deserve some credit for ending the plunder of natural resources, they are limited in their ability to foster a deep-seated peace and contain “blind spots” that make peacebuilding more challenging. The reforms, for example, run the risk of recreating the very systems that led to exploitation, exclusion, and corruption. What is needed is a more holistic environmental peacebuilding agenda that infuses security and development objectives with measures to improve environmental protection, sustainable livelihoods, and human rights.
