Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Governance After Armed Conflict PDF
Preview Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Governance After Armed Conflict
Michael D. Beevers P E A C E B U I L D I N G A N D N A T U R A L R E S O U R C E G O V E R N A N C E A F T E R A R M E D C O N F L I C T Sierra Leone and Liberia Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Governance After Armed Conflict Michael D. Beevers Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Governance After Armed Conflict Sierra Leone and Liberia Michael D. Beevers Department of Environmental Studies Dickinson College Carlisle, PA, USA ISBN 978-3-319-63165-3 ISBN 978-3-319-63166-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63166-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944587 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Lee Karen Stow / Alamy Stock Photo Cover design: Tjaša Krivec Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone… P a reface and cknowledgments This book emerged over time. In the late 1990s, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa. I was far from the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but I distinctly remember listening to BBC and Voice of America reports about the role diamonds were playing in those conflicts. Several years later, I was in graduate school at the University of Washington when the literature linking the environment and natural resources to armed conflict was arguably at its intellectual peak. The more I read, how- ever, the more I kept thinking about my time in the Peace Corps where it appeared, to me at least, that environmental challenges actually brought the people of my little community together, rather than divide them. It was around this time I picked up a copy of Environmental Peacemaking edited by Ken Conca and Geoffrey Dabelko that was not only skeptical of the idea that environmental change triggers war and insecurity, but argued quite the opposite that environmental cooperation could serve to reduce environmentally linked violence and be a catalyst for peace. This was an intriguing (and subversive) idea and one that I felt deserved further study. I wanted to investigate the plausibility that certain environmental or natu- ral resource management initiatives could reduce violence and instability, and perhaps even spin off positive outcomes for peace. As I pursued my doctoral degree, I thought there was no better place to examine this prem- ise than in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where diamonds, timber and other resources were widely believed to have fueled war, and where paradoxically diamonds, timber and other resources were widely believed to be vital for peacebuilding. Of course, my fieldwork took me in directions I had not imagined, and this book goes on to tell a much more complicated story vii viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS than the one I had conjured up in my head. One focused on how interna- tional peacebuilders came to understand the links between natural resources, armed conflict and peace, and the limits of policy interventions that stressed a skewed “security and market” approach. It goes without saying that the ideas that fill this book did not originate in a vacuum. I owe a significant debt of gratitude to the long list of people who have influenced my thinking. Although I cannot list them all here, please know I am more than grateful. I would like to give special shout out to Ken Conca who since my days at the University of Maryland has served as an adviser, mentor and colleague. Thanks, Ken. Geoffrey Dabelko, Richard Matthew, Carl Bruch, Erika Weinthal and Virginia Hoefler have provided encouragement and insight along the way. I have also had many fruitful discussions about the topic of this book at workshops and have benefited from feedback after presentations at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the annual meetings of the International Studies Association and American Political Science Association. Finally, I am indebted to the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as practitio- ners and organizations around the world working at the interface of peace- building and natural resources, who have talked to me openly and with passion. This book could not have been completed without financial support received from a variety of sources. Early fieldwork was funded through the United States Institute of Peace’s Jennings Randolph Peace Scholarship program and a fellowship from the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda at the University of Maryland. I benefited greatly from a sabbatical year as a Visiting Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College. Dickinson College also provided me research funds that have been vital to my work. Several of the ideas presented in this book have appeared in a preliminary form in other publications. I started to develop my thinking as it relates to natural resource governance in Liberia and Sierra Leone in a chapter enti- tled “Forest Resources and Peacebuilding: Preliminary Lessons from Liberia and Sierra Leone” that appeared in Päivi Lujala and Siri Aas Rustad, eds., High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (New York: Routledge, 2012). Initial thoughts in Chap. 5 about international intervention in Liberia’s forest sector appeared as “Peace Resources? Governing Liberia’s Forests in the Aftermath of Conflict” in International Peacekeeping (vol. 22, no. 1, 2015: 26–42). The ideas presented in Chap. 8 that compare interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone build on work that PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT S ix first appeared as “Governing Natural Resources for Peace: Lessons from Liberia and Sierra Leone” in Global Governance (vol. 21, 2015: 227–246). Finally, some of my ideas in Chap. 8 regarding the role of narrative in shap- ing natural resource governance in post-conflict settings were hinted at in “Forest Governance and Post-Conflict Peace in Liberia: Emerging Contestation and Opportunities for Change” in The Extractive Industries and Society (vol. 3, no. 2, 2016: 320–328). The anonymous reviewers at Palgrave Macmillan gave me excellent comments and the editorial team, including Anca Pusca and Katelyn Zingg, have been very helpful in guiding this book to press. Of course, I could not have completed the book without the support of my family. I have spent months and months in the field and many, many hours away from home writing and otherwise preoccupied with the con- tent and publication of this book. Karen, Crosby and Cassidy, thanks for your patience, understanding and love. I hope this book does you proud. c ontents 1 I ntroduction 1 Part I Natural Resources, Armed Conflict and Peacebuilding 17 2 International Peacebuilding: Origins, Development and Strategies 19 3 Natural Resources: A Catalyst for Conflict and Peace? 39 Part II Conflict, Forests and Peacebuilding in Liberia 63 4 From Settlement and State Consolidation to Civil War and “Conflict Timber” 65 5 International Intervention and Post-Conflict Forest Governance 87 xi xii CONTENTS Part III Conflict, Diamonds, Minerals and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone 121 6 Colonialization and One-Party Rule to Civil War and “Conflict Diamonds” 123 7 International Intervention to Govern Diamonds and Minerals 145 Part IV Transforming Conflict Resources into Peace Resources in Liberia and Sierra Leone 181 8 The Limits of Securing and Marketizing Natural Resources and a Way Forward 183 Index 221
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