1 Answers
Environmental conflicts are social conflicts over environmental degradation and management of environmental resources. Usually several parties are involved, including environmental defenders who want to protect the environment, and those who want to or are using the environment for something else, typically extractive industry. The manager of the environmental resources may be causing overuse or extraction of a renewable resource , causing overstrain on the ability of the environment to respond to pollution and other inputs, or degrading the living space for humans and nature.
Frequently these conflicts focus on environmental justice issues related to the rights of indigenous people, the rights of peasants or threats to other livelihoods, such as those of fisherfolk or communities dependent on the natural resources of the ocean. Environmental conflict, especially in contexts where communities have been displaced to create environmental migrants or geopolitical disputes, can amplify the complexity of other conflicts, violence or response to natural disaster.
Ecological distribution conflicts are caused by the unfair distribution of environmental costs and benefits. These conflicts arise from social inequality, contested claims over territory, the proliferation of extractive industries, and the impacts of the industrialization of the economy over the past centuries. Oil, coal, mining, and agriculture industries are focal points of environmental conflicts, which involve actors such as locally affected communities, states, companies and investors, and social or environmental movements.
The terms socio-environmental conflict, environmental conflict, or EDCs are sometimes used interchangeably. The study of EDCs is related to the fields of ecological economics, political ecology, and environmental justice.