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Maria Andrea Nardi

Maria Andrea Nardi

Senior Lecturer

Maria Andrea Nardi

Environmental defenders work to maintain the peacebuilding role of nature in Northern Uganda

Author

  • Maria Andrea Nardi

Summary, in English

In recent years, there has been a ‘crackdown’ against environmental defenders across Uganda. Journalists, students, farmers, and rural dwellers are defending the natural environment, protesting and mobilizing against unfair treatment and forced displacements brought by fossil fuel infrastructures, agribusiness, hydropower, or carbon offsetting. This has pitted authorities and large-scale capital against environmental defenders who are seeking to protect the natural environment against profit-driven corporations that seek to expand the resource extraction frontier into new geographical areas. In this context, and fifteen years after the end of the armed conflict in Northern Uganda, we question whether peace can be sustainable in this region of the country. To fully comprehend current disputes over land or the defence of the natural environment, it is necessary to observe how nature is integrated into peacebuilding and development policies. This is because there is often a narrow understanding on how local communities integrate the natural environment in their everyday life. Three issues stand out in relation to the contributions nature can make to foster sustainable peace and development in Northern Uganda beyond its role in income generation by resource exploitation. The natural environment is relevant for peace because it works as a (a) semiotic system, (b) public space, and (c) reconciliation means.

Department/s

  • Department of Human Geography
  • Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

Publishing year

2024-03-18

Language

English

Publication/Series

Peace News Network

Document type

Newspaper article

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • envieronmental defenders
  • Uganda
  • environmental peacebuilding
  • peacebuilding
  • resource extraction
  • extractivism
  • value of nature
  • North Uganda
  • nature

Status

Published

Project

  • The Nature of Peace – The dynamics between post-conflict peacebuilding and environmental protection
  • Environmental Human Rights Defenders – Change Agents at the Crossroads of Climate change, Biodiversity and Cultural Conservation