Rebel Environmental Governance in Conflict Zones

This open access book focuses on one form of environmental stress with high societal impacts and often far-reaching political implications: disasters such as droughts, floods, landslides, and storms. Environmental degradation, climate change, and armed conflict are key challenges of the twenty-first century. Areas characterized by violence and fragility are also highly vulnerable to environmental stress. An extensive literature has shown that non-state actors, including armed groups, frequently provide order and take on governance roles in conflict zones. So far, however, comprehensive analyses of rebel environmental governance are lacking. The authors address this shortcoming in two steps. First, the authors develop a theoretical framework focused on the practices, purposes (or motivations), and problems of rebel environmental governance. Second, the authors provide an empirical analysis of environmental governance by three armed groups: the CPN-M/PA in Nepal, the CPP/NPA in the Philippines, and the FARC/EP in Colombia. Based on interviews with former combatants and secondary sources, the authors conclude that rebels can be important actors in environmental (and specifically disaster) governance, particularly in contexts where the government is unable or unwilling to provide disaster risk reduction. Key purposes of such governance were legitimacy gains and a transformation of society, even though strategic advantages played a role as well. Due to these goals as well as limited capabilities, rebels focused on recovery and particularly response actions.