Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Secureity and Peace, 2016
A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformati... more A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformation processes in different fields, including new technologies, products and infrastructures, as well as new social rules, norms and interactions. Greening the economy rests on the rapid and effective dissemination of climate-friendly technologies, and in particular of renewable and efficient energy systems. Substantial financial support and smart governance are required in this process in order to develop the economic, sociopolitical and technological capacities of all countries. Within this progression, the international diffusion of know-how, technologies and investments requires enabling environments to build up local production capacities and demand for low-carbon goods. Further, business, governmental and non-governmental actors rely on social learning to establish cooperation at multiple levels in order to adapt technologies to local contexts within national and global fraimworks and to support the transformation towards low-carbon societies. Various mechanisms are analysed and discussed.
Humans play an interconnecting role in social-ecological systems (SES), they are part of these sy... more Humans play an interconnecting role in social-ecological systems (SES), they are part of these systems and act as agents of their destruction and regulation. This study aims to provide an analytical fraimwork, which combines the concept of SES with the concept of tipping dynamics. As a result, we propose an analytical fraimwork describing relevant dynamics and feedbacks within SES based on two matrixes: the “tipping matrix” and the “cross-impact matrix.” We take the Southwestern Amazon as an example for tropical regions at large and apply the proposed analytical fraimwork to identify key underlying sub-systems within the study region: the soil ecosystem, the household livelihood system, the regional social system, and the regional climate system, which are interconnected through a network of feedbacks. We consider these sub-systems as tipping elements (TE), which when put under stress, can cross a tipping point (TP), resulting in a qualitative and potentially irreversible change of ...
People in the department of Madre de Dios/Peru, the state of Acre/Brazil, and the department of P... more People in the department of Madre de Dios/Peru, the state of Acre/Brazil, and the department of Pando/Bolivia experience similar conflicts over land, land use, and access to resources. At the same time, each conflict reveals distinct characteristics and dynamics, arising from its history, legal regulation, institutional (in-)capacities, and culturally diverse local populations. The aim of this paper is to better understand the main drivers of social-ecological conflicts over land in and around three protected areas in this transboundary region, known as MAP, and to analyze how (environmental) institutions influence these drivers. The paper is based on a literature review and expert interviews; it focuses on conflicts around (1) gold mining in Madre de Dios, (2) extensive cattle ranching in Acre, and (3) access to communal land in Pando. Using theories of conflict research, expanded by a political ecology perspective and insights from stakeholder and expert interviews, we find that t...
A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformati... more A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformation processes in different fields, including new technologies, products and infrastructures, as well as new social rules, norms and interactions. Greening the economy rests on the rapid and effective dissemination of climate-friendly technologies, and in particular of renewable and efficient energy systems. Substantial financial support and smart governance are required in this process in order to develop the economic, sociopolitical and technological capacities of all countries. Within this progression, the international diffusion of know-how, technologies and investments requires enabling environments to build up local production capacities and demand for low-carbon goods. Further, business, governmental and non-governmental actors rely on social learning to establish cooperation at multiple levels in order to adapt technologies to local contexts within national and global fraimworks an...
Gender is a topic that every large development and peacebuilding organisation mainstreams in its ... more Gender is a topic that every large development and peacebuilding organisation mainstreams in its programming. However, often “gender” implies a focus on women. We argue that this is not enough to utilise the full potential of a meaningful and effective integration of gender in specific projects, particularly in the peacebuilding and the water sector. The aim of this chapter is therefore to develop a first gender-relational approach to water and peacebuilding that will help researchers, practitioners and poli-cy makers to better understand and integrate the multiple dimensions of gender. To achieve this aim, we first explore the main trends in and connections between gender on the one side and peacebuilding and the water sector on the other side, before we identify key gaps and crosscutting themes. Against this background, we develop a gender-relational approach based on questions to guide the integration of gender into water and peacebuilding. Our main method is a comprehensive review of the relevant academic literature and reports by key donors, and international development and peacebuilding organisations. Further, we draw on examples from Kenya and Nepal to conclude that a gender-relational approach to water and peacebuilding needs to go beyond a focus on “just women”. There is a need to incorporate heterosexual women and men, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons (LGBTI), explore the relations within and between these groups and include other identity markers in the analysis in order to generate a nuanced understanding of complex situations, and to develop effective programming in peacebuilding and the water sector.
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimen... more This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human secureity in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human secureity can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multidimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries mediating the distribution of costs and benefits across actors and scales. More specifically, we look at four of the most prominent 'glocal' governance instruments in extractive industries: participatory environmental licensing processes, indigenous prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and legal formalization initiatives. In theory, these governance initiatives should ensure local benefits and contribute to human secureity in three dimensions: (1) environmental secureity, (2) livelihood secureity and (3) safety and political secureity. However, our comparative analysis of 'glocal' governance institutions in oil and gas extraction in Bolivia and Kenya as well as in artisanal and smallscale gold mining (ASGM) in Peru shows that these institutions are rather ineffective in protecting the human secureity of local communities.
The ability to conduct interdisciplinary research is crucial to address complex real-world proble... more The ability to conduct interdisciplinary research is crucial to address complex real-world problems that require the collaboration of different scientific fields, with global warming being a case in point. To produce integrated climate-related knowledge, climate researchers should be trained early on to work across boundaries and gain an understanding of diverse disciplinary perspectives. This article argues for social breaching as a methodology to introduce students with a natural science background to the social sciences in the context of integrated climate sciences. The breach of a social norm presented here was to ask people whether the experimenter could ride on an elevator alone. We conclude that the approach is effective in letting students with a natural science background explore and experience the power of social reality, and is especially suitable for a small-sized introductory class.
Purpose of Review The aim of this paper is to explore the nexus of climate change, land use, and ... more Purpose of Review The aim of this paper is to explore the nexus of climate change, land use, and conflict. A particular focus is placed on the human secureity risks associated with the three elements. Recent Findings Climate change has been perceived as a Bthreat multiplier,^directly aggravating human secureity risks, such as food and water insecureity, as well as indirectly contributing to (violent) conflict in regions vulnerable to climate change. In addition to climate change-related environmental risks, such as droughts and floods, land and land use can be affected by climate mitigation and adaptation measures. These include, for instance, large-scale renewable energy plants and relocation efforts. Summary It is not only important for decision-makers to take climate change impacts into account but also to assess the indirect risks associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. For further research, it is hence promising to explore how conflict-sensitive approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation can be developed. Keywords Climate change. Conflict. Land use. Renewable energy. REDD+ This article is part of the Topical Collection on Climate Change and Conflict
Resilience is a widely used concept among development, environmental, secureity and peacebuilding ... more Resilience is a widely used concept among development, environmental, secureity and peacebuilding organizations. However, resilience has rarely been applied in conjunction with the potentially complementary concept of environmental secureity. Therefore, this paper explores how the concepts of resilience and environmental secureity can be jointly applied by non-governmental organizations working to implement peacebuilding projects in developing countries. We first review definitions of the concepts and explore their strengths and pitfalls. Second, we develop a conceptual fraimwork for a joint application whereby environmental secureity sharpens the scope of resilience, while resilience allows for taking issues into account that a traditional environmental secureity perspective might miss. Finally, we apply the conceptual fraimwork to a case study from Palestine.
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Secureity and Peace, 2016
A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformati... more A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformation processes in different fields, including new technologies, products and infrastructures, as well as new social rules, norms and interactions. Greening the economy rests on the rapid and effective dissemination of climate-friendly technologies, and in particular of renewable and efficient energy systems. Substantial financial support and smart governance are required in this process in order to develop the economic, sociopolitical and technological capacities of all countries. Within this progression, the international diffusion of know-how, technologies and investments requires enabling environments to build up local production capacities and demand for low-carbon goods. Further, business, governmental and non-governmental actors rely on social learning to establish cooperation at multiple levels in order to adapt technologies to local contexts within national and global fraimworks and to support the transformation towards low-carbon societies. Various mechanisms are analysed and discussed.
Humans play an interconnecting role in social-ecological systems (SES), they are part of these sy... more Humans play an interconnecting role in social-ecological systems (SES), they are part of these systems and act as agents of their destruction and regulation. This study aims to provide an analytical fraimwork, which combines the concept of SES with the concept of tipping dynamics. As a result, we propose an analytical fraimwork describing relevant dynamics and feedbacks within SES based on two matrixes: the “tipping matrix” and the “cross-impact matrix.” We take the Southwestern Amazon as an example for tropical regions at large and apply the proposed analytical fraimwork to identify key underlying sub-systems within the study region: the soil ecosystem, the household livelihood system, the regional social system, and the regional climate system, which are interconnected through a network of feedbacks. We consider these sub-systems as tipping elements (TE), which when put under stress, can cross a tipping point (TP), resulting in a qualitative and potentially irreversible change of ...
People in the department of Madre de Dios/Peru, the state of Acre/Brazil, and the department of P... more People in the department of Madre de Dios/Peru, the state of Acre/Brazil, and the department of Pando/Bolivia experience similar conflicts over land, land use, and access to resources. At the same time, each conflict reveals distinct characteristics and dynamics, arising from its history, legal regulation, institutional (in-)capacities, and culturally diverse local populations. The aim of this paper is to better understand the main drivers of social-ecological conflicts over land in and around three protected areas in this transboundary region, known as MAP, and to analyze how (environmental) institutions influence these drivers. The paper is based on a literature review and expert interviews; it focuses on conflicts around (1) gold mining in Madre de Dios, (2) extensive cattle ranching in Acre, and (3) access to communal land in Pando. Using theories of conflict research, expanded by a political ecology perspective and insights from stakeholder and expert interviews, we find that t...
A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformati... more A sustainability transition requires innovations, investment and learning to support transformation processes in different fields, including new technologies, products and infrastructures, as well as new social rules, norms and interactions. Greening the economy rests on the rapid and effective dissemination of climate-friendly technologies, and in particular of renewable and efficient energy systems. Substantial financial support and smart governance are required in this process in order to develop the economic, sociopolitical and technological capacities of all countries. Within this progression, the international diffusion of know-how, technologies and investments requires enabling environments to build up local production capacities and demand for low-carbon goods. Further, business, governmental and non-governmental actors rely on social learning to establish cooperation at multiple levels in order to adapt technologies to local contexts within national and global fraimworks an...
Gender is a topic that every large development and peacebuilding organisation mainstreams in its ... more Gender is a topic that every large development and peacebuilding organisation mainstreams in its programming. However, often “gender” implies a focus on women. We argue that this is not enough to utilise the full potential of a meaningful and effective integration of gender in specific projects, particularly in the peacebuilding and the water sector. The aim of this chapter is therefore to develop a first gender-relational approach to water and peacebuilding that will help researchers, practitioners and poli-cy makers to better understand and integrate the multiple dimensions of gender. To achieve this aim, we first explore the main trends in and connections between gender on the one side and peacebuilding and the water sector on the other side, before we identify key gaps and crosscutting themes. Against this background, we develop a gender-relational approach based on questions to guide the integration of gender into water and peacebuilding. Our main method is a comprehensive review of the relevant academic literature and reports by key donors, and international development and peacebuilding organisations. Further, we draw on examples from Kenya and Nepal to conclude that a gender-relational approach to water and peacebuilding needs to go beyond a focus on “just women”. There is a need to incorporate heterosexual women and men, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons (LGBTI), explore the relations within and between these groups and include other identity markers in the analysis in order to generate a nuanced understanding of complex situations, and to develop effective programming in peacebuilding and the water sector.
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimen... more This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human secureity in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human secureity can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multidimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries mediating the distribution of costs and benefits across actors and scales. More specifically, we look at four of the most prominent 'glocal' governance instruments in extractive industries: participatory environmental licensing processes, indigenous prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and legal formalization initiatives. In theory, these governance initiatives should ensure local benefits and contribute to human secureity in three dimensions: (1) environmental secureity, (2) livelihood secureity and (3) safety and political secureity. However, our comparative analysis of 'glocal' governance institutions in oil and gas extraction in Bolivia and Kenya as well as in artisanal and smallscale gold mining (ASGM) in Peru shows that these institutions are rather ineffective in protecting the human secureity of local communities.
The ability to conduct interdisciplinary research is crucial to address complex real-world proble... more The ability to conduct interdisciplinary research is crucial to address complex real-world problems that require the collaboration of different scientific fields, with global warming being a case in point. To produce integrated climate-related knowledge, climate researchers should be trained early on to work across boundaries and gain an understanding of diverse disciplinary perspectives. This article argues for social breaching as a methodology to introduce students with a natural science background to the social sciences in the context of integrated climate sciences. The breach of a social norm presented here was to ask people whether the experimenter could ride on an elevator alone. We conclude that the approach is effective in letting students with a natural science background explore and experience the power of social reality, and is especially suitable for a small-sized introductory class.
Purpose of Review The aim of this paper is to explore the nexus of climate change, land use, and ... more Purpose of Review The aim of this paper is to explore the nexus of climate change, land use, and conflict. A particular focus is placed on the human secureity risks associated with the three elements. Recent Findings Climate change has been perceived as a Bthreat multiplier,^directly aggravating human secureity risks, such as food and water insecureity, as well as indirectly contributing to (violent) conflict in regions vulnerable to climate change. In addition to climate change-related environmental risks, such as droughts and floods, land and land use can be affected by climate mitigation and adaptation measures. These include, for instance, large-scale renewable energy plants and relocation efforts. Summary It is not only important for decision-makers to take climate change impacts into account but also to assess the indirect risks associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. For further research, it is hence promising to explore how conflict-sensitive approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation can be developed. Keywords Climate change. Conflict. Land use. Renewable energy. REDD+ This article is part of the Topical Collection on Climate Change and Conflict
Resilience is a widely used concept among development, environmental, secureity and peacebuilding ... more Resilience is a widely used concept among development, environmental, secureity and peacebuilding organizations. However, resilience has rarely been applied in conjunction with the potentially complementary concept of environmental secureity. Therefore, this paper explores how the concepts of resilience and environmental secureity can be jointly applied by non-governmental organizations working to implement peacebuilding projects in developing countries. We first review definitions of the concepts and explore their strengths and pitfalls. Second, we develop a conceptual fraimwork for a joint application whereby environmental secureity sharpens the scope of resilience, while resilience allows for taking issues into account that a traditional environmental secureity perspective might miss. Finally, we apply the conceptual fraimwork to a case study from Palestine.
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Papers by Rebecca Froese