Geoffrey D. Dabelko
Geoffrey D. Dabelko is a senior advisor to the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, which he directed from 1997 to 2012, and professor and director of the Environmental Studies Program at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs.
He currently works on the Resilience for Peace Project, a Wilson Center effort supported by USAID, and does research focused on climate change, natural resources, and security as well as environmental pathways to confidence- and peace-building, with a special emphasis on water resources.
Geoff is an IPCC lead author for the 5th assessment (Working Group II, Chapter 12 “Human Security”); co-editor of Environmental Peacemaking and Green Planet Blues: Critical Perspectives on Global Environmental Politics; and a member of the UN Environment Program’s Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. He holds an AB in Political Science from Duke University and a PhD in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland.
Twitter: @GeoffDabelko
Email: Dabelkog@Ohio.edu
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In a Time of Competing Crises, Environmental Action Matters More than Ever
›Guest Contributor // June 3, 2022 // By Richard Black, Cedric de Coning, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Hafsa Maalim, Melvis Ndiloseh, Dan Smith & Caspar Trimmer
Last week saw the launch of SIPRI’s major policy report Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk, looking at how to manage the growing risks emerging at the nexus of environmental degradation, peace and security.
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Environmental Defenders Are Being Murdered at an Unprecedented Rate, Says UN Special Rapporteur
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The Earth’s front-line defenders are disappearing at an astonishing rate. On average three environmental activists were killed each week in 2015, according to a recent report from the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. Global Witness, an international NGO that documents natural resource extraction, corruption, and violence, reports a 59 percent increase in deaths last year compared to 2014. In total, 185 killings of environmental defenders were recorded by Global Witness in 2015.
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Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation (ECSP Report 14)
›Amid the growing number of reports warning that climate change could threaten national security, another potentially dangerous – but counterintuitive – dimension has been largely ignored. Could efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and lower our vulnerability to climate change inadvertently exacerbate existing conflicts – or create new ones?
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Seven Ways Seven Billion People Affect the Environment and Security (Policy Brief)
›The Wilson Center Policy Briefs are a series of short analyses of critical global issues facing the next administration that will run until inauguration day.
Seven billion people now live on Earth, only a dozen years after the global population hit six billion. But this milestone is not about sheer numbers. Demographic trends will significantly affect the planet’s resources and people’s security.
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Best of Both Worlds: Moving On, But Staying With ECSP
›August 17, 2012 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
I have a bit of news to share. After 15 years at the Wilson Center, I will be moving back to my home town of Athens, Ohio, next week. This fall I will become a professor at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, where I will serve as director of environmental studies and work in their campus-wide Consortium on Energy, Economics, and the Environment.
I am very pleased that I will continue working as a senior advisor to the Environmental Change and Security Program, as both the university and the Wilson Center are eager for me to stay connected on current projects and foster new collaborations. This new role will certainly evolve over time and I look forward to continuing to work with all of you from this different perch.
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First Impressions: Four Takeaways from the Global Water Security Intelligence Assessment
›March 27, 2012 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
The just-released unclassified National Intelligence Council report on water and security is a very positive contribution to understanding very complex and interconnected ecological, social, economic, and political issues.
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Military-to-Military Environmental Cooperation: Still a Good Idea for China and the United States
›March 1, 2012 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
As Washington begins to assess the recent visit of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become president of China early next year, the search for ways to build confidence between the two powers is on the table yet again.
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What Would It Take To Help People ‘and’ the Planet?
›February 1, 2012 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe original version of this article first appeared in the “Scientist’s Soapbox” column of Momentum magazine’s special issue on “what would it take” to craft solutions to some of the Earth’s toughest challenges.
People living in the most biodiverse areas of the world tend to be poor, isolated, and dependent on natural resources. They often lack reliable access to alternative livelihoods and health services and thus can place stress on these ecologically unique regions.
Conservation efforts will merely slow habitat loss if they don’t fundamentally address the living conditions of the human residents as well as the flora and fauna. But programs to assist these communities have commonly focused on one problem at a time, reflecting the interests of the funders: Environmental groups focus on conservation, while health organizations concentrate on disease. We must ask whether investments to protect biologically rich areas are effective and sustainable if they don’t respond to the many needs of the people who live there.
But the problems faced by people in these remote areas don’t fit our traditional sectors. The way we disburse our funds, divide our bureaucracies, demarcate our disciplines, and measure success ignores the reality of intersecting needs. Such stovepiping can disrespect the communities’ scarce resources, especially their time. It can waste development aid on duplicate supplies and staff. And it can lead us to miss how the solution to one problem (e.g., providing antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS) can be undercut by another (e.g., lacking access to safe water with which to take the pills).
So, what would it take to help particularly vulnerable populations while protecting particularly important ecological systems?
We need to strategically target our help by addressing HELP – health, environment, livelihoods, and population – through a truly integrated approach to sustainable development in these areas. Evidence suggests tackling problems concurrently can be more efficient and effective. Key donors such as the U.S. Agency for International Development are increasingly prioritizing integrated responses, providing some funding for sustainable development innovators and supporting evaluation of the results. But we need more evidence that these efforts can achieve results that match or exceed the outcomes of single-sector projects. To rigorously test this approach, more projects must be funded, implemented and analyzed, over longer periods of time and at bigger scales.
To date, some promising projects and research in diverse locations – Ethiopia, Nepal, Madagascar, Rwanda, the Philippines, and Uganda – suggest that the HELP approach offers greater benefits than traditional programs.
In the Philippines, for example, the PATH Foundation Philippines’ Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) program addresses pressing needs for both family planning services and sustainable environmental stewardship in densely populated coastal communities, where local fisheries have been depleted because of increased demand for food. IPOPCORM helps create marine protected areas and promotes alternative economic livelihoods such as seaweed harvesting, thus allowing critical local fish stocks to recover. Concurrently, the initiative mitigates human-induced pressures on the environment and lowers the vulnerability of this underserved population by providing voluntary family planning services. Since its launch in 2001, the IPOPCORM program’s approach has yielded measurable benefits, simultaneously reducing program costs and improving health and environmental outcomes – and outperforming compartmentalized, side-by-side sector interventions.
How can we bring HELP to biodiversity-rich communities? First, we can encourage scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to step outside their stovepipes by producing and distributing manuals, for example, based on lessons learned from existing cross-disciplinary projects. Second, we must bridge the gap between analysis and field-based programs by developing new metrics that better assess the impact of integrated programs. Third, we must open up bureaucratic funding structures by demonstrating not only the short-term savings but also the synergies that bolster long-term sustainability.
The challenges are significant, but I see promising new opportunities for overcoming them. For example, the new Pathfinder International-led projects around Lake Victoria in Uganda and Kenya mark the entry of a respected health organization into the environmental arena and the return of a leading private funder – the MacArthur Foundation – to HELP programs. With some of Africa’s highest population densities, poverty, ethnic diversity, and biodiversity, the Great Lakes region is one of the most volatile intersections of human development and environmental change.
Through these and other community-based, integrated projects, we can truly help people and the planet at the same time.
Photo Credit: “Boy on road east of Addis,” courtesy of Geoff Dabelko/Wilson Center.
