Hear from a diverse range of Ford School professors on how their fields of policy intersect with the environment.
Transcript:
Happy Earth Day.
I'm John Ciorciari and
I teach mostly about
international politics and policy
here at the Ford School.
And environmental issues
come up often in my work.
I'm looking at a variety of
post-conflict or
fragile states and how
international
interventions can help or
hurt in the process toward
building a lasting peace.
And very often,
environmental management or
mismanagement is a key
factor in that process.
A country I work a lot on
is Cambodia and so I'll use
that as an example of a few
of the ways that I think the
environment is so relevant
to the study of
international politics
and peace-building.
In that country, you have a
government in power
that has moved in
a more authoritarian direction
in recent years and has
also gotten closer and
closer to, to China.
In spring it's
national development.
And the mode of development
that Cambodia is
chosen is one that has a lot
of adverse environmental effects.
In particular,
large-scale investment
and hydro power along
the Mekong river.
Cultivation of huge
tracts of land for
palm oil plantations and
deforestation of large areas
of the Northwest near
the Thai border.
And each of those three areas
of economic activity
have resulted
in considerable environmental
harms that have
affected nearby communities and
in the downstream
parts of the Mekong,
where people have relied on
the flow of that river
for generations,
for their livelihoods,
for fishing.
And, and now find that
the river's course
is altered and that
their livelihoods are destroyed
and sometimes they have to
move away to, to other places.
In the palm oil context
where some of that
chemical runoff and,
and just the taking
of land itself
displaces communities that
have lived there for,
for hundreds of years.
And in the case of deforestation,
you have the destruction
of flora and
fauna and in ways
that again, have,
have caused a real hardship
for communities who lived
in the upland areas of
Cambodia for as long as
anyone can remember,
all of those problems have,
have fed into broad,
popular dissatisfaction
with the government,
which in turn has
meant that they haven't been as
willing to vote for
the incumbent regime.
And the incumbent regime seeing
less need for, sorry,
seeing less prospect,
they would win at the
polls as resorted more to,
to bribery and
violence to be able
to maintain its
position and power.
And so a peace process
that's existed in
Cambodia for about a
quarter of a century is under
serious challenge in
no small part because
of environmental issues and
the human consequences thereof.
So I'm really excited about
the initiative that you
have here for Earth Day and to
look at all of the
intersections that
the environment has
across policy domains.
I look forward to
speaking with any of you
who are interested
about this topic.
And again, wish you a happy Earth Day.