Environmental Peace Building between India and Pakistan

After nearly a decade, India’s External Affairs Minister is visiting Pakistan this week to attend the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Although both countries have downplayed any prospects of peace talks between the nuclear powers at this meeting, it is time to find strong reasons to strengthen relations. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to an organization that warned of the dangers of nuclear war and South Asia remains one of the hardest hit areas for such a conflagration. Indeed, if the leaders of India and Pakistan really make peace, there is no doubt that they would receive the Nobel Peace prize!

So, what chance would there be of a confrontation between these two countries whose bellicose militaries keep them relevant to domestic green populism? I would argue that sharing a common environment and the immediate threats of environmental disasters provide the easiest non-political way to at least begin to engage constructively in the interests of peace. Science and environmental conservation can provide what is called a “higher goal” for cooperation in conflict resolution narratives.

Despite being a region of great conflict, South Asia has a fascinating history of scientific dialogue, mainly because of its unique ecology and navigation of the world’s highest mountains. The International Institute for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is an example of such an organization that has been supported by various donors since its creation in 1979. Various European donors under the initiative of UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere program strengthened this movement. which has encouraged scientific discussions around the region.

The diplomatic mission in Kathmandu Nepal has been an advantage as it has allowed Indians and Pakistanis to travel and meet in neutral territory without onerous visa requirements. ICIMOD has also developed a “cross-border strategy” that aims to develop conservation corridors across borders. Although this strategy has been widely used in sensitive areas with demilitarized borders such as the Kanchenjunga district between Nepal, India and Bhutan, there are prospects for its wider application in diplomatic missions and elsewhere. of the border.

More than fifteen years ago, the United States Government sponsored a series of joint protests for Indian and Pakistani military veterans such as Brigadier Asad Hakeem and Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal to work on such a project. science-based peace to resolve the Siachen Conflict. Their reports were published under the auspices of Sandia National Labs in 2007. I had the good fortune to spend time with the former Air Marshall of India, Nanda Cariappa while working on the anthology. Places of Peace published by MIT Press. He he also advocated such an approach in his chapter that contributes to this book almost simultaneously focusing on scientific cooperation and environmental risk reduction for the Riparian countries of the Himalayas. Recently, experts have also linked this approach to solving the Siachen dispute with a joint effort in eco-tourism.

The ICIMOD Secretariat has been the focal point of other scientific cooperation initiatives and meetings. For example, the development economics community led by Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University has hosted the training programs of the South Asia Network of Development and Environment Economists (SANDEE) at ICIMOD for many years. Since the secretariat of the South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is also in Kathmandu, there has also been a link between the two organizations. However, it is important to note that the SAARC energy center is based in Islamabad so Pakistan can also play an important role in gathering scientific discussions on energy and environmental issues.

Predating SAARC is the South Asia Cooperative Environmental Program (SACEP) based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The fact that SCEP was established before any other regional cooperation organization shows how important environmental factors can be in providing a neutral space for parties that may not be and strong diplomatic relations. SACEP continues to hold training programs and workshops but its full scientific communication capacity has not yet been reached.

All South Asian countries are signatories to many international environmental agreements. Many of these agreements contain provisions for environmental cooperation and data sharing for scientific purposes. Even bilateral agreements such as the Indus Waters treaty between India and Pakistan have provisions for sharing data for better water or environmental management. Although the IWT was not designed to be an environmental treaty and may require many science-based changes to allow such an approach, we have sufficient institutional capacity to use multilateral treaties for improved scientific communication.

An example of this is the Ramsar Convention on wetlands protection with a provision for transboundary wetlands. The Indus Delta region has high conservation value for biodiversity as well as the importance of mangrove forests for climate resilience. This extended area of ​​land is shared between Pakistan and India and is the subject of a pre-Partition territorial dispute between the former Princely states (The Sir Creek Dispute). Science-based cooperation within the mandates of the Ramsar convention can provide both countries with a non-political strategy to resolve this dispute as well as reduce the vulnerability of this important coastal area between the economically important states of Sindh and Gujarat on both sides of the border.

World governments concerned about conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine should pay more attention to South Asia. This is the most densely populated area in the world and a shocking coexistence of unspeakable wealth and abject poverty. It is also the place where many seeds of terrorism took root and affected the West in bad ways. Finding ways to build trust and peace in this region through environmental means must be the most important thing not only for the two adversaries but for the international community as a whole.