Trust after Betrayal Research Brief Series

Environmental Peacebuilding (EPB) is an approach seeking to leverage shared environmental challenges in conflict zones to foster cooperation, trust, and sustainable peace. This Research Brief highlights the potential role of formerly armed actors (FAAs) as key stakeholders in this process, positing that, under specific conditions, they can be leaders in restorative actions for enduring conflict transformation and security building. It also addresses crucial concerns in implementing EPB like the depoliticisation of its processes, displacement of populations, the deligimisation of the state and the reproduction of existing power imbalances. Moreover, it delves into the risks that involving FAAs in this delicate process yields, and proposes ways to incorporate them as equal actors in a democratised multi-level and multistakeholder EPB.