Green Militarization and Militarized Landscapes
My work has stood at the forefront of a growing academic, practitioner, and activist interest in green militarization. Understood as ‘the use of military and paramilitary (military-like) actors, techniques, technologies, and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation (Lunstrum 2023),’ a global embrace of green militarization is transforming conservation in general and particularly in response to the illegal wildlife trade. While my early work chronicled the resurgence and intensification of green militarization in Southern Africa, my current work has begun to explore how it shapes conservation technologies like drones, and what it might take to demilitarize conservation. Work in this area has also sparked my growing interest in Militarized Landscapes, which considers the broader relationship between conflict and environmental change. Working with my colleague Lisa Brady, our work examines militarized landscapes as landscapes and related environmental processes that are transformed by political hostilities and broader military build-up as well as landscapes transformed by biodiversity loss and climate change, which can generate conflict.
LIBBY LUNSTRUM 