Environmental Peacebuilding, Indigenous Epistemologies and Experience: Learning From Ruptures and Resilience in Solomon Islands

Abstract

Environmental peacebuilding, as a construct and practice, holds potential to recognise environmental conflicts and respond to them; however, indigenous perspectives can be obscured in its related processes, projects and reviews. This article draws on in depth research by the authors from within indigenous communities in the Solomon Islands to compare local experiences of environmental rupture, conflict and change. This comparison of local experience is integrated with analysis of colonial, neocolonial and globalisation factors to link local environmental conflicts with global and national governance, global extractive and agricultural industries, and security and governance interventions with local conflict conditions. This article argues for a reorientation of the field towards decolonising knowledge, through drawing on indigenous epistemologies and ontologies to frame and respond to environmental conflicts, and therefore peacebuilding. In doing so, space can be opened to recognise the unique relationship of indigenous people with terrestrial and marine areas, and the unacknowledged culpability and responsibilities of actors at national and global levels in fostering environmental conflicts.