Military think green and greens think security

As land degradation proceeds at alarming speed, and world population rises, anyone thinking sustainably is bound to worry that lack of land to produce food on is going to create conflicts.

From the CAUX dialogue meeting: land degradation and conflict zones coincide.

And conflicts spill over to other countries. So any military in the world is bound to be looking at the risk of food shortages and conflict reaching their territory.

This was plainly clear at the recent conference on Lives, Land and Peace held by the same organisation in the same place that saw the attempts at peaceful reconciliation after the Second World War. The place is Caux, Switzerland, and the organisation Initiatives of Change.

(See Signals of Change strategic newsletter based on the conference)

We enter this year a new paradigm: the world (in business as usual mode) is having trouble supporting the 7 billion inhabitants and is going to see further conflicts if the food situation is not solved.

This was one of the threads that emerged at the recent conference. And a thread likely to emerge, possibly as the dominant narrative at next year’s world exhibition in Milan. (The theme is feeding the planet, energy for life.)

Both “greens” – people thinking sustainably – and military are on the same page. And both have complementary skills. The sustainability community possesses skills like conflict resolution, dialogue, land restoration strategies, methodology to survive and grow food in drylands and other harsh conditions.

The military possess intelligence gathering – including meteorology. And the military have the capability to mobilize engineering forces to, for example, do earth moving.

Business will be affected, too. New opportunities threats will arise.

One of the areas we at Stephen Hinton consulting consider is food security. If every corporation did what it could to, along the whole of the supply chain, assist with creating food security, it could provide a massive support to peace.

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