Research, part of a special feature on The Nature of Peace: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and its Implications for Environment and Livelihoods

INTRODUCTION

The patterns, frequency and intensity of vegetation fires are often studied from biophysical perspectives, outlining the impacts of climate, vegetation, and proximity to human settlements on fire regimes (Ganteaume et al. 2013, Jolly et al. 2015, Lasslop and Kloster 2017, Rogers et al. 2020). The sociopolitical and historical dimensions of vegetation fires are sometimes addressed, for example how forest fire suppression policies have led to increased risk of large wildfires and the role of traditional Indigenous knowledges in managing fire risk (Russell-Smith et al. 2013, Schmidt et al. 2018, Eloy et al. 2019, Sousa et al. 2022). The role of armed conflict in the occurrence and spread of vegetation fires is an issue gaining more attention, in some cases suggesting linkages between increased conflict and the occurrence of fires (Levin et al. 2016, Dinc 2021, Dinc et al. 2021, Eklund et al. 2021, Schon et al. 2021, Zubkova et al. 2021, Jaafar et al. 2022). In our previous research, we focused extensively on aspects of environmental destruction or degradation in different parts of Kurdistan, a region that is spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey (Eklund and Seaquist 2015, Eklund et al. 2016, 2017, 2021, Dinc 2021, Dinc et al. 2021). In Turkey, the number of forest fires increased in the conflict areas after 2015 and the collapse of the peace process between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK; Dinc et al. 2021). In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), increases in the number of vegetation fires have been identified in relation to two different conflicts dominating the KRI between 2014 and 2019, showing the different patterns of the Turkey–PKK conflict and the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq conflict in terms of impact on land (Eklund et al. 2021).

The transboundary nature of vegetation fires and their effects is becoming increasingly acknowledged (Miller et al. 2022, Pismel et al. 2023). Smoke and fires crossing boundaries constitute important societal challenges, including health impacts, transport disruptions, and the effects on infrastructure and the regional economy, suggesting the need for a new type of fire governance. Strengthening institutional capacities and involving local communities in vegetation fire governance are highlighted as important for improved transboundary wildfire governance in southwestern Amazonia (Pismel et al. 2023). An example of transboundary collaboration between scholars and experts with the purpose of enhancing wildfire suppression in protected areas is provided by Zaimes et al. (2016), whose study reportedly led to increased cooperation among scholars and experts across the Black Sea region around wildfire suppression and can be seen as an environmental peacebuilding initiative.

The concept of environmental peacebuilding describes research and practice at the intersection of peace, conflict, security, and environment. The concept as such includes a variety of definitions, but broadly refers to how sustainable management of natural resources can support prevention, mitigation, and resolution of conflict, as well as recovery after conflict. Environmental peacebuilding often focuses on renewable natural resource management, both for conflict and post-conflict periods. The research on environmental peacebuilding in the Middle East has predominantly focused on water resources, which in their transboundary nature may lead to both the escalation of cross-border disputes as well as cooperation and bottom-up resistance movements (Kramer 2008, Aggestam and Sundell-Eklund 2014, Ide and Fröhlich 2015, Dresse et al. 2019, Ide et al. 2021, Tinti 2023). Vegetation fires have, however, received little attention in the peacebuilding literature, suggesting a need for exploring potential challenges and opportunities further.

The purpose of our research was twofold. First, we aimed to investigate the potential impacts of armed conflict and vegetation fire patterns. Focusing on the KRI and its borders with Turkey, Iraq, and Syria—a large area that has experienced substantial increases in both fire events and armed conflict in the last decade—we explored the effects of armed conflict between the hegemonic states (e.g., Turkey, Iraq) and different armed groups (e.g., PKK, IS) on fire patterns in both agricultural and more natural vegetation. Second, we wanted to explore how the environmental peacebuilding framework could facilitate interpretation of spatial patterns of vegetation fires and conflict hotspots in the region. We discuss the (im-)possibilities of transboundary cooperation over environmental issues and challenges to environmental peacebuilding and democracy in the KRI.

Contextual background of the study area

The study area was the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a region located in northern Iraq consisting of the governorates of Duhok, Erbil, and Sulaymaniyah (Fig.1). The KRI covers an area of about 40,000 km² with an estimated total population of 6.2 million in 2020, of whom an estimated 81.6% were living in urban areas (Osman 2021). The landscape in the region consists of mountains in the north with more natural vegetation and fertile plains in the south (Fig. 1). Agriculture is mainly focused on cereal crops (Eklund et al. 2016, 2017), but vegetable cultivation and orchards are also common in the area. The mountains, where agriculture is less prevalent and often unsuitable, consist of areas with trees, shrubs, and pastures.

The agricultural practice of burning crop residues after harvest is a way to prepare the land for planting and for controlling pests and weeds (McCarty et al. 2009). In the Middle East, agricultural burning is listed as one of the causes of soil degradation, threatening food security in the region (Salim and El Deeb 2019, Almohamad 2020). Rasul et al. (2020) found that a large proportion of the areas that had burned in Iraq in 2019 were rain-fed croplands, suggesting that burnings are part of the agricultural practices in Iraq. Media reports have also suggested the high numbers of cropland fires in 2019 might be partly due to sabotage from different groups, such as the IS or armed groups from Iran (Foltyn 2019, Zwijnenburg 2019). Similar explanations were brought forward by Jaafar et al. (2022), who indicated that the increases in burned area in 2019 were related to IS activities in Iraq and Syria.

In 2019, a National Geographic essay reported that the woodlands of northern Iraq, providing important ecosystem services like flood relief and dust storm protection, were threatened by wildfires and illegal logging during the same period (Schwartzstein 2019). Another news article explained that over 890,000 hectares of forests and tree plantations had been destroyed in the KRI since 2000 because of fires, deforestation, and limited ability to protect and maintain forests (Abdullah 2018). Although forest fires do not necessarily lead to long-term changes in the land cover, because the forest vegetation generally recovers in different stages of succession (Viedma et al. 2006, Dawe et al. 2022), disturbances like forest fires tend to have impacts on, for example, soil erosion rates and soil nutrient depletion as well as impacts on the hydrological cycle (Shakesby 2011).

The KRI, an autonomous region in the Republic of Iraq, has its own government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), based in the capital city of Erbil (in Kurdish: Hawler; Stansfield 2021). The KRI was established under the Iraqi constitution in 2005, after the US invasion of Iraq and the fall of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. It has a fragile relationship with the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, particularly on issues surrounding oil revenue sharing and control of disputed territories in Sinjar, Makhmur, and Kirkuk. The relationship between KRI and the central Iraqi government has been particularly tense since KRI’s independence referendum in 2017, deepening existing disagreements. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani family, has held power in the KRI government since the 2005 recognition of the region’s autonomy. The other influential family in Iraq is the Talabani family, linked to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

The KRI has borders with Turkey in the north, Syria in the west, and Iran on the east (Fig. 1). This area is also known as the larger Kurdistan, composed of Iraqi Kurdistan as the south (Başur), Turkish Kurdistan as the north (Bakur), Syrian Kurdistan as the west (Rojava), and Iranian Kurdistan as the east (Rojhilat). The KRI is historically and geographically involved in the regional conflicts between different Kurdish groups and the hegemonic nation-states that constitute larger Kurdistan (Jongerden 2019). There are several other Kurdish armed and political movements in the region (Bozarslan et al. 2021) that have complex relations with each other. In KRI, the Barzani government has been openly seeking to gain independent state status, having held two independence referendums that have not resulted in an independent entity. In Turkey, the PKK continues its armed resistance, with the goals of reaching democratic reforms and self-determination. Due to a paradigm shift in the early 2000s (Dinc 2020), the PKK has given up its goal of establishing an independent Kurdish state within the borders of Turkey, but armed conflict continues between Turkey and the PKK in Turkey as well as in northern Iraq, where the PKK camps are based. Since the end of the peace process between Turkey and the PKK in the summer of 2015, the conflict has escalated not only within Turkey but also in northern Iraq, where the number of Turkish military operations has increased significantly. In Syria, the Kurds have been experiencing a stateless form of autonomy, under the name of Rojava Cantons, since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. Currently, the administration in Rojava is called the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES). The main body of the security forces of NES is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the United States and other western powers in their fight against the IS. There are other forces among the constituents of the SDF, primarily People’s Defense Units (YPG) and Women’s Defense Units (YPJ), which Turkey claims to be the PKK’s wings in Syria. Consequently, north and east Syria are also being targeted by the Turkish military operations simultaneously with other military operations in northern Iraq. The Kurds in Iran are also struggling against the Islamic Republic. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), as well as other Kurdish groups in Iran (e.g., Komala Communist Party, Kurdistan Liberty Party), also have bases near Erbil. More recently the conflict with the IS (2014–2017) and the re-escalated Turkey–PKK conflict (2015 onwards) have been the main conflicts in the KRI.

METHODS

Data overview

To analyze the spatiotemporal relationship between armed conflict and vegetation fires we used three main datasets: the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Active Fire product, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Burned Area product, and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project dataset. The VIIRS Active Fire (AF) product provides daily global fire data at a resolution of 375 m from 2012–present. This type of fire sensing relies on thermal infrared (i.e., long-wave infrared emissions) from the earth’s surface to detect thermal anomalies or hotspots, which can indicate the presence of fires. The product is useful for detecting both small fires and mapping the perimeter of larger ones (Schroeder and Giglio 2016). The performance of the product algorithm has been found to vary across different environments and fire behaviors, for example, the product’s performance was lower in fires in agricultural areas and when fires were short-lived (Oliva and Schroeder 2015).

We accessed VIIRS fire data through the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/download/). The data include an attribute that shows the fire type, where 0 = presumed vegetation fire, 1 = active volcano, 2 = other static land source, and 3 = offshore detection (i.e., all detections over water). To ensure our analysis was not influenced by, for example, gas flares, we filtered out all fire types except “presumed vegetation fire” (type 0; Schroeder and Giglio 2016). This reduced the number of AF points from 198,795 to 78,031.

To complement the active fire dataset, we also included data on Burned Area (BA) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Burned Area (BA) MCD64A1 product (version 6.1; Giglio et al. 2021). This dataset combines data on active fires derived from thermal anomalies and changes in near infrared reflectance to identify burned areas between 2001 and the present at a spatial resolution of 500 m. We counted burn dates to estimate burn frequency during the period of interest (i.e., 2016–2022), which was used as input in the spatial analysis.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project collects reported information on conflict location, time, and other variables such as conflict type and actors (Raleigh et al. 2010). The project uses local, national, and international sources in different languages to identify conflict events, and the data are collected by trained researchers (ACLED 2023). The dataset, first published in 2022, covers the entire world and provides data from January 2016 and onwards for Iraq, Turkey, and Iran and from 2017 on for Syria. The types of events included in the database were of six different types: battles, explosions/remote violence, violence against civilians, protests, riots, and strategic developments. For this analysis, we downloaded the dataset for the Middle East through the Data Export Tool (updated 16 June 2023) and extracted data on battles, explosions/remote violence, and violence against civilians because we assumed those are the types of conflict events that are most likely to cause ignitions. Finally, we extracted data for the study period 1 January 2016–31 August 2022.

Fire–conflict dynamics

We extracted fire and conflict data located in the KRI to investigate the spatial and temporal dynamics of fires and conflict events during the 2016–2022 period, which was the period during which data from the ACLED database and the VIIRS Active Fire overlapped. This period was characterized by escalated violence mainly between the Turkish forces and the PKK.

We created a polygon shapefile with 5 x 5 km grid cells covering the entire area between the four outermost coordinates of the KRI plus approximately 10 km, i.e., two grid cells outside of the borders, resulting in a fishnet layer covering the entire area. To extract only the KRI region and its immediate surroundings, we selected all grid cells that were within or overlapped the KRI boundaries and to that selection we added all cells that touched the already selected cells. This resulted in a new layer based on the final selection that contained 2207 cells. We then counted all active fire and conflict points (between 1 January 2016 and 31 August 2022) located in each square polygon. We also added the sum of the burned area counts in each polygon. This grid layer, with attribute data on fires, burned area counts, and armed conflict, was then used as input into GeoDa, an open-source software designed to identify spatial patterns (Anselin et al. 2010).

Before carrying out a hotspot analysis it was important to test whether there was clustering in the data. To do so, we conducted Global Moran’s I analyses on the three variables separately (active fire counts, burned area counts, and conflict event counts) using GeoDa. For those and all subsequent spatial statistics analyses in GeoDa, we specified a spatial weights matrix based on the queen contiguity (order of contiguity: 1), which meant that values from the eight neighboring cells were considered during the analyses. We also conducted a global bivariate Moran’s I analysis to identify clustering between active fires and armed conflict. The results all showed low but positive values, indicating a tendency for clustering of similar values in the data, with the highest tendency in the BA data (Table 1). The analysis yielded positive z-values and pseudo p-values of 0.001 after 999 permutations. Moran’s I scatter plots are provided in Appendix 1 (Figs. A1.1–A1.4).

We ran hotspot analyses on the fire, burned area, and conflict counts using Getis i*, which identifies hotspots by considering values in each cell together with the surrounding values in the same dataset. This yields a value for each cell that represents significant hotspots and coldspots. Next, we conducted a combined analysis on the results of the active fire and armed conflict hotspot analyses to show areas of in situ correlation between hotspots and coldspots. This was done by taking all cells where there were significant clusters identified in both datasets and combining them into the same four categories: high–high (e.g., high conflict–high fire), high–low, low–high and low–low. We did this combined analysis for both conflict and active fires and conflict and burned area.

As a final step, to better understand the result, we extracted all fire and conflict points located inside the high conflict–high fire clusters identified in the previous analysis. We extracted information about the month and year that the active fires had been identified and aggregated the data to see when most fires burned. Similarly, we extracted all conflict points that occurred in the high conflict–high fire clusters to analyze which types of conflicts these clusters were related to. More information about the conflict data is provided in the SI section.

FINDINGS

Fires and conflict in the KRI

Over the 2016–2022 period, vegetation fires in the KRI were generally increasing up until 2019, peaking at over 13 000 fires, and decreasing rapidly in 2020 and onwards (Fig. 2). Violent conflict events, however, have shown a steady increase since 2017, with nearly 2 500 events recorded in 2022.It is important to note that the graphs only show data up to 31 August 2022, so data for 2022 is not comparable with other years.

The strong increase in vegetation fires coincides with a strong increase in actively cultivated areas, which was especially pronounced during 2019 and 2020, as observed by Eklund et al. (2021) and Eklund (2023). Such patterns of increased fires have also been observed in Syria, where both unusually high precipitation rates leading to increased biomass available to burn (e.g., crop residue burnings), as well as conflict factors, have been suggested as causes (Schon et al. 2021, Zubkova et al. 2021, Jaafar et al. 2022).

These findings contrast with the findings of Eklund et al. (2021), who found that counts of vegetation fires and armed conflict events in the KRI increased in a similar temporal pattern over the period 2012–2019. These differences in findings are likely related to two factors: (1) the period covered (our analysis here shows that after 2019 is when the patterns diverge the most) and the conflict data used (Eklund et al. 2021 rely on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), which only includes conflict events with at least one fatality).

Fire–conflict dynamics

Our hotspot analysis of the armed conflict data shows that the mountains of the Duhok Governorate, especially in the Amedi district, can be considered a major conflict hotspot during the 2016–2022 period (Fig. 3). We identified further conflict hotspots in the Mergasur, Soran, Choman, and Makhmur districts in the Erbil Governorate. No conflict hotspots were found in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate. Overall, 5% of the cells were identified as high–conflict clusters, 40% as low–conflict clusters and 55% as nonsignificant.

Our hotspot analysis of active fires showed that most high fire clusters appeared in areas similar to those with armed conflict (i.e., the Amedi and Makhmur districts in the Duhok and Erbil governorates, respectively) but also in areas with low levels of armed conflict, such as the Zakho district (Fig. 4). Many fire hotspots also appeared in areas located close to a border, either toward Syria, Turkey, or Iraq (non KRI). Overall, 5% of the cells were identified as high–fire clusters, 29% as low–fire clusters, and 66% as nonsignificant.

The burned area hotspot analysis showed a similar pattern of burned vegetation but with more hotspots in general (13% of the cells were burned area hotspots) and particularly in border areas (Fig. 5). Some of the active fire hotspots were not identified in the burned area dataset (i.e., in Makhmur district), which could be an indication that some of the presumed vegetation fires from the active fire dataset may be other types of fires, or they may not have led to a large enough burned area to be detected.

The combined Conflict and AF cluster analysis of the Getis i* results showed that there were two areas with high–high clusters, located in Amedi and Makhmur districts, in the Duhok and Erbil Governorates (Fig. 6). These, in total 11, high–high clusters made up only 0.5% of all cells in the analysis (n = 2207) and 2.9% of the significant cells (n = 374). For the conflict and burned area cluster analysis, the pattern was similar but with some new clusters in Zakho, Amedi, and Makhmur districts (Fig. 7). We identified 28 high–high clusters, making up 1.3% of all cells in the analysis and 7.3% of all significant cells (n = 381). Of the 115 conflict hotspots identified in the analysis, 28 were also BA hotspots, showing a 24.3% overlap. For the same conflict hotspots, 11 were also AF hotspots, showing a 9.6% overlap. BA hotspots, thus, had a stronger overlap with conflict hotspots than AF hotspots.

Most high–fire clusters during the period of interest were largely found in the same governorates as the high–conflict clusters but not necessarily in the same locations. This partial overlap between conflict and fire hotspots was not unexpected—not all conflict increases the risk of fires, and fires also need fuel and the right weather conditions to start and spread. Our results suggest that, in some contexts, armed conflict may increase the risk of fires, where fires are started either as a means of war (as previously reported in the Turkish side of Kurdistan by van Etten et al. [2008] and Dinc et al. [2021]), or as an unintended consequence of war (cf. Matsala et al. 2024). Furthermore, the context of armed conflict may prevent fire suppression efforts directly (e.g., lack of access to affected areas or unexploded ordinances) or indirectly (e.g., weakened governance structures and lack of resources). Moreover, we cannot be certain that fire hotspots coinciding with conflict coldspots are completely unrelated to armed conflict because data are limited and only record certain types of conflict events. Here, more interdisciplinary work is needed to better understand the mechanisms that may link armed conflict with increased risk of fires.

Hotspots of conflict and fire: Amedi and Makhmur

Overall, conflicts were largely clustered in the Amedi district (Duhok Governorate), a mountainous area with mostly natural vegetation consisting of forests and shrublands (see e.g., Fig. 1), and Makhmur district (Erbil Governorate), an area with flatter topography dominated by sparse vegetation and marginal croplands. Fire and burned area clusters were found mainly in Amedi and Makhmur districts and in Zakho District, an agricultural area located close to the border with Syria and Turkey. Our results thereby showed that there are areas where conflict-related violence (e.g., battles, explosions/remote violence, and violence against civilians) overlapped with higher vegetation fire and burned area counts, similar to findings from the Kurdish areas of Turkey (Dinc et al. 2021).

The conflict–fire hotspots in the Amedi district were located toward the northeast, an area where the PKK has a stronghold presence and is therefore a key target of the Turkish armed forces. Since 2016, Turkey has intensified its military operations in the north and east of Syria as well as northern Iraq (i.e., Sinjar) and the KRI. The ACLED dataset revealed that the conflict in the region was between the Military Forces of Turkey and the PKK, and the number of conflict events have increased over the years (n = 12 in 2018, n = 40 in 2020, n = 281 in 2022; see Appendix 1, Table A1.1). The north of Amedi is called the Zap-Avashin-Basyan area (referred to as Medya Defense Zones by the PKK). According to Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence, the series of military operations called Operation Claw were aiming to clear the area from the PKK and block its pathway from the KRI to Turkey. In the Amedi hotspot of high conflict–high fire, most fires took place between June and September, with a peak in August (Fig. 8).

The conflict–fire hotspots in the Makhmur district were located toward the west, an area called al-Qayarrah, which in 2016 was controlled by the IS. The ACLED dataset showed that the majority of the conflict events took place in 2016 (n = 84), making up 81% of the total number of reported conflict events in the region between 2016 and 2022 (see Appendix 1, Table A1.2). The actors fighting against the IS included the Global Coalition Against the IS as well as communal militias, peshmerga, and the military forces of Iraq. The area has experienced several attacks to oil fields and refineries in al-Qayarrah, and reports state that some oil wells set on fire by the IS in October 2016 continued burning until the spring of 2017 (Thomas 2017). The active fire data in the Makhmur hotspot revealed that most fires took place in the autumn/winter of 2016–2017, and many fewer took place during the summer season (Fig. 8). This suggests that these winter fires were not vegetation fires (as presumed in the dataset) but rather oil wells burning.

Limitations of the data and analysis

Our analysis needs to be understood in relation to the limitations inherent in the data and methods used. First, the conflict data from ACLED is limited to the year 2016 and onwards (for our area of interest); thereby only this shorter time span was analyzed. Furthermore, collection of conflict data locations is challenging and subject to reporting and other types of biases (Miller et al. 2022). This means that there is a risk that some hotspots have been left out or falsely identified as hotspots. To mitigate this issue, we included a discussion of the geopolitical context of the two high–high clusters we identified, intending to strengthen the evidence that these hotspots are actually areas with high fire and high conflict co-occurrence.

Second, for the active fire data, the spatial resolution is 375 m, which reportedly can detect smaller fires; however, we cannot be sure that it detects all fires. Counting fires may also be misleading because it neglects how large an area was affected. The data only showed whether or not there was a fire inside the pixel on a given date, providing no indication about the extent of the fire. Despite this, we found that counting active fires gives an idea of the fire intensity that was useful in these overall assessments. We also added an analysis of the MODIS burned area product to triangulate the findings and found that there were also burned area hotspots in Makhmur, although the AF points were not predominantly vegetation fires (as stated in the AF data) but rather oil well fires. Triangulating the data using other datasets and media reports gives a better understanding of the situation and how well the data reflects the situation on the ground.

Lastly, the analyses are based on a polygon grid of 5 x 5 km squares, in which all fire and conflict events were counted for the period 2016–2022. Other sizes of the grid could have identified different spatial patterns, although we would expect the pattern to be similar.

DISCUSSION

Transboundary cooperation around environmental issues

Other researchers have argued that environmental destruction is used as a war strategy in the Kurdish regions of the Middle East (van Etten et al. 2008, Dinc et al. 2021, Hildyard 2021). Environmental peacebuilding projects are seldom initiated in conflict areas such as these. One of the rare examples is from 2019, when large areas of agricultural lands were burning in Iraq, Syria, and the KRI (Rasul et al. 2020, Eklund et al. 2021, Schon et al. 2021, Jaafar et al. 2022), and teams of firefighters from the KRI were dispatched to help with fires on agricultural lands in Southern Nineveh, Iraq (Rudaw, 2019). Other examples of environmental diplomacy in the region often revolve around issues of energy resources such as water and oil. The water diplomacy between Turkey, Iraq, and Syria dates to the 1940s, and the political events have repeatedly shaped the water agreements between these countries. Turkey has the position of power—or “hydro-hegemony” (Zeitoun and Warner 2006:435)—as the upstream state in the Euphrates–Tigris river basin, compared to downstream states, Syria and Iraq. Ide et al. (2018:182) argued that an epistemic community has developed that allows dialogue among the three countries, “even in unfavourable conditions.” However, these dialogues do not necessarily lead to environmental peace either, making it an “imperfect peace” according to Muñoz's (2010) conceptualization (Kibaroglu and Sayan 2021). The Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline constitutes another area of both tensions and collaboration between Turkey and Iraq. The pipeline is a collaborative energy initiative between the two nations, despite disruptions due to geopolitical events such as the United Nations’ sanctions (1991–1996) and other political disputes in the region (Bowlus 2017). Although both hydro-politics and energy transfer possibilities between Turkey and Iraq (and Syria) have been issues of environmental peacebuilding, other environmental issues, such as the destruction of large areas of croplands and other lands with tree cover, have not become subjects of environmental cooperation between the governments in the region.

Challenges to environmental peacebuilding and democracy

One possible explanation for the lack of interest in environmental cooperation is that land is not as scarce as water or as valuable as oil, and it is not recognized that the land is a source of clean air, health, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Another explanation is that the main concern of governments in these border areas is state security before anything else. The fact that the PKK is labelled as a terrorist organization by almost all international actors, including the countries in the region and other global powers (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, European Union), makes it difficult for policy makers to focus on the environmental destruction that takes place. The same applies to the NES in Syria, which consists of self-governing regions that Turkey labels as an extension of the PKK. The lack of recognition of the Kurdish organizations—political and environmental—as legitimate actors results in the avoidance of their environmental justice claims, as well as the environmental destruction civilians are facing. Hoffmann (2018) made a similar point when discussing the application of social ecology in the NES, and how attempts to harness “agricultural transformation” toward sustainable and democratized energy production can be discounted by policymakers under conditions of warfare. Hoffman (2018) also argued that energy relations in the region are internal to existing sociohistorical relations between regimes in the Middle East and do not determine developmental paths.

Power, politics, and conflict have an impact on how environmental issues are narrated (O’Lear 2020, Krampe et al. 2021). O’Lear (2020:2) drew attention to different political agendas that bring certain environmental issues forward, creating “different political vantage points [that] draw upon environmental concerns and objectives to justify actions or inactions.” Adding to this line of argument, we also argue that certain environmental damages are deliberately ignored or silenced by the hegemonic powers (Dinc 2021, Hildyard 2021), resulting in continuation of environmental destruction in areas that are labelled as “insurgent areas” or shelters for “terrorists” that need to be cleared. The hotspots that we found in our analysis indicate how environmental damage may have been overshadowed by the backdrop of intense armed conflict along the borders (e.g., see Weir 2016). Today, the vast literature on environmental justice emphasizes a critical approach, including critical environmental justice, which stresses the importance of being aware of various forms of social inequality and power, with particular attention to state power (Pellow 2018).

Environmental justice is also closely linked to environmental democracy. Pickering et al. (2020:223) depicted the ecological–environmental democracy spectrum, claiming that environmental democracy typically is oriented toward more top-down, reformist change by working within the state and multilateral system, whereas ecological democracy is oriented for more bottom-up, radical transformation by being critical of the existing state and multilateral system. Being critical of the existing state and multilateral system inevitably “requires going beyond jurisdictional boundaries” (Pickering et al. 2020:9). This approach is also evident in Dryzek’s argument: he wrote “democracy without boundaries means that the intimate link between democracy and the state can be severed” (Dryzek 2002:129).

Peace ecology as an alternative to environmental peacebuilding

The peace ecology paradigm claims that “environmental peacebuilding projects remain limited to their instrumental role, projecting no additional value to the population they affect” (Kyrou 2007:83). In contrast, the peace ecology paradigm offers an alternative route that combines environmental consciousness and peace consciousness in a holistic program that examines the systemic and structural issues that lead to environmental degradation (Kyrou 2007). This means that it goes beyond existing armed conflicts, aiming to address the structural injustice, inequality, and violence that results in the conflict itself, as well as environmental destruction. In doing so, the peace ecology paradigm tries to overcome the narrow timeframes for short-term environmental cooperation, aiming for more dependable measures leading to sustainable solutions for both peace and the environment. Peace ecology, just like democracy, requires thinking beyond set borders—by thinking “not of the territorial demos in the singular, as in the national arena, but of demoi in the plural” (Anderson 2015:467)

Building on this conceptual framework, we suggest that environmental peacebuilding in the conflict-ridden border areas of the KRI should be considered together with the democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish question in the Middle East, which has both national and transboundary impacts in the region. The stronghold of the PKK in the mountainous areas of northern Iraq has been a factor that discomforts Turkey, which views the existence of the PKK cadres in its southern borders as a national security threat. Other examples of non-state (and Kurdish-led) autonomies in Turkey’s southern borders, such as the one in the north and east of Syria (NES), have also been targeted by the Turkish armed forces since 2016. Under such circumstances, the environmental peacebuilding approach becomes sidelined by a heavy discourse on national security of hegemonic nation-states.

Besides, we should take into account that the politics in the region are not static, with different actors having different goals and strategies (Paasche and Sidaway 2015). A recent study by Bahrini et al. (2021) is relevant here; the authors combined different conflict resolution models and analyses on two cases, one of which was the water conflict between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq on the Euphrates River. Their results showed the importance of adding different levels of analysis to provide decision-makers with clearer insight into the conflict between different actors. For example, whereas in one scenario, Turkey’s water projects might lead to Iraq’s removal of support of the PKK, in another, Iraq and Syria might advise Turkey to negotiate with the PKK. Through their analysis, Bahrini et al. (2021) highlighted the importance of avoiding the analysis of scenarios in isolation from each other because they may yield unrealistic and unreliable results, potentially misleading decision-makers and policymakers.

Given the heterogeneity and fluidity of Kurdish politics and the different Kurdish political agendas in the region, together with the reactions to these groups from the hegemonic nation-states and global powers, it is difficult to foresee healthy dialogue and diplomacy for environmental peacebuilding in the near future. Therefore, we argue that going beyond the environmental peacebuilding frameworks and discussing the issue from a peace ecology approach would provide more dependable measures for peace, democracy, and environmental protection in the region in the long run.

CONCLUSION

We sought to better understand the potential spatial relationship between armed conflict and vegetation fires through a spatial analysis of remotely sensed active fire and burned area data and armed conflict location data. Our findings indicate that approximately one fourth of the armed conflict hotspot locations coincided with burned area hotspots, and 10% of conflict hotspots coincided with active fire hotspots, showing that there is some co-occurrence, although likely not a very strong relationship. Furthermore, we found that many of the vegetation fires (as measured both by AF and BA) happened in border regions of the KRI during the 2016–2022 period. We also zeroed into two areas with particularly high co-occurrence and found that many of the fires in Makhmur district are likely not vegetation fires but rather burning of oil wells, with serious environmental implications. Our findings showed that fires in this area may not only be caused by transborder conflicts, they may also have transboundary impacts on environment and health.

We analyzed our findings within the framework of environmental peacebuilding. The analysis revealed a limited focus on environmental issues as drivers of peacebuilding in the region, where the emphasis is either on water or oil as energy resources. Vegetation fires, especially in the border areas, are instead approached from a securitization perspective, leading to the continuation of warfare and the consequent destruction of vegetation and livelihoods. Overall, our conclusions indicate that the Kurdish question in the Middle East sets an important example that needs to be studied further to understand the extent of conflict-related environmental destruction as well as the potential routes toward fostering environmental peacebuilding attempts. We argue that environmental peacebuilding is inevitably tied to democracy, whereby the peaceful and democratic solutions to national, international, and regional issues would also contribute to better governance of land and water resources. Such peacebuilding would require involvement from both state and non-state actors (e.g., local governments and community-based citizen groups), where third parties (e.g., international and non-governmental organizations), could play roles as mediators and facilitators of peacebuilding and environmental protection.

On a broader scale, our study sets an example by first investigating the problem of vegetation fires in a conflict setting and then placing the issue into a wider discussion of transboundary cooperation and environmental peacebuilding in the Kurdistan region. In doing so, the study crossed disciplinary boundaries and involved multiple approaches and ideas. We argue for additional interdisciplinary approaches to studying vegetation fires, including a stronger focus on conflict settings and the Global South. For environmental peacebuilding, we would like to see a broadening of the types of environmental issues dealt with in the field and stronger engagement with discussions of democracy.

LITERATURE CITED

Abdullah, R. 2018. 2.2 million acres of forest lost to fire, deforestation, budget cuts: KRG. Rudaw Oct. 17. https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/171020182

Aggestam, K., and A. Sundell-Eklund. 2014. Situating water in peacebuilding: revisiting the Middle East peace process. Water International 39(1):10-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2013.848313

Almohamad, H. 2020. Impact of land cover change due to armed conflicts on soil erosion in the basin of the Northern Al-Kabeer River in Syria using the RUSLE model. Water 12(12):3323. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123323

Anderson, J. 2015. Transnational democracy. Pages 467-478 in B. Isakhan and S. Stockwell, editors. The Edinburgh companion to the history of democracy. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203464427

Anselin, L., I. Syabri, and Y. Kho. 2010. GeoDa: an introduction to spatial data analysis. Pages 73-89 in M. Fischer and A. Getis, editors. Handbook of applied spatial analysis: software tools, methods and applications. Springer, Berlin, Germany. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03647-7_5

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). 2023. ACLED codebook 2023. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Grafton, Wisconsin, USA. https://acleddata.com/knowledge-base/codebook/

Bahrini, A., R. J. Riggs, and M. Esmaeili. 2021. Social choice rules, fallback bargaining, and related games in common resource conflicts. Journal of Hydrology 602:126663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126663

Bowlus, J. V. 2017. A crude marriage: Iraq, Turkey, and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Middle Eastern Studies 53(5):724-746. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2017.1283489

Bozarslan, H., C. Gunes, and V. Yadirgi. 2021. The Cambridge history of the Kurds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108623711

Dawe, D. A., M.-A. Parisien, A. Van Dongen, and E. Whitman. 2022. Initial succession after wildfire in dry boreal forests of northwestern North America. Plant Ecology 223(7):789-809. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-022-01237-6

Dinc, P. 2020. The Kurdish movement and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria: an alternative to the (nation-) state model? Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 22(1):47-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2020.1715669

Dinc, P. 2021. Forest fires in Dersim and Sirnak: conflict and environmental destruction. Pages 263-278 in S. E. Hunt, editor. Ecological solidarity and the Kurdish freedom movement: thought, practice, challenges, and opportunities. Lexington Books, London, UK. https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/108793543/Ecological_Solidarity_and_the_Kurdish_Freedom_Move_PD.pdf

Dinc, P., L. Eklund, A. Shahpurwala, A. Mansourian, A. Aturinde, and P. Pilesjö. 2021. Fighting insurgency, ruining the environment: the case of forest fires in the Dersim province of Turkey. Human Ecology:1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-021-00243-y

Dresse, A., I. Fischhendler, J. Ø. Nielsen, and D. Zikos. 2019. Environmental peacebuilding: towards a theoretical framework. cooperation and conflict 54(1):99-119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718808331

Dryzek, J. S. 2002. Deliberative democracy and beyond: liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/019925043X.001.0001

Eklund, L. 2023. Climate and conflict in Syria: a spatial perspective of drought, agriculture and vulnerability in Syria during the period 2000–2022 [title translated from the original Swedish]. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift 125(2). https://journals.lub.lu.se/st/article/view/25235

Eklund, L., A. Abdi, and M. Islar. 2017. From producers to consumers: the challenges and opportunities of agricultural development in Iraqi Kurdistan. Land 6(2):44. https://doi.org/10.3390/land6020044

Eklund, L., A. M. Abdi, A. Shahpurwala, and P. Dinc. 2021. On the geopolitics of fire, conflict and land in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Remote Sensing 13(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13081575

Eklund, L., A. Persson, and P. Pilesjö. 2016. Cropland changes in times of conflict, reconstruction, and economic development in Iraqi Kurdistan. Ambio 45(1):78-88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0686-0

Eklund, L., and J. Seaquist. 2015. Meteorological, agricultural and socioeconomic drought in the Duhok Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. Natural Hazards 76(1):421-441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1504-x

Eloy, L., S. Hecht, A. Steward, and J. Mistry. 2019. Firing up: policy, politics and polemics under new and old burning regimes. Geographical Journal 185(1):2-9. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12293

Foltyn, S. 2019. Iraq’s burning problem: the strange fires destroying crops and livelihoods. Guardian. 15 August 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/aug/15/iraq-burning-problem-mysterious-fires-destroy-crops-and-livelihoods#:~:text=Iraq's%20burning%20problem%3A%20the%20strange%20fires%20destroying%20crops%20and%20livelihoods,-This%20article%20is&text=Fires%20in%20northern%20Iraq%20have,is%20something%20more%20sinister%20afoot%3F&text=Plumes%20of%20smoke%20shroud,an%20ominous%20veil%20of%20grey

Ganteaume, A., A. Camia, M. Jappiot, J. San-Miguel-Ayanz, M. Long-Fournel, and C. Lampin. 2013. A review of the main driving factors of forest fire ignition over Europe. Environmental Management 51(3):651-662. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9961-z

Giglio, L., C. Justice, L. Boschetti, and D. Roy. 2021. MODIS/Terra+Aqua burned area monthly L3 global 500m SIN grid V061 (dataset). NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Washington, DC, USA. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD64A1.061

Hildyard, N. 2021. Radical or reactionary tomatoes? Organizing against the toxic legacy of capital’s environmentalism. Pages 61-73 in S. E. Hunt, editor. Ecological solidarity and the Kurdish freedom movement: thought, practice, challenges, and opportunities. Lexington Books, London, UK.

Hoffmann, C. 2018. Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: energy as a social relation in the Middle East. Energy Research and Social Science 41:39-47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.025

Ide, T., and C. Fröhlich. 2015. Socio-environmental cooperation and conflict? A discursive understanding and its application to the case of Israel and Palestine. Earth System Dynamics 6(2):659-671. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-6-659-2015

Ide, T., L. R. Palmer, and J. Barnett. 2021. Environmental peacebuilding from below: customary approaches in Timor-Leste. International Affairs 97(1):103-117. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaa059

Ide, T., V. Sümer, and L. M. Aldehoff. 2018. Environmental peacebuilding in the Middle East. Pages 175-187 in A. Swain and J. Öjendal, editors. Routledge handbook of environmental conflict and peacebuilding. Routledge, London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315473772-12

Jaafar, H., L. Sujud, and E. Woertz. 2022. Scorched earth tactics of the “Islamic State” after its loss of territory: intentional burning of farmland in Iraq and Syria. Regional Environmental Change 22(4):120. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01976-2

Jolly, W. M., M. A. Cochrane, P. H. Freeborn, Z. A. Holden, T. J. Brown, G. J. Williamson, and D. M. J. S. Bowman. 2015. Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013. Nature Communications 6(1):7537 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537.

Jongerden, J. 2019. Governing Kurdistan: Self-Administration in the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. Ethnopolitics 18(1):61-75. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429282690-5

Kibaroglu, A., and R. C. Sayan. 2021. Water and ‘imperfect peace’ in the Euphrates–Tigris river basin. International Affairs (London) 97(1):139-155. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaa161

Kramer, A. 2008. Regional water cooperation and peacebuilding in the Middle East. Initiative for Peacebuilding, Adelphi research, Brussels, Belgium. https://adelphi.de/en/publications/regional-water-cooperation-and-peacebuilding-in-the-middle-east

Krampe, F., F. Hegazi, and S. D. VanDeveer. 2021. Sustaining peace through better resource governance: three potential mechanisms for environmental peacebuilding. World Development 144:105508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105508

Kyrou, C. N. 2007. Peace ecology: an emerging paradigm in peace studies. International Journal of Peace Studies 12(1):73-92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41852955

Lasslop, G., and S. Kloster. 2017. Human impact on wildfires varies between regions and with vegetation productivity. Environmental Research Letters 12(11):115011. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8c82

Levin, N., N. Tessler, A. Smith, and C. McAlpine. 2016. The human and physical determinants of wildfires and burnt areas in Israel. Environmental Management 58(3):549-562. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0715-1

Matsala, M., A. Odruzhenko, T. Hinchuk, V. Myroniuk, I. Drobyshev, S. Sydorenko, S. Zibtsev, B. Milakovsky, D. Schepaschenko, and F. Kraxner. 2024. War drives forest fire risks and highlights the need for more ecologically-sound forest management in post-war Ukraine. Scientific Reports 14(1):4131. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54811-5

McCarty, J. L., S. Korontzi, C. O. Justice, and T. Loboda. 2009. The spatial and temporal distribution of crop residue burning in the contiguous United States. Science of the Total Environment 407(21):5701-5712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.07.009

Miller, B. A., L. Yung, C. Wyborn, M. Essen, B. Gray, and D. R. Williams. 2022. Re-envisioning wildland fire governance: addressing the transboundary, uncertain, and contested aspects of wildfire. Fire 5(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/fire5020049

Muñoz, F. A. 2010. Imperfect peace. In Oxford international encyclopedia of peace. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

O’Lear, S. 2020. A research agenda for environmental geopolitics. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788971249

Oliva, P., and W. Schroeder. 2015. Assessment of VIIRS 375m active fire detection product for direct burned area mapping. Remote Sensing of Environment 160:144-155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.01.010

Osman, M. 2021. Kurdistan region of Iraq: population analysis report. Kurdistan Region Statistics Office, Kurdistan Regional Government, Irbil, Iraq. https://krso.gov.krd/content/upload/1/root/kurdistan-population-analysis-report-6-english-final-corrected-29052022.pdf

Paasche, T. F., and J. D. Sidaway. 2015. Transecting security and space in Kurdistan, Iraq. Environment and Planning A 47(10):2113-2133. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15595750

Pellow, D. N. 2018. What is critical environmental justice? Wiley, Cambridge, UK.

Pickering, J., K. Bäckstrand, and D. Schlosberg. 2020. Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy–environment nexus. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 22(1):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2020.1703276

Pismel, G. O., V. Marchezini, G. Selaya, Y. A. P. de Paula, E. Mendoza, and L. O. Anderson. 2023. Wildfire governance in a tri-national frontier of southwestern Amazonia: Capacities and vulnerabilities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 86:103529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103529

Raleigh, C., A. Linke, H. Hegre, and J. Karlsen. 2010. Introducing ACLED: An armed conflict location and event dataset. Journal of Peace Research 47(5):651-660. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343310378914

Rasul, A., G. R. F. Ibrahim, H. M. Hameed, and K. Tansey. 2020. A trend of increasing burned areas in Iraq from 2001 to 2019. Environment, Development and Sustainability 23:5739-5755. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00842-7

Rogers, B. M., J. K. Balch, S. J. Goetz, C. E. Lehmann, and M. Turetsky. 2020. Focus on changing fire regimes: interactions with climate, ecosystems, and society. Environmental Research Letters 15(3):030201. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6d3a

Rudaw. 2019. Firefighters from Kurdistan Region respond to fires south of Mosul. 5 June 2019. https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/05062019

Russell-Smith, J., G. D. Cook, P. M. Cooke, A. C. Edwards, M. Lendrum, C. Meyer, and P. J. Whitehead. 2013. Managing fire regimes in north Australian savannas: applying Aboriginal approaches to contemporary global problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11(s1):e55-e63. https://doi.org/10.1890/120251

Salim, S., and S. El Deeb. 2019. Crop fires, a weapon of war, ruin Iraqi, Syrian harvests. AP News, May 30. https://apnews.com/article/272413506b96453c9acac467c1840d42

Schmidt, I. B., L. C. Moura, M. C. Ferreira, L. Eloy, A. B. Sampaio, P. A. Dias, and C. N. Berlinck. 2018. Fire management in the Brazilian savanna: first steps and the way forward. Journal of Applied Ecology 55(5):2094-2101. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13118

Schon, J., K. Mezuman, A. Heslin, R. D. Field, and M. J. Puma. 2021. How fire patterns reveal uneven stabilization at the end of conflict: examining Syria’s unusual fire year in 2019. Environmental Research Letters 16(4):044046. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe327

Schroeder, W., and L. Giglio. 2016. Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS): 375 m active fire detection and characterization algorithm, theoretical basis document 1.0. University of Maryland: Washington, DC, USA. https://viirsland.gsfc.nasa.gov/PDF/VIIRS_activefire_375m_ATBD.pdf

Schwartzstein, P. 2019. Iraq races to save last of Middle East’s forests from burning. National Geographic. 22 July 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/iraq-on-fire-firefighters

Shakesby, R. A. 2011. Post-wildfire soil erosion in the Mediterranean: review and future research directions. Earth-Science Reviews 105(3):71-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2011.01.001

Sousa, J., C. Çinar, M. Carmo, and M. A. Malagoli. 2022. Social and historical dimensions of wildfire research and the consideration given to practical knowledge: a systematic review. Natural Hazards 114(2):1103-1123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05460-2

Stansfield, G. 2021. The Kurdistan region of Iraq, 1991-2018. Pages 362-381 in H. Bozarslan, C. Gunes, and V. Yadirgi. editors. Cambridge history of the Kurds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108623711

Thomas, C. 2017. Fighting the flames of ISIL in Iraq. Al-Jazeera. 2 February 2017. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2017/2/7/fighting-the-flames-of-isil-in-iraq

Tinti, A. 2023. Scales of justice. Large dams and water rights in the Tigris–Euphrates basin. Policy and Society 42(2):184-196. https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad003

van Etten, J., J. Jongerden, H. J. de Vos, A. Klaasse, and E. C. E. van Hoeve. 2008. Environmental destruction as a counterinsurgency strategy in the Kurdistan region of Turkey. Geoforum 39(5):1786-1797. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.05.001

Viedma, O., J. M. Moreno, and I. Rieiro. 2006. Interactions between land use/land cover change, forest fires and landscape structure in Sierra de Gredos (Central Spain). Environmental Conservation 33(3):212-222. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892906003122

Weir, D. 2016. Iraq’s oil inferno - government inaction in the face of eco-terrorism. Ecologist. 30 November 2016. https://theecologist.org/2016/nov/30/iraqs-oil-inferno-government-inaction-face-eco-terrorism

Zaimes, G., M. Tufekcioglu, A. Tufekcioglu, S. Zibtsev, R. Corobov, D. Emmanouloudis, R. Uratu, A. Ghulijanyan, A. Borsuk, and I. Trombitsky. 2016. Transboundary collaborations to enhance wildfire suppression in protected areas of the Black Sea Region. Journal of Engineering Science and Technology Review 9(2):108-114. https://doi.org/10.25103/jestr.092.18

Zeitoun, M., and J. Warner. 2006. Hydro-hegemony: a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts. Water policy 8(5):435-460. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2006.054

Zubkova, M., L. Giglio, M. L. Humber, J. V. Hall, and E. Ellicott. 2021. Conflict and climate: drivers of fire activity in Syria in the 21st century. Earth Interactions:119-135. https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-21-0009.1

Zwijnenburg, W. 2019. Torching and extortion: OSINT analysis of burning agriculture in Iraq. Bellingcat. 3 June 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019/06/03/torching-and-extortion-osint-analysis-of-burning-agriculture-in-iraq/#:~:text=Torching%20And%20Extortion%3A%20OSINT%20Analysis%20Of%20Burning%20Agriculture%20In%20Iraq,-June%203%2C%202019&text=In%20early%20May%202019%2C%20it,the%20so%2Dcalled%20Islamic%20State.