Science Diplomacy and Environmental Peacebuilding: Overcoming Political Boundaries by Leveraging Science and Protecting the Environment in Cyprus
*Carla Isobel Elliff, Sunitha Anup and Dhanasree Jayaram Background to the webinar series Environmental peacebuilding has emerged as a new frontier in interdisciplinary studies, which seeks to go beyond the traditional role of natural resources or environmental change in general in triggering and exacerbating conflicts, but to look at the positive peacebuilding potential of environmental and natural resources in not only post-conflict societies but also fragile societies with weak governance and nation states that are at perpetual conflict with each other (that may not necessarily be physical in nature) over environmental resources or otherwise. Science diplomacy also aims at building bridges between societies where formal relationships are strained, strengthening partnerships between scientific and diplomatic communities and so on. The two conceptual frameworks, at the outset, seem to have common goals; and therefore, if they are aligned with each other, can they provide bett