Greening the blue helmets: Environment, Natural Resources and UN Peacekeeping Operations - Executive Summary

This is the executive summary of the Greening the Blue Helmets report. The report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how peacekeeping operations affect and are affected by natural resources and environmental conditions. At the same time, the report also highlights the positive efforts that have been undertaken to reduce the environmental impacts of UN peacekeeping operations. This report shows that peacekeeping operations not only have important natural resource implications, as well as significant impacts on the environment, but also that natural resources are often a fundamental aspect of conflict resolution, livelihoods and confidence-building at the local level. The report is divided into two main parts. Part 1 reviews the environmental management of peacekeeping operations and showcases good practices, technologies and behaviours that have already been adopted. Part 2 examines the role that peacekeeping operations have played in stabilizing countries where violent conflicts have been financed by natural resources – including diamonds, gold, timber and oil – or driven by grievances over their ownership, access and control. It has been developed by UNEP in consultation with a number of international experts and nongovernmental organizations.