Environment-Conflict Nexus: The Relevance of Thomas Homer-Dixons Environmental Conflict Theory in Africa

Using practical examples, the paper examines the relevance of Thomas Homer-Dixons Environmental Conflict Theory within an African context. It outlines that Homer-Dixon’s Environmental Conflict Theory is to some extent valid, but it suffers significant shortfalls that make its applicability and generalizability questionable. The paper has shown that the abundance of resources in Africa contributes more to violent conflicts than their scarcity. Resources in Africa are vast, and so are environmental conflicts. The paper underscores factors that aggravate environmental conflicts such as depletion, degradation, social cleavages, population growth and environmental scarcity and recommend solutions on how they can be redressed.

Transfer of Fungal Endophytes from Leaves to Woody Substrates

Fungal endophytes have been found in all plants surveyed to date, yet for many fungi the function of endophytism is still unknown. The Foraging Ascomycete Hypothesis (FAH) proposes that saprotrophic fungi utilize an endophytic stage in leaves to modify dispersal. Under this hypothesis, leaves can provide food and water during time of environmental scarcity and they can transport the fungi to other substrates upon dehiscence. If the FAH is accurate, then some endophytes should have the ability to colonize saprobic substrates directly from a leaf-endophyte stage, though this has been little studied. To assess this ability, twelve surface-sterilized leaves of a tropical tree (Nectandra lineatifolia Mez) were placed directly on wood and incubated for six weeks. Fungi from the wood were subsequently cultured and identified by ITS sequences or morphology. 477 fungal isolates comprising 26 OTUs were cultured from the wood, the majority of which belong to saprotrophic genera (70.8% of OTUs, 82.3% of isolates). The mean OTU richness per leaf was 5.67. The term viaphyte (literally, “by way of plant”) is introduced and defined as fungi that colonize living leaves as endophytes and use the leaves to transfer to another substrate, such as wood, when the leaves dehisce. These results strengthen the Foraging Ascomycete Hypothesis and expose the possibility that viaphytism plays a significant role in the dispersal of fungal saprotrophs.

Environmental peacebuilding: Towards a theoretical framework

Environmental peacebuilding represents a paradigm shift from a nexus of environmental scarcity to one of environmental peace. It rests on the assumption that the biophysical environment’s inherent characteristics can act as incentives for cooperation and peace, rather than violence and competition. Based on this, environmental peacebuilding presents cooperation as a win-win solution and escape from the zero-sum logic of conflict. However, there is a lack of coherent environmental peacebuilding framework and evidence corroborating the existence of this environment-peace nexus. Building on a multidisciplinary literature review, this article examines the evolution of environmental peacebuilding into an emerging framework. It unpacks the concept and explains its main building blocks (conditions, mechanisms and outcomes) to develop our understanding of when, how and why environmental cooperation can serve as a peacebuilding tool. It assembles these building blocks into three generic trajectories (technical, restorative and sustainable environmental peacebuilding), each characterised according to their own causality, drivers and prerequisites, and illustrated with concrete examples. Finally, this article draws attention to the remaining theoretical gaps in the environmental peacebuilding literature, and lays the foundations for an environmental peacebuilding research agenda that clarifies if and how environmental cooperation can spill over across borders, sectors and scales towards sustainable peace.

China and the Nile River Basin: The Changing Hydropolitical Status Quo

The Nile River Basin (NRB), the world’s longest river, faces a considerable challenge of population growth, degradation and depletion, and equitable water utilisation, which have become a threat to peace and environmental security in the region. Moreover, the hydropolitical landscape of the Nile has been dominated by Egypt. However, the NRB is experiencing a change in its hydropolitical status quo. China has emerged as a financier to upstream countries’ hydropower projects, thus changing the upstream–downstream hydropolitical status quo. Although the existing governing regimes were not beneficial to upstream countries, China’s role in the Nile hydropolitics is not providing an alternative and beneficial and/or win–win cooperative framework. As a result, the environmental and political landscape of the already fragile Nile region has become threatened, thus increasing the potential for conflict. The purpose of this article is to determine, through Homer-Dixon’s environmental scarcity theory, the impact and effects of environmental scarcity in contributing to a nascent conflict. This study conceptualised Homer-Dixon’s environmental scarcity theory as a theory that argues for the potential of conflict in transboundary river basins as a result of environmental scarcity. Environmental scarcity is triggered by a combination of population growth and excessive strain on dwindling renewable resources, exacerbated by unequal access to that resource.

Strategic renewal in times of environmental scarcity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how strategic renewal occurs in large incumbent newspaper companies facing a specific context of environment scarcity (i.e. environmental dissolution (the market gradually changing in size and scope)). Within the media industry, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) offers a particularly interesting research setting because the number of competitors in the regional market is regulated by the government; consequently, the incumbent firms face the same local environment. This situation offers the possibility to shed light on how the orientation of the top management team (TMT) of the firm influences the strategic renewal and the traditional business model of the firm. Design/methodology/approach The strategic renewal of the three largest incumbents of the print newspapers in KSA over 12 years (from 2000 to 2012) was analyzed with a qualitative approach (archival data and 30 interviews with the TMTs of each company and with external observers). A two-step analysis of within-case analysis and cross-case analysis was used. Findings Building on Schmitt et al.’s (2016) framework, it was empirically found that depending on the orientation of the TMT, the managerial perception of the firm’s environment within the same scarcity situation leads to different strategic renewal responses. The findings demonstrate that internally oriented TMTs engage in incremental business model changes, while externally oriented TMTs engage in disruptive business model changes. However, management’s attitude toward technology has been neglected in the literature so far, and it was concluded that technology plays a mediating role in strategy renewal. Research limitations/implications Recent research on strategic renewal in times of environmental scarcity has built on both population ecology and strategic choice literatures and has argued that varying CEO perceptions can lead to very different strategic responses. Other research on business models has started to explore the role of technology in business model evolution. In the context of environmental dissolution, it can be argued that the attitude of the TMT toward technology has a mediating role in business model evolution. Practical implications In times of environmental dissolution – the traditional market of the firm changes not only in size but also in scope – strategic renewal is conditioned by the orientation of the TMT and its attitude toward technology. When the traditional business model of the firm is put under pressure by such changes, teams with an external orientation or an appetite for technology will be more likely able to engage in business model disruption. Originality/value The authors have had the opportunity to conduct case studies on three large newspapers companies in a country where the regulation is very strong and press freedom is not comparable to other European or North-American countries.