"In the history of mankind, conflicts have more often than not been triggered by resources - by hunger for land, fuel, trading goods, or indeed the materials needed to go on making war. High-minded excuses for aggression have often had this hard currency hidden behind them. In our human world, a clean and productive environment is a very important resource in its own right - but a resource which isscarce and getting scarcer. Millions, if not billions, of the world's population lack reliable sources of clean water and of firewood.

		Environment protection and peace protection should go together.

Food shortages can easily arise from environmental damage,including the damage done by producing food the wrong way. And now we are faced with the prospect of global warming, which threatens to aggravate precisely that kind of damage in some of the globe'spoorest regions. Protecting the environment and protecting peace must therefore go hand in hand. We must conserve the earth's resources, we must find alternatives to fighting over them when they arescarce - and we must find ways to stop the armed violence which all over the world, is destroying the life of nature as well as the lives of men."

Ms. Alyson JK Bailes
Director
SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute