Overview
Environmental Security Research at the Centre of Criminology
“The concept of Environmental Security acknowledges the changing nature of ‘security’ within our contemporary world. It draws attention to the emerging recognition of the economic significance of earth systems, and their eco-system services, that humans depend upon for their survival. This includes, but is by no means limited to, climate change, an issue likely to dominate much of the 21st Century's security concerns.”
The Centre of Criminology has a well-established programme on physical security (crime control) governance. However, in light of the sharp deterioration in the global environment, and the local impact this is having on eco-systems and communities across Africa, the Centre has incorporated a study of environmental security governance into its overarching security governance programme. This is a new and critical area of enquiry.
Within environmental security governance the Centre’s primary focus is on understanding how the governance environment, in particularly its primary regulatory institutions shape environmental risk. This emerging research programme seeks to identify and work with regulatory institutions directly impacted by global environmental change and explore how their regulatory potential might be utilized to mitigate and adapt to the threats faced. The programme is particularly concerned with exploring how the potential of regulatory institutions, with wide-ranging regulatory influence, might be harnessed. Three primary categories of regulatory institutions are being investigated: public (e.g. local government), private (e.g. the insurance sector) and civil society (e.g. pressure groups).
A signature feature of the Centre’s research is the close collaborative partnerships it builds with other institutions across the science, education, public and private sector divides.
Environmental Security Programme
In its environmental security work to date the Centre has explored how communities manage the increasing risks associated with climate change, how regulatory institutions contribute to these processes, and what alliances can be, and are continually being built between them.
Using its collaborations to successfully improve physical understandings of the changes occurring in local ecosystems and the Centre’s focus on the governance landscape, a rich understanding of the challenges and opportunities, presented by climate change, is emerging. To date, the Centre has partnered with one of South Africa’s leading short-term insurers, earth scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), local governments, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and a variety of civil society and community based organizations.
Environment & Development Programme
The Centre also undertakes a combination of theoretically focused and empirically driven research that includes projects on Southern African food security, sustainable housing in informal communities and outreach programmes with schools and colleges that integrates understandings of sustainability into science curricula. This work compliments the Centre’s long standing tradition of action research on enhancing the well-being of poor constituencies and to facilitate the contribution they do, and can make, to security governance. In keeping with the Centre’s ethos, a strong focus is on building and leveraging a variety of collaborators to support and enhance the programmes work. This includes community organisations, local governments, aid agencies, academic institutions and private developers. This outreach programme includes a regular evening public seminar series on ‘Changing Lives’.
Quote:
“Our environment, which has been so crucial to sustaining us, is changing in ways that threaten our security. As a consequence, we are being presented with a whole new series of risks that are requiring us to rethink the nature of our security and how it can be preserved.” Professor Clifford Shearing, Director: Centre of Criminology, Faculty of Law, UCT.
The Supporting Poor-Focused Environmental Economies project is funded by the Embassy of Finland, and several academic and practical themes are being explored in the areas of urban agriculture and food security
The Open Society Foundation is funding a Food Security Project that is exploring how to assist communities to respond appropriately to challenges of food security in the context of shifting climatic trends. The products of this project will be a popular book as well as journal articles.
Another research initiative within the environmental security programme is focused on the role of municipalities as public sector regulators. As regulators municipalities play a crucial role in contributing to environmental (in)security though their regulatory interventions across a wide variety of arenas.
An initiative within the environmental security theme has been a collaborative project with the CSIR (the South African Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research) and Santam, South Africa’s largest short-term insurer, on the impact of climate change and related environmental risks on the sustainability of the insurance industry and the role that commercial insurance can play in mitigating and adapting to these risks.
The Centre also undertook a sustainability energy audit in the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town. The audit template developed has prompted a broader audit process within the University. Again a crucial element here is popular education and culture change in addition to creating more sustainable environments.
The Centre has partnered with Project 90 by 2030 in providing research in on environmental issues. The vision of Project 90X2030 is to have South Africans from all sectors of society doing their bit to preserve the environment, committed to changing the way they live by 90% by the year 2030. Project 90X2030
Access the Project 90X2030 Annual Report here >>>>