Eco-sumud: Ecocide and Resistance in Palestine

War is not only human violence - it is climate violence. Direct conflict and its use of modern weapons, pre-conflict military activities (preparation for wars), and post-conflict issues (like scarred landscape or left-over munitions) severely harm biodiversity and ecosystems. We can see all of these tragic impacts in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Nevertheless, a significant movement for environmental justice and sustainability is growing even under the very difficult conditions of occupation and colonization. People are working at the grassroots level to build popular institutions that enhance and promote sustainable natural and human communities in the context of a larger anti-colonial struggle. Environmental struggles are an integral part of the struggle for freedom and justice in Palestine as elsewhere.

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh is the founder and director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability, Bethlehem University, Bethlehem, Palestine and a professor and researcher at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke University, and Yale University until he and his wife returned to Palestine in 2008 where they now have “joyful participation in the sorrows of this world” for the sustainability of nature and human communities.