BANGOR – Environmental degradation is an oft-overlooked cause of conflict and violence internationally, but environmental improvement initiatives, even those performed at the local level, have great potential to be peacemaking tools, an expert said Monday.

Geoffrey D. Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., offered his answer to the question “Can we preserve peace by protecting the environment?” at a talk held Monday morning at the Bangor Public Library.

The Bangor Foreign Policy Forum, a group of about 45 area professionals that gathers regularly to learn about international issues, hosted Dabelko at one of its regular breakfasts.

Dabelko leads discussions with international policymakers, practitioners, journalists and scholars grappling with complex links between environment, population, conflict and security.

He also researches environmental improvement efforts that lead to confidence-building and peacemaking, with an emphasis on managing cross-border fresh water resources.

“Environmental politics have been characterized by their extremes,” Dabelko said. He used as examples a 2004 movie, “The Day After Tomorrow,” which depicts imminent, doomsdaylike consequences of human impact on the environment, and the Michael Crichton novel “State of Fear,” which questions human preoccupation with global warming.

Dabelko cautioned against the adoption of extremism and encouraged his audience instead to consider environmental improvement efforts to be a nonpartisan way to bridge communities, states and countries.

Such efforts can be made regardless of political boundaries, require a long-term perspective and accept anyone willing to help, Dabelko said.

Dabelko lauded the international organization Seeds of Peace, which has an international youth summer camp in Otisfield and strives to improve leadership, communication and negotiation skills.

He also listed numerous initiatives around the world – including peace parks, shared river basin management plans, regional seas agreements, and joint environmental monitoring programs – that are merging ecology and politics in efforts to make peace. Such initiatives should be more frequent and gain momentum, Dabelko said.

“Ask, ‘Where did my car’s biofuel come from?'” Dabelko said, advising the audience to consider the impact that the alternative fuel ethanol, which is derived from corn and sugar, has on tortilla and sugarcane prices.

He also told the audience to encourage legislators to overcome the perception of environmental peacemaking as “soft security,” or an ineffective way to find common ground with other nations.

For more information about Bangor Foreign Policy Forum events, visit its Web site: www.umaine.edu/umweb/spia/bfpf/index.html.