Among nine different definitions of security , the Oxford English Dictionary offers four that are relevant to environment. These are’ safety, the condition of being protected from or not exposed to danger,’ ‘freedom from doubt,’ ‘freedom from care, anxiety, or apprehension,’ and ‘the quality of being securely fixed or attached.’ Environmental security is a complex issue which involves societal efforts to protect ecological systems, to render their future secure and to ensure their stability. It also involves the repercussions of the state of the environment upon national and international strategic issues. Hence it is closely tied to politics, military strategy and world trade (Brown, 1992).
At the heart of the matter are two issues: one is the need for concerted international action to preserve the global environment, and the other is the fundamental role of environmental quality in the security and well-being of each nation and hence of the entire world. National, international and...
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© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Alexander, D.E. (1999). Environmental security. In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_125
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_125
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