Rethinking Eco-Environmental Peace Models Within a Complex Geoeconomic Environment: A Theoretical Exploration

Eco-environmentalists have made strides in creating conceptual linkages between environmental changes and security cooperation in the context of geoeconomic dynamics. However, what is missing from this corpus of knowledge is the right-scaling of cooperation to the local level that encompasses _horizontal_ interaction among actors through commercial activities. Constructing such a relationship by connecting different actors _horizontally_ through activities that enhance human security and states’ stability can significantly contribute to the understanding of geoeconomics in the world’s planetary resources. This paper advances a theoretical proposition, “Intensifying the commercialisation of fodder in ecologically fragile environments has the potential to improve livelihoods, hence, creating horizontal geoeconomicinterdependence among the local communities, and consequently, lowering communal conflict and institutionalizing positive peace.” The paper argues that the transformation of societies from the traditional ‘_vertical’_ environmental cooperation security thinking to a more ‘_horizontal’_ relational environmental problem-solving approach is a pathway to creating a sustainable and inclusive peace. The paper highlights the new urgency towards reassessing the Horn of Africa’s geoeconomics through _horizontal_ local commercial activities as a pathway to renegotiating a positive peace framework in a fragile geopolitical environment through what we coin, ‘_local peace commercialistic’_:in the new approach, participation is at the heart of peaceful co-existence.