“If the pope is interested, everyone is interested,” said Alexandre Roulin, accepting the 2019 Environmental Peacebuilding Research Award in Irvine, California. The University of Lausanne professor’s project—on how conserving barn owls in the Middle East brings together people in Israel, Jordan, and Palestine across political divides—is certainly unique and intriguing. (Also, cute owls!)

The spiritual leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics reached out to Roulin because the “Barn Owls Know No Boundaries” project promises a possible way to build peace in one of the world’s most intractable religious conflicts. A tremendous story, right?

But despite having all the hallmarks of a great tale, a quick Google search finds only a handful of stories about it. This lack of media attention is unfortunately an ongoing challenge for what I have long viewed as “the greatest story never told.”

As documented by the New Security Beat, environmental peacebuilding has grown dramatically as a field in recent years. Across the security, development, and diplomatic communities, there is increased recognition that disputes related to natural resources and the environment can escalate to violence, fund armed conflict, and provide an incentive for peace spoilers. At the same time, practitioners and researchers have highlighted numerous ways that natural resources and the environment can be a catalyst of peace by supporting livelihoods and economic recovery, underpinning basic services, and providing a context for dialogue and cooperation.

As fires rage in Australia and in the Amazon, hurricanes ravage the Caribbean year after year, and glacial melt threatens entire communities in the high mountains of Asia and Europe, peace and climate activists might be forgiven for experiencing a growing sense of dread. Environmental events of this magnitude have the potential to simultaneously trigger new ecological disasters and strain social and political systems. The unprecedented challenges borne of the climate crisis will be far-reaching, from large-scale involuntary migration and food and water shortages, to biodiversity and ecosystem loss. These challenges require responses that build social cohesion rather than fuel conflict—responses that are collaborative, just, and climate-resilient.

While there are many uses for global data sets and innovative data analysis technologies, the most important thing, Rodolfo Camacho said in this week’s Water Stories podcast, is not analyzing the data. It’s the collaboration among countries sharing data. Camacho, Project Director at Winrock International and Chief of Party for USAID’s Sustainable Water Partnership (SWP), sat down with Lauren Herzer Risi, Project Director of the Environmental Change & Security Program to discuss the importance of big data and machine learning on improving water security.

Climate change is widely recognized as a “threat multiplier.” From the United Nations to the G7 to the US Department of Defense, there is emerging consensus that climate change poses risks to both human and natural security through a variety of complex and interrelated channels. The extent of those risks, and how they connect to armed conflict, however, remain widely debated.