Azerbaijan is far from the first state to justify violent expansion on environmental pretexts. Israel, for one, has repeatedly expelled Palestinians from their West Bank homes by establishing nature reserves and reforesting Bedouin cropland. But Azerbaijan’s punishing blockade of the Armenian-populated Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked enclave known to its residents as Artsakh, marks a departure.
Legally part of Azerbaijan but autonomous in practice, the mountainous region is home to around 140,000 Armenians. 2020 saw a return of violence, with militarily-superior Azerbaijan seizing swathes of territory. Thousands, including civilians, were killed.
