David Duthie is an environmental biologist with a doctorate in migration of insects. After a career as a tutor and environmental consultant, he joined UNEP in 2000 in the GEF Division and then the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity before retiring to Oxford, United Kingdom, in 2016.
“When the elephants fight, it is the grass who suffers.” Kikuyu proverb
Recent tragic events in Ukraine have forcefully brought home the devastating human impact of armed conflict, but less is written about the equally severe impacts of armed conflict on the environment in general and biodiversity in particular.
There has been little mention in the news media that much of the military movement and action has taken place in Europe’s largest wetland wilderness area – Polesia (180,000 km2) – which, in February of this year, was set to be considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, while West Poleski has already been designated as the UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2012.
Sadly, Ukraine is not an exceptional case in this regard: there are currently 27 armed conflicts [1] ongoing around the world, and there have been 146 separate armed conflicts documented between 1950 and 2000 (Hanson et al. 2009) [2]. More worryingly, 118 (81%) of these conflicts took place wholly or partially within biodiversity hotspots, as defined by Myers (1988, 1990, 2003) and Myers et al. (2000).
There is no doubting that armed conflict will, in most cases, have major negative impacts on biodiversity, primarily through direct habitat destruction but also via suddenly increased pressure on wildlife and vegetation by militia and/or displaced populations. There are examples, notably during the prolonged Viet Nam (Second Indochina) War (1961–1975), where military action has been taken directly against the environment, in the case of herbicide spraying of forest land (Westing 1983), leading to calls for making “ecocide” [3] an international crime.
However, over time, there have been slow, concerted efforts to elevate the issue of biodiversity conservation in the maintenance of peace and security. Perhaps the most notable modern-day example is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea (Kim 1997), which has become an important site for red-crowned and white-naped crane conservation. Similar examples can be found in Cyprus and the Golan Heights and the establishment of transnational “peace parks” in southern Africa and Latin America.
Historians and anthropologists have also documented many examples of tribal conflicts between indigenous communities that have led to the establishment of no-go areas or buffer zones with reduced human activity that can serve as refuges for biodiversity (Diamond 2012; pp. 41–44).
The Elgin Air Force Base in Florida has played a major role in the restoration of longleaf pines that are essential to the successful nesting of the endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. Zentelis and Lindenmayer (2015) provide an assessment of the conservation potential of military training areas globally, providing a possible contribution to the 30 by 30 target under discussion in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
In an increasingly crowded world, environmental stress and competition for natural resources can be fundamental causes of armed conflict – or at least contribute to it. Conserving biodiversity, using biological resources sustainably and sharing the benefits of use in a fair and equitable manner (i.e. the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity) should be critical elements in discussions on national security. Investments in activities such as sustainable forestry, water conservation, land reform and protected areas management could therefore be seen as vital contributions to peace. As Peter Thacher, then Executive Director of UNEP, put it: “The ultimate choice is between conservation or conflict. Trees now or tanks later.”
Notes
- Defined as: “any conflict with greater than 1,000 casualties”.
- See also IUCN (2021) for a more recent analysis.
- Defined as: “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. (Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide, June 2021)
Bibliography
- Diamond, J. (2012) The World Until Yesterday. What can we learn from traditional societies? Viking Press, New York; ISBN: 9780670024810.
- Ganzenmüller, R., et al. (2022) What Peace Means for Deforestation: An Analysis of Local Deforestation Dynamics in Times of Conflict and Peace in Colombia. Frontiers Environ Sci 10, doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.803368.
- Gaynor, K. M. et al. (2016) War and wildlife: linking armed conflict to conservation. Front. Ecol. Environ. 14, 533–542.
- Hallagan, J. B. (1981) Elephants and the war in Zimbabwe. Oryx 16, 161–164.
- Hanson, T. et al. (2009) Warfare in Biodiversity Hotspots. Conserv Biol 23, 578–587; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01166.x
- IUCN (2021). Conflict and conservation. Nature in a Globalised World Report No.1. Gland,
- Switzerland: IUCN; https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.NGW.1.en
- Kim, K. C. (1997) Preserving Biodiversity in Korea’s Demilitarized Zone. Science 278, 242–243; https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.278.5336.242.
- Myers, N. Threatened biotas: “Hot spots” in tropical forests. Environmentalist 8, 187–208 (1988).
- Myers, N. The biodiversity challenge: Expanded hot-spots analysis. Environmentalist 10, 243–256 (1990); https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02239720
- Myers, N. et al. (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858; https://doi.org/10.1038/35002501
- Myers, N. Biodiversity Hotspots Revisited. BioScience 53, 916–917 (2003).
- Westing A. H. (1983) The Environmental Aftermath of Warfare in Viet Nam. Natural Resources Journal; 23(2): 365-389.
- Zentelis, R. & Lindenmayer, D. (2015) Bombing for Biodiversity—Enhancing Conservation Values of Military Training Areas. Conserv Lett 8, 299–305.