Understanding the Damage
Armed conflict leaves ecological devastation with wide-ranging effects in its wake. Part of this impact is peripheral destruction to the environment. Massive artillery bombardment churns and compresses soil (referred to as bombturbation and compaction respectively). Movement of vehicles and troops reconfigures landscapes. Explosives leave seeping toxic residues such as TNT. Not all damage is second-hand, however. Landscapes, themselves, are often weaponized. Combatants may employ scorched earth methods to destroy resources as a way to move people or physically clear areas to expose the opposition. War’s destruction thus results in permanent shifts in both who can survive in a particular landscape and how they may do so.
When soil remains damaged, so do local food systems and economies. Soil health is vital to the return of people to land and the securing of peace.
Post-war recovery and land clearance demands attention to the environment.
Long after the fighting has stopped, the explosives that linger (succinctly named explosive remnants of war or ERW) pose persistent challenges for recovery and development initiatives. Today, the well-established risk of landmines has been compounded by the growing worldwide burden of pollution from artillery, mortars, rockets, air-dropped bombs, and cluster munitions. Modern warfare is reliant on these explosives, which all suffer from highly variable dud and malfunction rates. IEDs like those that plague Columbia also plague communities after fighting ends. When war stops, unexploded (UXO) explosives and abandoned (AXO) explosives dictate who can inhabit a particular landscape and under what conditions. In places currently at war, like Myanmar and Gaza, bombing campaigns create lethal landscapes. Like landmines, UXO endangers civilians, cuts off access to land, and delays agricultural production. UXO clearance spans decades, draining humanitarian dollars and personnel. Throughout this prolonged period, explosives also leach contaminants, disrupt soil, and leave behind heavy metals.