Landmines and the Environment – Can We Do Better? (Chapter in "Talking Tactics: Environmental Protection and Armed Conflicts")
Publisher: environmental SCIENTIST
Author(s): Linsey Cottrell and Kendra Dupuy
Date: 2020
Topics: Assessment, Governance, Livelihoods, Peace and Security Operations, Public Health, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Colombia, Indonesia
The late Princess Diana’s involvement with the work of The HALO Trust did much to highlight the issue of anti-personnel landmines. The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention is a disarmament treaty that was adopted after Princess Diana’s death in 1997 and came into force in 1999.1 The treaty includes a commitment for state parties to not develop, produce, acquire, stockpile or use anti-personnel mines and to ensure that mined areas within their territory are cleared. The treaty has been signed by more than 80 per cent of the world’s countries, but China, Russia and the USA are among those countries that have not signed.
With more than 60 million people estimated to be living in areas affected by landmines,3 and the increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in recent conflicts, the risks facing communities 20 years after the Treaty was signed are still prevalent. Explosive remnants of war (ERW) include landmines and cluster munitions (which are dropped by aircraft or fired from ground level and open mid-air to release multiple submunitions). They can remain in the ground for decades and prevent a community’s safe access to land and therefore local resources . Humanitarian demining operators remove ERW to make the area safe for people to use and include organisations such as Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and The HALO Trust. They all operate globally and have been implementing mine clearance programmes for more than 25 years.