ENVIRONMENT; SILENT VICTIM OF SRI LANKAN WAR

Today is the United Nations International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. In a statement to mark the event the UN says though the world has counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.

Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned and animals killed to gain military advantage. Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that over the past 60 years, at least 40% of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.

The UN says it attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace building strategies - because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed.

On May 27, 2016, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a resolution, which recognized the role of healthy ecosystems and sustainably managed resources in reducing the risk of armed conflict, and reaffirmed its strong commitment to the full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals listed in General Assembly resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

In Sri Lanka, again embroiled in political turmoil as it struggles to recover from the multi-faceted devastation of the 26-year civil war, an action group has examined the environmental impacts of the use of explosive weaponry in all its aspects.

The group Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) says it seeks to reduce the impact of armed violence through monitoring and research of the causes and consequences of weapon-based violence. It has a specific focus on the impact of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas and has been running a global monitor of explosive violence since October 2010.

According to the group landmines were used by both the LTTE and the government forces throughout the conflict in the North. This left the land highly contaminated by explosive weaponry – not only landmines but also other explosive remnants of war– including civilian areas such as schools and villages, as well as large swathes of agricultural and open land. This contamination has prolonged displacement, caused both physical and psychological damage as well having had an impact on education and agriculture. In 2014, UNICEF reported there had been more than 22,000 casualties from mines and explosive remnants of war in Sri Lanka, including at least 1,603 civilians. While these numbers have significantly reduced since the end of the war, there continue to be casualties from these explosives each year.

The group also says that during the war, many crops were destroyed by bombing and the effects of war. For example, according to the Coconut Conservation Society, at least 50,000 coconut trees were impacted by the war. While more than 2.5 million palmyrah palm trees were cut down to make bunkers for protection from the bombardment and for firewood. Palmyrah are the only tall trees that tend to grow in the north and east. The palmyrah tree not only provides fruit that is a staple food in the diet of the population in the impacted areas, it also protects other plants, people, infrastructure and wildlife from strong winds, as well as contributing to drought resistance by helping to retain water in the soil. Losing so many trees clearly, then, had impact.

According to the group, it has been said in the past that Sri Lanka appears to consider the natural environment more than some of its neighbours. However, the war is thought to have been a distraction from their environmental commitments for many years, while the post-war development drive has caused harmful effects to the environment and the people that survive from it in the impacted provinces and beyond.

The environment has been considered the ‘silent victim of war’, and it is clear that this remains the case in Sri Lanka.