Blog: We Need to Talk About Conflict and the Environment

Jun 22, 2016 | Doug Weir
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Interest in protecting the environment from the impact and legacy of armed conflicts appears to go in roughly 20 year cycles. The two previous cycles, in the 1970s and 1990s, were triggered by the environmental harm caused by specific conflicts – the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. The current cycle appears a little different. This time around, the primary driver seems to be not a single conflict but instead a more profound understanding of the role of the environment as a driver and victim of conflicts, and how the patterns of harm affect not only what we view as the “natural environment” but also its dependent civilian populations. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the sense that, if international environmental law were a medieval map, the area concerning environmental protection in relation to armed conflicts would simply read “here be dragons”.