UN News
From Gaza to Ukraine and beyond, conflict has caused widespread death and destruction, but it has also devastated natural resources such as water systems, farmland and forests.The impacts affect livelihoods, and fuel displacement as well as ongoing instability. Moreover, they can linger even after the fighting has ended.
In Sierra Leone, for example, “when the guns fell silent in 2002 after a decade of conflict, our primary forests and savannahs also fell silent,” deputy foreign minister Francess Piagie Alghali told the UN Security Council on Thursday.“We witnessed loss of biodiversity, the forced migration of wildlife, and the abandonment of agricultural fields and swamps, all direct consequences of the armed conflict.”
Long-term implications
Sierra Leone holds the rotating Security Council presidency this month and Ms. Alghali presided over a debate on the environmental impact of armed conflict and climate-driven security risks.It was held as more armed conflicts rage across the planet than at any time since the end of the Second World War, and two billion people – a quarter of the global population – live in conflict-affected areas.
“Environmental damage caused by conflicts continues to push people into hunger, into disease and into displacement and thereby increasing insecurity,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).Conflicts lead to pollution, waste, and the destruction of critical ecosystems, with long-term implications for food security, water security, the economy and health, she explained.
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