A silent victim: how nature becomes a casualty of war
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Research on past conflicts suggests that the war in Ukraine could have a profound environmental impact.
Article by Emily Anthes | New York Times
The Black Sea Biosphere Reserve, on the southern coast of Ukraine, is a haven for migrating birds. More than 120,000 birds spend the winter flitting about its shores, and a multicolored spectrum of rare species — the white-tailed eagle, red-breasted merganser and black-winged stilt, to name just a few — nest among its protected waters and wetlands.
The reserve is also home to the endangered sandy blind mole rat, the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin, rare flowers, countless mollusks, dozens of species of fish — and, in recent weeks, an invading military.
Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, the world’s attention has been focused on the nation’s heavily shelled cities. But Ukraine, in an ecological transition zone, is also home to vibrant wetlands and forests and a large swath of virgin steppe. Russian troops have already entered, or conducted military operations in, more than one-third of the nation’s protected natural areas, Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, a deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources in Ukraine said: “Their ecosystems and species have become vulnerable.”
“When people are doing well, that’s when you have the greatest opportunities to secure a future for biodiversity. And when people are suffering and struggling, I think that’s when things tend to fall apart.”
