Environmental destruction as a counterinsurgency strategy in the Kurdistan region of Turkey

Etten, Jacob van; Jongerden, Joost; Vos, Hugo J. de; Klaasse, Annemarie; Hoeve, Esther C.E. van

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.05.001

Cited by 38 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Soldiers may also intentionally destroy or alter wildlife habitats to gain battlefield advantages, exemplified by defoliation during the Vietnam War (Westing ) and the recent deforestation of Turkey's Kurdistan region (van Etten et al . ). However, in rare instances, military tactics can inadvertently create wildlife habitat.…”

Section: Links Between Armed Conflict and Wildlifementioning

confidence: 97%

War and wildlife: linking armed conflict to conservation

Gaynor

Fiorella

Gregory

et al. 2016

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

133

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Armed conflict throughout the world's biodiversity hotspots poses a critical threat to conservation efforts. To date, research and policy have focused more on the ultimate outcomes of conflict for wildlife rather than on the ecological, social, and economic processes that create those outcomes. Yet the militarization that accompanies armed conflict, as well as consequent changes in governance, economies, and human settlement, has diverse influences on wildlife populations and habitats. To better understand these complex dynamics, we summarized 144 case studies from around the world and identified 24 distinct pathways linking armed conflict to wildlife outcomes. The most commonly cited pathways reflect changes to institutional and socioeconomic factors, rather than tactical aspects of conflict. Marked differences in the most salient pathways emerge across geographic regions and wildlife taxa. Our review demonstrates that mitigating the negative effects of conflict on biodiversity conservation requires a nuanced understanding of the ways in which conflict affects wildlife populations and communities.

show abstract

Section: Links Between Armed Conflict and Wildlifementioning

confidence: 97%

War and wildlife: linking armed conflict to conservation

Gaynor

Fiorella

Gregory

et al. 2016

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

133

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The best‐known example comes from the Vietnam War, when U.S. forces applied Agent Orange and other aerial defoliants to more than 2.6 million hectares of forests and coastal mangroves, a tactic with assumed but largely unexamined consequences for a wide range of associated taxa . Other documented examples of tactical habitat destruction include deliberate forest fires set by Turkish forces to reduce cover for Kurdish fighters in the ongoing conflict with the PKK and the draining of Iraq's Mesopotamian wetlands in the 1990s, an attempt by Saddam Hussein's regime to quell resistance from the Marsh Arab community . Environmental contaminants can also be weaponized during wartime, such as the targeting of petroleum storage facilities by Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War, or the firing of Kuwaiti oilfields and related infrastructure by retreating Iraqi forces during the 1991 Gulf War .…”

Section: Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity conservation and armed conflict: a warfare ecology perspective

Hanson

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The activities involved in preparing for, executing, and recovering from armed conflict are globally pervasive and consequential, with significant impacts on natural systems. Effects on biodiversity are predominantly negative, produced by direct and indirect battlefield impacts, as well as the general breakdown of social, economic, and governance systems during wartime. Certain conservation opportunities do occur, however, particularly on lands set aside for training exercises, buffer zones, and peace parks. Here, the relationship between armed conflict and biodiversity is reviewed using the temporal framework of warfare ecology, which defines warfare as an ongoing process of three overlapping stages: preparations, war (armed conflict), and postwar activities. Several themes emerge from recent studies, including a heightened awareness of biodiversity conservation on military lands, the potential for scientific and conservation engagement to mitigate negative biodiversity impacts in war zones, and the importance of the postwar period for incorporating biodiversity priorities into reconstruction and recovery efforts. Research limitations and knowledge gaps are also discussed.

show abstract

“…Civil war has replaced interstate conflict as the most frequent and destructive form of warfare in the post-World War II era (Eriksson, Wallenstteen, and Sollenberg 2003;Fearon and Laitin 2003). Civil conflicts have caused millions of casualties, destroyed infrastructure, disrupted production and trade, threatened external markets (Collier 1999;Bayer and Rupert 2004;Murdoch and Sandler 2004;Kang and Meernik 2005), generated environmental degradation (Etten et al 2008;Brauer 2009;Rueveny, O'Keef, and Li 2010;Gurses 2012), and forced many from their homes (Collier et al 2003;Moore and Shellman 2004).…”

Section: The Dark Side Of Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These measures also resulted in detrimental effects on the environment in which the conflict occurred. As Etten et al (2008) note, in the Kurdish case the depopulation of the Kurdish countryside and deforestation were neither the product of the state's economic development plan nor a result of state inability to enforce its authority in the Kurdish countryside. Instead, they were direct results of the state's policies of containing the PKK insurgency by cutting rebels off from their logistic support base and eliminating their natural shelter.…”

Section: The Dark Side Of Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anatomy of a Civil War

Gürses¹

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Anatomy of a Civil War demonstrates the destructive nature of war, ranging from the physical destruction to a range of psychosocial problems to the detrimental effects on the environment. Despite such horrific aspects of war, evidence suggests that civil war is likely to generate multilayered outcomes. To examine the transformative aspects of civil war, Mehmet Gurses draws on an original survey conducted in Turkey, where a Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has been waging an intermittent insurgency for Kurdish self-rule since 1984. Findings from a probability sample of 2,100 individuals randomly selected from three major Kurdish-populated provinces in the eastern part of Turkey, coupled with insights from face-to-face in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals affected by violence, provide evidence for the multifaceted nature of exposure to violence during civil war. Just as the destructive nature of war manifests itself in various forms and shapes, wartime experiences can engender positive attitudes toward women, create a culture of political activism, and develop secular values at the individual level. Nonetheless, changes in gender relations and the rise of a secular political culture appear to be primarily shaped by wartime experiences interacting with insurgent ideology.

show abstract

Environmental destruction as a counterinsurgency strategy in the Kurdistan region of Turkey

Cited by 38 publications

References 16 publications

War and wildlife: linking armed conflict to conservation

War and wildlife: linking armed conflict to conservation

Biodiversity conservation and armed conflict: a warfare ecology perspective

Anatomy of a Civil War

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About