War impacts people in more ways than one. The Swaddle's Hitesh Sonar illustrates the environmental costs of war. Researched by Naina Yadav and Ananya Surana.

War’s environmental costs are steep. The UNEP estimates that 40% of all intrastate conflicts over the last 60 years were linked to natural resources. But there’s collateral damage involved during – and before – all conflicts. A 2014 study in ‘Conservation Letters’ says that 1% of the Earth’s surface is officially covered by military training areas. The unofficial estimate – when accounting for Africa, for which data is sparse – is at 5-6%. Then, there’s nuclear testing. According to the Arms Control Association, over eight countries have carried out 2,056 tests since 1945, with 507 causing atmospheric radiation. The USA accounts for over half of all tests. Not incidentally, the US military is also responsible for 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse emissions in the last 20 years.

During conflict, there’s displacement, which puts a strain on local ecologies. As of September 2023, the UNHCR estimates 114 million people are displaced due to conflict and persecution globally, the highest number on record. People in war zones, moreover, rely on wildlife, which is linked to species decline, which in turn prolongs the war, Kaitlyn Gaynor, a conservationist from the University of California, Berkeley, told The Atlantic. According to another 2021 study, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society-India (WCS-India), Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and Panthera found that 4,291 and 9,056 terrestrial mammal and bird species respectively experienced armed conflicts in their ranges. 615 species experienced frequent conflicts – far above the IUCN Red List’s estimate of 107 total species threatened by “war, civil unrest and military exercises,” Mongabay reported. There is significant vegetation loss too. An under-recognized dimension of the Israel-Palestine conflict: as per the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, Israeli authorities uprooted 800,000 olive trees – a Palestinian agricultural mainstay – in the West Bank since 1967. In 2012, two E.U. heads-of-mission reports found that Israeli settlers’ violence against Palestinians often manifested in targeting olive farmers.