Governments need to protect environment to minimise damage

As the world marked the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict on Sunday, experts have called on governments to place the environment at the centre of crisis response, conflict prevention and resolution.
The environment, they said, also needs to be protected by governments strengthening and acting upon the norms that can help minimise damage.
Since it was established in 2001, the UN International Day on Conflict and the Environment is marked every November 6th to raise awareness of the environmental destruction and degradation associated with armed conflicts.
According to a report in UNEP, systems capable of monitoring damage and the threat it poses to communities and ecosystems must be enhanced and formalised and means of monitoring compliance with current and future law.
“The environment must also be restored in the wake of conflicts, the victim of damage identified and assisted, and the environment properly mainstreamed in humanitarian response, peace building and post-conflict reconstruction,” the report said.
However, it noted that what is urgently needed to enhance the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts is a huge undertaking, and one that will require collaboration between governments, international organisations, experts and civil society.
“But environmental protection, sustainable development and the health and wellbeing of civilians demand that we act to deliver what is so clearly absent,” the UNEP said.