As I discussed in my previous blog, the Russia-Ukraine war is taking its toll on the environment, however, in this blog continuation, I want to hone in on the specific impacts on wildlife, ecosystems, and animals in general.
As you could imagine, any war or invasion will leave very large and devastating impacts on wildlife, and in particular, Ukraine has seen 80% of its national parks destroyed, and many of these parks show zero sign of life. Local and native animals are near extinction, and the main reason for all this destruction is mainly landmines. In Ukraine, an estimated 174,000 square kilometers of land is infested with landmines. These landmines are the biggest problem, as they are in undisclosed locations, and explode pretty much at random. This leads to many groups of humans and animals simply exploding, and fires spreading throughout the nearby land.
Plants are also affected by these landmines as the fires pose the largest threat. With one fire, miles of land can be burned to the ground leaving surviving animals with no food further resulting in an animal population decrease.
This problem could take more than a decade to fully resolve and the US is investing nearly 100 million dollars to help combat this crisis. The general consensus is that Ukraine needs to resolve the landmine crisis in order to get the ecosystems back on track and return to their once-flourishing wildlife.
Picture Credit: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/science/war-environmental-impact-ukraine.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65204053
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