WAR

War can be a blessing in disguise or a curse to the rainforest depending on the course of events that surrounds the war, and the situation prior to the outbreak of the war.

War brings panic, disorganization, and concerns of survival above making a profit; things that can help protect the rainforest by keeping people from destroying it. Often, war brings the downfall of governments that liquidate the rainforests to service debt payments, and the departure of foreign investors from the country, leaving operations at a standstill. Such is the case with the recent civil war in Liberia, where wealthy businessmen fled the country, resulting in the stoppage of commercial exploitation of the forests. Continuous warfare, like that of Mozambique, also has the effect of keeping foreign investors uninterested in risking their capital in investment schemes that could use the forests for economic returns.

Fighting preoccupies people more than hunting, the collection of fuelwood, and slash-and-burn agriculture, so the forest benefits from the absence of these activities. Many times, rural areas are evacuated and peasants crowd into cities relieving some of the pressure on forests. Another deterrent of rainforest exploitation is the guerrillas that sometimes hide out in the rainforest. In places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, and Angola, so many land mines were laid that people were at risk of detonating them each time they set forth in the forest, so people who might exploit it usually avoided the forest. Forests are generally safest during wars when the country has a low population density and thus few human population threats to the forest.

However, in countries where population puts pressures on the natural resources, the rainforests are frequently devastated by war. In these counties, the government may have worked to preserve the environment, and when the government falls or becomes immersed in war, the areas set aside as reserves become open to destruction. Such is the case in Rwanda where Tutsi-Hutu ethnic civil war erupted in 1993. Although the actual warfare did little damage to the forest, the hundreds of thousands of fleeing refugees did. Refugee camps along the border in Zaire has decimated Zaire's Virunga National Park. More than 750,000 refugees crowded into an unsanitary camp put tremendous pressures on park resources and more than 20,000 acres of park were destroyed. Four out of the five habituated mountain silverback gorillas were killed and hippos were slaughtered with machine-guns. In addition, exiled Tutsis returned with livestock to graze the country causing severe damage to the environment. Zaire's wildlife has also suffered at the hands of 80,000 Sudanese refugees who are camped along side Garamba National Park, the last refuge for 31 Northern White Rhinos and 230 Savannah giraffes. The refugees and ruling military groups hunt game using automatic weapons and collect fuelwood the forest. Until the refugees leave these camps, when order is restored in their native countries, these highly destructive actions will continue and may destroy these important parks. In late 1996, many of the Rwandan refugees returned home, but the environmental impact of their mass exodus is still largely unknown.

The chaos of the late 1990s in the former state of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) seriously impacted the conservation institutions and national parks of the country. Four world heritage sites - Virunga National Park, Garamba N.P., Kahuzi-Biega N.P., and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve - were affected by the rebels and park facilities were looted by fleeing government troops. New refugee camps threatened still other centers of biodiversity.

The presence of guerrilla fighters in the rainforest sometimes causes the government to take steps to destroy their refuge, using defoliants and clear-cutting to expose their strongholds. Such is the case in Burma and Sri Lanka where rainforest is destroyed for this purpose. At other times, fighting is carried out in the rainforest, resulting in damage from gunfire, explosives, and soldier movement like in the forested Chiapas state of Mexico.

In some countries, like Thailand and Colombia, forestry officials are actively targeted by rebels. Here, where logging is often carried out illegally for timber barons, officers are seen as the enemy. For example, in Thailand, where logging of wild trees was banned in 1988, wealthy timber barons pay peasants to illegally harvest trees from forest reserves. When forestry officers came in, some were killed. Now, unarmed forestry officials avoid confronting these peoples for their own safety.

This is a problem facing park rangers and forestry officials worldwide: how to confront heavily armed bands of illegal loggers and poachers having no weapons of their own. Rangers have very little authority in such situations.

Deforestation as a Protest

Guerrillas also target oil installations, pipelines, and mining operations. The resulting oil and chemical spills can affect large tracts of forest and devastate the flora and fauna of small river systems. For example, the the Caño Limon-Covenas oil pipeline in eastern Colombia was attacked 498 times in its first 11 years of operation.

Some countries like Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru establish military outposts in the middle of the forest. The resulting roads and clearance for the structures, tend to trigger settlement by colonists. One of the purposes for these posts is to gain control of the region by establishing a physical presence.

After a period of warfare, developing countries may find themselves deep in debt for weapons and the employment of mercenaries, like in Angola which hired expensive fighters from South Africa. In order to service debt payments, the governments may auction off forest lands to foreign developers.