Khaki conservation: a review of the effects on biodiversity of worldwide military training areas

Abstract

Military training areas (MTA) are special environments with specific anthropogenic activities. The aims of this review are (1) to understand the interactions between military training activities and biodiversity, (2) to quantify the available scientific literature on this subject, (3) to highlight the origin of the studies. Queries were carried out on two literature databases: Scopus and Wiley. The queries returned a large number of papers, but few actually matched the research topics. These two databases contain nearly 400 articles that discuss the interactions between military training and biodiversity at different scales. These articles come from all over the world, but the majority were conducted in the United States. In Europe, the studies are mainly conducted on German, English and Czech sites. Impacts on biodiversity from all types of military training and from restricted areas were studied. The impacts on these areas are multiple and affect the landscape, the soil, fauna and flora. They can be directly or indirectly related to military activities. Responses to disturbance by military trainings can be complex as they are variable. Thus, the same training may result in positive, neutral or negative impacts depending on the habitats or taxa targeted and the country studied. Training methods are constantly evolving and vary between countries, it appears important to maintain research about conservation in those particular areas, which paradoxically represent opportunities for nature conservation.

Abundance of Long-billed Curlews on military lands in the Columbia Basin

“…The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) manages < 2% of all federal lands (Esri 2022), yet the densities of imperiled species are at least three times higher on military lands than they are on lands managed by any other federal agency in the country (Tazik andMartin 2002, Stein et al 2008). Military lands throughout the world, if well-managed, can benefit biodiversity (Warren et al 2007, Zentelis and Lindenmayer 2015, Caudal and Gallet 2023. Thus, the DoD plays an important role in the conservation of wildlife (Tazik and Martin 2002).…”

Assessing conservation status of calcareous grassland in two French military training areas in Natura 2000 context

“…In this context, the aim of this study is to assess if French MTAs allow or favour the conservation of calcareous grasslands present in those complex systems. This subject has already been studied in other geographic contexts or in studies which have not resulted in scienti c publications and there are still gaps to be lled in about MTAs, especially in Europe (Caudal & Gallet 2023). Based on vegetation relevés, the study, conducted in a Natura 2000 context, compares grasslands that are subject to military or civilian management and activities.…”