Landmines and Local Community Adaptation

Abstract

Despite international mobilization for greater humanitarian mine action and despite considerable clearance achievements, the majority of mine-affected communities have not yet been involved in formal clearance activities. They adapt to the contamination largely by local means. The differing degree to which local adaptation is successful is now better understood as a result of the Global Landmine Survey, a multi-country survey project launched in the wake of the 1997 Ottawa treaty to ban anti-personnel mines. Socio-economic impact surveys have since been completed in several countries. In addition to landmines, the Global Landmine Survey records impacts also from unexploded ordnance (UXO). The ability to avoid mine incidents is used to measure adaptation success. We use a variant of Poisson regression models in order to identify community and contamination correlates of the number of recent landmine victims. We estimate separate models using data from the Yemen, Chad and Thailand surveys. We interpret them in a common framework that includes variables from three domains: Pressure on resources, intensity of past conflict and communities' institutional endowments. Statistically significant associations occur in all three domains and in all the three countries studied. Physical correlates are the most strongly associated, pointing to a lasting deadly legacy of violent conflict, but also significant learning effects over time are present. Despite different measurements of institutional endowments, in each country one factor signifying greater local development is correlated with reductions in victims, whereas factors commonly associated with the presence of government officials do not contribute to local capacity to diminish the landmine problem. Strong spatial effects are manifest in clusters of communities with recent victims. Two policy consequences emerge. Firstly, given humanitarian funding limits, trade-offs between clearing contaminated land and creating alternative employment away from that land need to be studied more deeply; the Global Landmine Survey will need to reach out to other bodies of knowledge in development. Secondly, communities with similar contamination types and levels often form local clusters that are smaller than the administrative districts of the government and encourage tailored planning approaches for mine action. These call for novel coalitions that bring advocacy and grassroots NGOs together with local governments, agricultural and forestry departments and professional mine clearance and awareness education agencies.

Community level risk factors for numbers of landmine victims in Chad and Thailand

“…We have reported previously on factors related to communities' abilities to adapt to landmines over time, which include pressure on resources and institutional endowments. 7 The laying of anti-tank mines, and UXO, both indicative of high intensity conflicts, were important factors in both countries. Blockage of water and pasture was a problem in both Chad and Thailand (as it was for roads in Chad), indicating high priority for clearance of mined areas in proximity to such resources.…”

“…6 Previously, we have carried out similar analyses examining the degree to which communities have been able to adapt to their landmine contamination. 7 In this communication, we identify the principal risk factors for two countries, then examine the similarities in these sets of factors in these two very different countries.…”

Analysis of Landmine Fatalities and Injuries in the Kurdistan Region

“…As depicted by Benini, Moulton, and Conley (2002), communities with a larger population size are more likely to not have people engaged in activities that make them exposed to landmines based on their employment opportunities. In this case, rural areas were the main target for mining.…”

Landmines and international business community: a political ecology perspective

“…A plethora of research has mainly focused on the impact of landmines on social issues such as health and disease (Oppong and Kalipeni, 2006), local community adaptation (Benini et al, 2002), communities in general (Williams and Dunn, 2003), social costs (Andersson et al, 1995), public health (Kakar et al, 1996), socio-economic impact of mines (Gildestad, 2001;Cain, 2007), and land degradation (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987), among others, whereas others have concentrated on the designing of a geographic information system for recording and mapping minefields (Sutherland, 1996;Craig and Elwood, 1998;Cinderby, 1999). Yet, another stream of research has devoted time and energy to banning landmines (Leahy, 1997), educating about human rights (Owsley, 1995) and getting rid of landmines ((The) Economist, 1997;Landmine Monitor Report, 2003).…”