Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:26:16.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Military ecology more fitting than warfare ecology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2013

THOMAS E. MARLER
THOMAS E. MARLER*
Affiliation:
Western Pacific Tropical Research Center University of Guam, UOG Station Mangilao, Guam 96923, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Environmental damage during warfare is generally accepted as an unavoidable form of collateral damage. Military operations should be included in discussions of environmental conservation. The subdiscipline warfare ecology was recently proposed to integrate such discussion. However, environmental damage may also be caused by peacetime military operations, and, in such cases, relevant stakeholders may not realize that warfare ecology has relevance for peacetime environmental disaster. This comment proposes that the epithet warfare ecology does little to attract the participation of the groups affected by military operations, however the term ‘military ecology’ would also patently include peacetime military activities and may thus enhance engagement. Military ecology embraces all environmental conservation issues related to military activity during peacetime, preparation for war, warfare and post-war restoration operations. The established term warfare ecology could be subsumed within military ecology, by accurately constricting its application to ecological issues directly tied to armed conflict.

Type
Comment
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 207 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anon. (2011) Spoils of war. Nature 476: 371.Google Scholar
Brady, L.M. (2008) Life in the DMZ: turning a diplomatic failure into an environmental success. Diplomatic History 32: 585–611.Google Scholar
Crutzen, P.J. (2002) Geology of mankind. Nature 415: 23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Galgano, F.A. & Palka, E.J., eds (2010) Modern Military Geography. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Knight, A.T., Cowling, R.M., Rouget, M., Balmford, A., Lombard, A.T. & Campbell, B.M. (2008) Knowing but not doing: selecting priority conservation areas and the research–implementation gap. Conservation Biology 22: 610–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machlis, G.E. & Hanson, T. (2008) Warfare ecology. BioScience 58: 729–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marler, T.E. & Moore, A. (2011) Military threats to terrestrial resources not restricted to wartime: a case study from Guam. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering 5: 1198–1214.Google Scholar
Marler, T.E., Wiecko, G. & Moore, A. (2012) Application of game theory to the interface between militarization and environmental stewardship in the Mariana Islands. Communicative and Integrative Biology 5: 193–195.Google Scholar
Moisés, J.A. (2011) Political discontent in new democracies: the case of Brazil and Latin America. International Review of Sociology 21: 339–366.Google Scholar
Mortensen, H.S., Dupont, Y.L & Olesen, J.M. (2008) A snake in paradise: disturbance of plant reproduction following extirpation of bird flower-visitors on Guam. Biological Conservation 141: 2146–2154.Google Scholar
Quist, M.C., Fay, P.A., Guy, C.S., Knapp, A.K. & Rubenstein, B.N. (2003) Military training effects on terrestrial and aquatic communities on a grassland military installation. Ecological Applications 13: 432–442.Google Scholar
Rodda, G.H., Fritts, T.H. & Conry, P.J. (1992) Origin and population growth of the brown tree snake, Boiga irregularis, on Guam. Pacific Science 46: 46–57.Google Scholar
Rogers, H., Lambers, J.H.R., Miller, R. & Tewksbury, J.J. (2012) ‘Natural experiment’ demonstrates top-down control of spiders by birds on a landscape level. PLoS ONE 7 (9): e43446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shackleton, C.M., Cundill, G. & Knight, A.T. (2009) Beyond just research: experiences from Southern Africa in developing social learning partnerships for resource conservation initiatives. Biotropica 41: 563–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toynton, P. & Ash, D. (2002) Salisbury plain training area: the British steppes? British Wildlife 13: 335–343.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Marler Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Marler Supplementary Material(File)
File 34.3 KB