We were still counting our losses from Russian-Ukraine, before the Israel-Palestinian conflict held the world’s attention. We know of the “sorrow, tears and blood”, that the armed conflicts result into. However, an often-overlooked victim of war is the environment itself—the forests, rivers, soils that sustain human civilization. One of such histories that needs to be revisited is the Biafran War (1967-1970).
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There are accounts that reflect that up to 80% of those killed were children under 5 years old—did you know that? However, the non-human impacts compounded the violence in subtle, more insidious ways. With over 240,000 barrels of oil spilled into rivers and wetlands, traditional fishing and farming livelihoods were decimated, worsening famine and displacement, as documented in an Environmental Rights Action 2023 report. An estimated 500,000 hectares of forest disappeared according to another report by United Nations Environment Programme, obliterating wildlife habitats. The deliberate targeting of wells and water pipelines by both Nigerian federal forces and Biafran separatists created a severe clean water shortage, triggering cholera outbreaks still felt today.
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The bombings, oil infrastructure targeting, defoliation efforts, and general weaponry usage degraded fragile ecosystems, polluted water sources, and ruptured the landscape itself. Soil erosion and contamination from hazardous chemicals and debris rendered previously arable lands barren. Forests clearance and biodiversity declines disrupted natural carbon capture and climate change resilience. Ultimately, these environmental harms exacerbated the human crisis of food insecurity, disease, displacement and inter-communal clashes, legacies of which still fracture the Nigerian society today.
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Like many wars, the rapid environmental shifts during and after the war has been argued to have contributed to the near extinction of endemic species like forest elephants, chimpanzees, and rare plant species, robbing future generations of their natural heritage. That’s not even all, it robbed humans of the role that these “lost natural resources” could have been playing in the ecosystem of ecosystems on the African Continent.
Another devastating effect of the war that many historians seem to ignore is that the contamination from the oil and chemical composition of war machines poisoned mangroves and fishing estuaries that form lifelines for local populations, devastating biodiversity through disruptions in food chains. As flames from spilled oil raged across the landscape, they unlocked carbon stocks into the atmosphere while also imperiling forest resources for human usage. This habitat destruction, including clearance of woodlands for military operations, led to declines in several endangered species now at greater risk.
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Wars affect all warring parties and there is need to protect ourselves both for now and tomorrow. To safeguard the environment during armed conflicts for instance, a multi-pronged strategy has been proffered spanning strengthened legal protections, remediation programs, sustainable technologies, community awareness, and conflict prevention initiatives. From various literature, some recommendations have been provided as enlisted below.
(a) It is imperative that the global community prioritize civilian access to clean water, food, and healthcare as respect for basic human rights. It is a difficult first step but it is doable!
(b) Environmental preservation must be given greater attention. Adhering to the international policies like the 1977 UN Convention banning ecological weapons provides a framework that nations should consider.
(c) Improved impact reporting and youth empowerment programs could respectively bring accountability and help prevent conflict sparks from inequities or climate pressures. The presence of various media from mainstream to the new media quickly escalates and helps global authorities monitor the wars better and hold nations accountable for their actions.
Because human conflicts produce ripple effects that flow far beyond battle zones, scarring landscapes for decades. And because when we destroy nature, we ultimately poison ourselves—our food, our water, our children's futures. It is indeed true what Walt Whitman wrote over 150 years ago, that "war is murder systematized," but it's more than that. Modern warfare takes murder's collateral damage to once unimaginable highs, killing not just combatants but the living systems all species require to survive. Let us do all we can to protect the Earth. Stop Fighting, please!
Sources:
Akinyemi, F.O. & Ishola, G.A. (2012). Nigeria Civil War and its Environmental Pollution. Journal of Sustainable Society. 1. 10.11634/21682585170644.
Ebele, N.E. & Emodi, N.V. (2016). Climate Change and Conflict in Nigeria: The Boko Haram Challenge. American International Journal of Social Science. 5. 10.30845/aijss.v5n1p14.
Etemike, L. et al. (2021). Ecocide and genocide in the Nigerian civil war: Envirosociological reflections. Global Ecology and Conservation, 31, e01843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01843
Meagher, K. (2021). The legacy of civil war and the breakdown of consensus in Nigeria. The extractive industries and society, 8(2), 557-566. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2020.09.005
Temsah, G. (2022). How is climate change impacting Nigeria? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/climate-change-impact-nigeria/
United Nations (UN) Environmental Modification Convention. (1977). Article 1. https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%201108/volume-1108-i-17119-english.pdf
Watts, M. (2016). The origins of petro-violence in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. In Civil Wars, Infrapolitics, and the Oil Complex (pp. 67-96). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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