Thursday, 10th of February, 2005

It's not a great revelation that war is more than just soldiers killling each other. We know that innocent civilians get murdered as well, we know that families are torn apart, women are raped, people are tortured…
And yes, we know that war has a horrific effect on the land as well. Think of the large tracts of South-East Asia and other parts of the world made inaccessible by land-mines, think of the (terribly under-reported) environmental impact of the first Gulf War…

But here's one that for some reason hadn't occurred to me: war has a devastating effect on biodiversity. Here's an article from New Scientist (essential reading these days, as much for their political perspective as for the New Science) on the loss of seed varieties in war-torn regions. From important genetic traits in Cambodian rice to a huge seed bank in Iraq, the stories are depressing, and expanding patent laws are exacerbating the situation:

The latest example of this trend comes from Iraq, where in 2004 the US administrator Paul Bremer introduced US-style rules that outlawed farmers exchanging patented seeds.

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