By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most wars in the last half-century occurred in places that shelter some of the most biologically diverse and environmentally threatened wildlife on Earth, a new study reported on Friday.
These include the Vietnam war, when the use of the defoliant Agent Orange destroyed forest cover, and timber harvesting that funded wars in Liberia, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the study in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.
Eighty-one percent of major armed conflicts from 1950 to 2000 happened in 34 regions known as biodiversity hot spots, which contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, the study said.
A total of 23 of the 34 hot spots saw warfare in the second half of the 20th century, the study found.
More than 90 percent of major wars -- those resulting in more than 1,000 deaths -- occurred in countries that contain one of the 34 identified hot spots, the study found.
These centers of endangered wildlife often are located in poor countries with dense human populations, which put pressure on the natural and political environment in normal times, study author Russell Mittermeier said in a telephone interview.
"You're looking at a very fragile platform on which human and other life depends," Mittermeier said. "And any slight perturbation for political reasons, or whatever, results in stress within the human populations. And very often that erupts into violent conflict."
WAR REFUGEES BECOME HUNTERS
Refugees from wars in and around biodiversity hot spots can add to the problem by hunting for food, cutting trees for firewood and building camps in these endangered environments.
Mittermeier, president of the environmental organization Conservation International, pointed to Madagascar as an example where immediate violent conflict threatens biodiversity.
"We have to be ready to respond and to persist during times of political turmoil, because it's not always going to be stable," said Michael Hoffmann, a conservation biologist with Conservation International and a co-author of the study.
"When you're in the middle of a war zone, obviously your number one priority is to stay alive," Hoffmann said by telephone. "But that's why one of the key things that we emphasize (is) to be there in times of conflict and not just pack your bags and say, oh, it's too difficult."
The study did not specify what caused the extraordinary correlation between wars and regions of endangered biodiversity, but said this needed further investigation.
The study's authors urged conservation groups and the broader international community to work with military, reconstruction and humanitarian programs in conflict zones.
More information on the 34 biodiversity hot spots is available online at www.biodiversityhotspots.org. (Editing by Vicki Allen)
