I would like to draw your attention towards the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Though mankind has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, the environment has often remained the unpublicised victim of war. As most of us know about the global warming as we have been victims of it by the recent heatwaves in Karachi in which a lot of lives were lost, and not only that but the water shortage that we had to go through recently, should be enough sign that we need to change our behaviour towards the environment.
Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that over the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, not just that but conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse. As it is being predicted, next big wars might be over water. This is not good because if wars do happen they are going to be further bad for the environment which means even lesser water and maybe no water or crops at all.
SHAHZAR ZIA
Karachi