[CPEO-MEF] NATURAL RESOURCES, GLOBAL: "New guidance for documenting war’s impact on protected areas," Ukraine

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

New guidance for documenting war’s impact on protected areas


By  Iryna Babanina 
Conflict and Environment Observatory
February, 2026


Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to cause widespread and severe damage to its landscapes and habitats. This includes many of its most important nature reserves and protected areas. Many of these sites are part of the Emerald Network, a regional network of areas of special conservation interest created to ensure the long-term survival of biodiversity and habitat types. The Network was established in 1989 by the Council of Europe to implement the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (hereinafter referred to as the Bern Convention). Ukraine was in the process of finalising its legal regime to manage its Emerald Networks sites when the full-scale invasion began, and work to do so is ongoing, with 537 proposed and adopted sites partially overlapping with its national protected areas. 

While the Emerald Network had established guidance for studying anthropogenic pressures on sites, as a peacetime conservation instrument it did not have standards for assessing the risks or impact of armed conflicts; nor does the Bern Convention contain provisions regarding its application in situations of armed conflict and occupation. And so, within the framework of a wider EU4Environment project ‘Recommendations on the Methodology for Assessing Anthropogenic and Military Impact on the Emerald Network Sites, Preparing Site Restoration Strategies, and Ensuring Effective Management’, CEOBS developed a methodology and recommendations for assessing wartime damage. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://ceobs.org/new-guidance-for-documenting-wars-impact-on-nature/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




_______________________________________________
Military mailing list
Military@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/military-cpeo.org