When disaster strikes and aid organizations swoop in to offer relief, their efforts often leave behind an unintended and unwanted legacy—environmental damage.
Because the need to respond urgently to natural disasters is great, considering the long-term impact of how that relief is delivered, has often been neglected. As a result, places struck by natural disasters are often further damaged by pollution brought by aid organizations themselves, thus creating more problems for locals to deal with in the long term.
The international relief community is now starting to look at these issues and think about more sustainable ways of delivering emergency relief.
On Thursday, in honor World Humanitarian Day, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) launched its Resource Centre for Mainstreaming Environment into Humanitarian Action, an online resource with a compilation of information about responding to humanitarian issues with a focus on being environmentally friendly during the process.
One article on the site by Groupe URD, a France-based research, evaluation and training institute, says that providing aid using materials that are local, natural, renewable, or biodegradable as a priority, favors sustainable reconstruction and/or development in a crisis area.
“In contrast, not respecting the environment promotes bad habits regarding the management of resources, which is already under threat because of the crisis,” writes Groupe URD.
The main idea behind the green aid initiative is that it will do a much better job setting up an area for long-term recovery and success.
“Humanitarian action always takes place in an environment that has been weakened and often in one that has been stretched beyond its capacity for resilience, that is, beyond its capacity to recover and develop normally after serious disruption,” writes UNEP.
“Making relief and recovery operations more environmentally sound will ensure that both human welfare and the environment are protected and conserved in response to a disaster or conflict,” UNEP advises. Green Aid in Practice
Because the need to respond urgently to natural disasters is great, considering the long-term impact of how that relief is delivered, has often been neglected. As a result, places struck by natural disasters are often further damaged by pollution brought by aid organizations themselves, thus creating more problems for locals to deal with in the long term.
The international relief community is now starting to look at these issues and think about more sustainable ways of delivering emergency relief.
On Thursday, in honor World Humanitarian Day, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) launched its Resource Centre for Mainstreaming Environment into Humanitarian Action, an online resource with a compilation of information about responding to humanitarian issues with a focus on being environmentally friendly during the process.
One article on the site by Groupe URD, a France-based research, evaluation and training institute, says that providing aid using materials that are local, natural, renewable, or biodegradable as a priority, favors sustainable reconstruction and/or development in a crisis area.
“In contrast, not respecting the environment promotes bad habits regarding the management of resources, which is already under threat because of the crisis,” writes Groupe URD.
The main idea behind the green aid initiative is that it will do a much better job setting up an area for long-term recovery and success.
“Humanitarian action always takes place in an environment that has been weakened and often in one that has been stretched beyond its capacity for resilience, that is, beyond its capacity to recover and develop normally after serious disruption,” writes UNEP.
“Making relief and recovery operations more environmentally sound will ensure that both human welfare and the environment are protected and conserved in response to a disaster or conflict,” UNEP advises.
Green Aid in Practice
Employing more sustainable practices in aid delivery requires not just thinking about what is immediately convenient, but assessing the stress on local resources such as water, timber, wildlife, and edible plants, and then coming up with ways to mitigate that stress.
“Grouping beneficiaries together makes the provision of aid easier, but this weighs heavily on the environment,” according to Groupe URD.
For example, the constructing camps to provide shelter to people coming from disaster-stricken areas demands a large amount of wood for construction, cooking, and heating. If a camp is too large, the wood consumed may be more than is sustainable for the local environment.
According to UNEP, densely populated settlements for internally displaced persons in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo “has led to severe degradation of wildlife populations, trees, and other natural resources in some areas, even encroaching on the Virunga National Park.”
In Vietnam, where strong typhoons can cause devastating damage, dykes built in coastal areas to prevent such damage resulted in the destruction of a protective belt of mangrove forest.
“This left coastal communities and the dykes exposed to the typhoons and storm surges, with devastating consequences,” said a report by Environmental Resources Management.
To solve the problem, the Vietnamese Red Cross planted about 68 square miles of mangrove. While it cost $1.1 million, but the cost of dyke maintenance was reduced by $7.3 million per year. It was also estimated that 7,750 families improved their livelihoods because of the mangrove planting.
In the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the environment was greatly polluted by waste from the excessive packaging of emergency food.
Rebuilding communities for victims of natural disasters is difficult, so aid organizations should do whatever they can to help ensure an unpolluted environment with enough, sustainable natural resources.
“Integrating the environment into the design and implementation of humanitarian programs prevents these negative impacts and improves the quality of aid delivered,” advises the Groupe URD.
The Resource Centre for Mainstreaming Environment into Humanitarian Action provides several guidelines for protecting the environment during humanitarian aid. The guidelines include keeping camp populations to under 20,000 people, keeping camps at least 9.3 miles from each other, and in ecologically sensitive areas, using fuel-efficient stoves and cooking techniques, and using concrete, instead of wooden, slabs to build latrines.
“Taking the environment into account in humanitarian action should not be seen as yet another constraint, but as a way to improve the quality of aid and to prepare for reconstruction,” writes Groupe URD.
“One has to keep in mind that it is only in a reasonably unpolluted environment which is rich in natural resources and biodiversity that those who survive a crisis will be able to rebuild their lives.”
“Grouping beneficiaries together makes the provision of aid easier, but this weighs heavily on the environment,” according to Groupe URD.
For example, the constructing camps to provide shelter to people coming from disaster-stricken areas demands a large amount of wood for construction, cooking, and heating. If a camp is too large, the wood consumed may be more than is sustainable for the local environment.
According to UNEP, densely populated settlements for internally displaced persons in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo “has led to severe degradation of wildlife populations, trees, and other natural resources in some areas, even encroaching on the Virunga National Park.”
In Vietnam, where strong typhoons can cause devastating damage, dykes built in coastal areas to prevent such damage resulted in the destruction of a protective belt of mangrove forest.
“This left coastal communities and the dykes exposed to the typhoons and storm surges, with devastating consequences,” said a report by Environmental Resources Management.
To solve the problem, the Vietnamese Red Cross planted about 68 square miles of mangrove. While it cost $1.1 million, but the cost of dyke maintenance was reduced by $7.3 million per year. It was also estimated that 7,750 families improved their livelihoods because of the mangrove planting.
In the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the environment was greatly polluted by waste from the excessive packaging of emergency food.
Rebuilding communities for victims of natural disasters is difficult, so aid organizations should do whatever they can to help ensure an unpolluted environment with enough, sustainable natural resources.
“Integrating the environment into the design and implementation of humanitarian programs prevents these negative impacts and improves the quality of aid delivered,” advises the Groupe URD.
The Resource Centre for Mainstreaming Environment into Humanitarian Action provides several guidelines for protecting the environment during humanitarian aid. The guidelines include keeping camp populations to under 20,000 people, keeping camps at least 9.3 miles from each other, and in ecologically sensitive areas, using fuel-efficient stoves and cooking techniques, and using concrete, instead of wooden, slabs to build latrines.
“Taking the environment into account in humanitarian action should not be seen as yet another constraint, but as a way to improve the quality of aid and to prepare for reconstruction,” writes Groupe URD.
“One has to keep in mind that it is only in a reasonably unpolluted environment which is rich in natural resources and biodiversity that those who survive a crisis will be able to rebuild their lives.”
