Speaker 1: You're listening to AC N A podcast.
Speaker 1: There is a scene in the recent Blockbuster movie Oppenheimer
Speaker 1: where the team that successfully made the atomic bomb cheers
Speaker 1: its leader Robert J Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1: But all the atomic bomb creator can see through the
Speaker 1: smiles are the faces of those seared by the explosion.
Speaker 1: It's a master class in movie making.
Speaker 1: But it's also a lesson about the realities of war
Speaker 1: in today's world. Ukraine's ongoing battle against Russia has taken
Speaker 1: a steep toll on its people. The human cost has
Speaker 1: been well documented, thousands dead, millions displaced and many lives
Speaker 1: completely torn apart.
Speaker 1: But other victims of this war don't usually make it
Speaker 1: into the headlines.
Speaker 1: They are the wild animals whose habitats are destroyed,
Speaker 1: the vibrant wetlands that have been stripped bare
Speaker 1: and the rivers that are now poisoned because of heavy
Speaker 1: chemicals and machinery, oil.
Speaker 1: I'm Julie Yu. And on this special episode of the
Speaker 1: climate conversations, I want to talk about a different casualty
Speaker 1: of war,
Speaker 1: the environment.
Speaker 1: Alexei Marshak is a conservation biologist at the Ukrainian Nature
Speaker 1: Conservation Group.
Speaker 1: He's among many Ukrainian scientists who have risked safety to
Speaker 1: document the impact of war on the country's natural biodiversity.
Speaker 2: We don't go to the area where active war actions
Speaker 2: take place because it is dangerous and no one will
Speaker 2: allow us as civilians to go there. But some of
Speaker 2: our experts already work on the occupied territories. They continue
Speaker 2: their research in terms of biodiversity. They continue to make
Speaker 2: records on different representatives of biodiversity, especially rare species,
Speaker 1: dangerous conditions have made it harder for him to survey
Speaker 1: threatened species.
Speaker 1: But Alexi says collecting data now may provide evidence for
Speaker 1: Russia's environmental crimes which he calls ecocide.
Speaker 2: If you are talking about all the animals that died,
Speaker 2: that failed to for example, breed during breeding season that
Speaker 2: no more have safe migration roads, et cetera. This is
Speaker 2: all eco site. We are collecting the evidences of these
Speaker 2: war crimes against nature. Everything we can do is collecting
Speaker 2: the evidences.
Speaker 1: He explains in detail what this eco site really looks
Speaker 1: like
Speaker 2: if we call about direct impact, it is physical destruction
Speaker 2: of wildlife, physical destruction of natural habitats when constructing any
Speaker 2: military buildings, digging trenches. And
Speaker 2: on this is pollution with different chemicals from projectiles from bombs,
Speaker 2: from different shellings, which has also a long term deteriorating
Speaker 2: effect on the nature. I mean polluting the soil, then
Speaker 2: polluting the plants, then the fauna,
Speaker 1: the earth. He says struggles to cope with the influx
Speaker 1: of heavy metals and toxic chemicals. You can imagine millions
Speaker 1: of gallons of oil from incinerated tanks seeping into the ground.
Speaker 1: The estimate is that one third of Ukrainian soil is
Speaker 1: contaminated forests and national parks spanning nearly 2.5 million hectares
Speaker 1: have been damaged.
Speaker 1: Some 160 nature reserves are at risk of degradation and
Speaker 1: destruction
Speaker 1: and nearly 1500 plant and animal species faced a threat
Speaker 1: of extinction.
Speaker 1: Water sources have also been contaminated due to attacks and
Speaker 1: industrial facilities.
Speaker 2: These are heavy metals which are pretty widespread among different
Speaker 2: types of artillery projectiles, different types of bombs. A lot
Speaker 2: of chemicals from destroyed uh machinery from tanks from marine ships, oil,
Speaker 2: I mean gasoline, a lot of substances that usually kills
Speaker 2: everything when they appear in the water, for example. And
Speaker 2: of course, different chemical parts of explosives.
Speaker 2: We are the most mined area in the world right now.
Speaker 2: Even comparing to the second world war, even to comparing
Speaker 2: with the for example, different Balkan conflicts,
Speaker 1: even the Majestic Dnipro River which serves as a vital
Speaker 1: source of water transport, power and food bears the scars
Speaker 1: of the recent bombing of the Kharkov Dam in southern Ukraine,
Speaker 1: homes and farmlands were destroyed. Some 20,000 animals including endemic
Speaker 1: species were possibly killed when the dam was destroyed.
Speaker 1: Ukraine's Environment Minister warned that mines on earth by the
Speaker 1: flooding could wash on to other European countries shores.
Speaker 1: Then there is a nuclear fear. Ukraine has 15 nuclear
Speaker 1: reactors and one of its four power plants has been
Speaker 1: the site of intense battle damage to any of these units.
Speaker 1: Or nuclear waste storage sites could have a devastating impact.
Speaker 1: Rebuilding war torn. Ukraine is also expected to be carbon intensive,
Speaker 1: generating nearly 50 million tons of emissions almost equivalent to
Speaker 1: Singapore's annual carbon emissions.
Speaker 1: The very sustenance of Ukraine is threatened too as vast
Speaker 1: tracts of agricultural land lay Barret and unusable. A stark
Speaker 1: reminder of the prolonged aftermath of war.
Speaker 2: I should mention that now, more than 30% of Ukrainian
Speaker 2: agricultural areas are no more accessible and cannot be used
Speaker 2: in agriculture at all for many, many years, for decades.
Speaker 1: But dedicated scientists such as Alexei Mary are not about
Speaker 1: to give up. They work relentlessly to gather data and
Speaker 1: document a tool seeking to bring those responsible to justice.
Speaker 1: It's not clear just yet when this war will end
Speaker 1: and how much time effort and money will be needed
Speaker 1: to rebuild Ukraine
Speaker 1: the wounds of the environment, however, will take several lifetimes
Speaker 1: to heal.
Speaker 2: I think about 200 years or something like that when
Speaker 2: people are leaving these areas, activity of humanity is very
Speaker 2: limited on these territories. The nature itself will recover quite fast.
Speaker 1: Alexi believes that the international community could be a beacon
Speaker 1: of hope. The creation of protected nature reserves and war
Speaker 1: torn territories would also provide a sanctuary for wildlife to thrive.
Speaker 1: Once again,
Speaker 2: what the international community can do for us is to
Speaker 2: support our projects, to support our scientists and environmentalists and
Speaker 2: giving us ability to use the most modern technologies, technologies
Speaker 2: of assessing the biodiversity, state, technologies of monitoring and so on.
Speaker 1: My conversation with Alexi serves as a reminder that nature
Speaker 1: is not left out of the chaos and destruction of
Speaker 1: war
Speaker 1: on an already fragile planet. There are profound consequences of
Speaker 1: conflict that may take decades to erase.
Speaker 1: But in the face of adversity, environmentalists such as Alexi
Speaker 1: continue to soldier on recording and planning for the long
Speaker 1: road to recovery.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed a rather different episode of the
Speaker 1: climate conversations. Please do leave a comment or review of
Speaker 1: this episode on Apple podcast or Spotify. I love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. My name is Julie Yu and the
Speaker 1: team behind this podcast is Jacqueline Chen Tiffany Yang, Joanne
Speaker 1: Chen Sn and Christina Robert.