On 5 November 2001, the UN General Assembly declared 6 November of each year as
the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (A/RES/56/4 ).
Though mankind has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage.
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, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.
The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies – because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed.
On 27 May 2016, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted
resolution UNEP/EA.2/Res.15 , which recognized the role of healthy ecosystems and
sustainably managed resources in reducing the risk of armed conflict, and reaffirmed its
strong commitment to the full implementation of the Sustainable Development
Goals listed in General Assembly resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ”.