ETHICS AND ECOLOGY

THE USE OF HERBICIDES IN THE SECOND INDOCHINA WAR

The largest, most devastating military use of herbicides ever undertaken was by the US in pursuing the Second Indochina, which began on a small scale in 1961 and finally ended during 1971.

Herbicide spraying was largely confined to South Vietnam, however, lesser spraying took place in other areas and the Vietnam war is noted for widespread, severe and lasting environmental damage. Major effect was directed toward forests, but crop destruction and food denial were also heavily targeted.

Vietnam, once rich in diversity, was all but stripped of a major part of its natural environment by the US strategy, which involved massive rural area bombing, extensive chemical and mechanical destruction to forests and large-scale herbicide use. Approximately 91 million kilograms of anti-plant agents were used in the attack, which not only resulted in direct casualties, but also in wide-spread, long lasting and severe disruption of the millions of hectares of the natural resource base essential to an agrarian society.

Before herbicide attack, forests were used by wandering tribes for agriculture, logging and fuel gathering in a patchwork of woodlands interspersed by bamboo thickets, young regrowth, plots under cultivation and swampy areas - wide swathes of mangrove forest - once considered the largest and most productive habitat in the world. Once herbicidal spraying had taken place, the ecosystem began to crumble and 54% of mangroves were exterminated.

Woody vegetation covered over 10 million hectares of South Vietnam, the largest single category being dense inland forest, which extended to over 5 million hectares and was composed of a complex and variable floristic conglomeration. Approximately 14% of South Vietnam's woody vegetation was sprayed one or more times, and of this, over 1 million hectares were situate in the dense inland forest.

There is no doubt that the chemicals used had immediate deleterious effects on living organisms and the over storey of the forest areas. Following herbicidal attack approximately 10% of trees were killed outright. Long term effects on the indigenous mammalian fauna resulted from the indirect influence of disturbed vegetation and habitat destruction, as well as the direct toxic action of the applied chemicals. Aquatic ecosystems were also contaminated from chemicals, concentrated throughout the food chain, from the spray program-me named 'Operation

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