From ELIZABETH KEMF
In reference to Fred Pearce’s article on the ecological consequences
of a Gulf war, I would like to correct his statement that the ecological
effects of the Vietnam war were examined only after the war had ended (‘Desert
fires cast a shadow over Asia’, 12 January). During the Vietnam war both
American and Vietnamese scientists were already studying the ecological
effects of the war, particularly the use of defoliants.
Bert Pfeiffer and Arthur Westing were part of a team that travelled
to Vietnam under armed guard to investigate the environmental damage caused
largely by Agent Orange. Vo Quy, a Vietnamese scientist, also risked his
life to witness the loss of forest south of the 17th parallel. A group of
concerned citizens and scientists protested against the use of defoliation,
which began in 1961, and finally pressured the US government to stop the
spraying of herbicides on the Vietnamese countryside in 1971 after 72 million
litres of herbicide had destroyed 2.2 million hectares of forest and affected
seriously half the arable land in southern Vietnam.
Elizabeth Kemf World Wide Fund for Nature Gland, Switzerland
