War and the Degrading Landscape

That is, the landscape that was degrading…or ready to degrade…before the war. War can devastate landscapes de novo. Although as we’ve seen in prior essays, in otherwise healthy and stable ecosystems, such damage, while it may be noticeable for decades or even centuries (trench systems from the 19th and early 20th centuries are visible in Europe and North America, fortifications and trenches from much earlier in parts of China), has minimal ecological significance.


What about landscapes that are already stressed or susceptible to stress? As with most things in this field, this topic has not received substantive quantitative investigation. There is abundant speculation, hypothesis, and supposition.


Let’s consider the now-desert ecosystems of Jordan. Redman [1] cites references suggesting that the use of lime plaster, which required cooking steps in its preparation, might have deforested an area of 3 km around each village in southern Jordan around 6000 to 8000 BC. Having been to Jordan, I can certainly report that there is little functional soil anywhere in the country, and there is certainly no timber, and no real soil, in the southern part of the country. 


In addition, the ground surface in rural Jordan is covered by a patina of goat and, in places, sheep, feces. Redman suggests that the practice of allowing herds to pass through fields, harvested or fallow, late in the season contributed to the degradation of the soil and therefore to the transition from a generally wooded to a desert condition [1]. 


A final factor cited by Redman and his sources is the generally sharp topography of Jordan, which made the soils that had developed before human agriculture took over the landscape vulnerable to erosion and farming practices might well have contributed to the loss of functional soil.


Redman’s suggestions mirror the damaged landscape hypothesis raised by McNeill for the Mediterranean in general [2], and which has been argued against by others [3]. My point in raising the issue here is that “scorched earth” was a common weapon of war as civilization developed and expanded in the Mediterranean. A particularly harsh example was practiced by Sparta against Athens during the Peloponnesian War. In the spring, the Spartans would march to Attica, force the farmers to abandon their lands and retire to the walled protection of Athens itself, and devastate the land [4]. It wouldn’t have taken many seasons of this treatment—and it went on for years—accompanied by a little drying or, more drastically, wet stormy climate shifts—to erode the soil and make the entire region less arable and less rich in ecological resources.


We may well see, written in the Mediterranean landscape, the environmental effects of wars that took place millennia ago. There is certainly worthwhile research to be conducted to determine if this hypothesis is viable.


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Notes


[1] Redman, Charles L. 1999. Human impact on ancient environments. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.


[2]  McNeill, James R. 1992. Mountains of the Mediterranean world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.


[3] Grove, A.T. and Oliver Rackham 2001. The nature of Mediterranean Europe: an ecological history. Yale University Press New Haven.


[4] Kagan, D. 2003. The Peloponnesian War. Viking, The Penguin Group, New York.