WEBVTT 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:07.000 You're listening to a stage talk titled Study 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.500 and Conflicts Impact on the Environment. This 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:12.000 week we were joined by Dr Owen Derbyshire from 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.500 the UK charity, the Conflict and Environment 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:17.440 Observatory. Owen spoke about the many different 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:19.879 types of conflict pollution and environmental 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:22.600 harm they've come across and how the organisation 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:25.280 works to monitor it, sometimes for years after 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.879 the initial fighting has stopped. You can find 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:30.079 links to all the resources mentioned in the talk 00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:32.799 in the podcast description. This talk was hosted 00:00:32.799 --> 00:00:35.500 by me, Charlotte Ma, on Thursday the 20th of 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:39.420 November 2025 in the Bellingcat Discord server. 00:00:49.979 --> 00:00:52.380 Hello and welcome back to the Stage Talks series. 00:00:52.899 --> 00:00:55.340 This week we're exploring the impact of conflict 00:00:55.340 --> 00:00:57.909 on the environment. We all know the damaging 00:00:57.909 --> 00:01:00.770 effect of war on society, but the often overlooked 00:01:00.770 --> 00:01:03.990 toll of war is on the environment. Someone who 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:06.629 works to cover this harm is Dr Owen Derbyshire, 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:09.010 an environmental scientist working at the Conflict 00:01:09.010 --> 00:01:11.269 Environment Observatory. The Conflict Environment 00:01:11.269 --> 00:01:13.870 Observatory is a UK charity with a mission of 00:01:13.870 --> 00:01:15.769 increasing awareness and understanding of the 00:01:15.769 --> 00:01:18.390 environmental and derived humanitarian consequences 00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:21.530 of conflicts and military activities. They also 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:24.510 work with organisations to develop tools to improve 00:01:24.510 --> 00:01:27.689 data collection and sharing. Their reports focus 00:01:27.689 --> 00:01:29.549 on regions around the globe with their latest 00:01:29.549 --> 00:01:31.769 investigating ongoing conflicts from Ukraine 00:01:31.769 --> 00:01:35.010 to Sudan. They're also about to release a new 00:01:35.010 --> 00:01:37.129 database showing the incidents in a searchable 00:01:37.129 --> 00:01:40.049 format. Hopefully by the end of this talk, you'll 00:01:40.049 --> 00:01:41.650 have an understanding of what can be measured 00:01:41.650 --> 00:01:43.650 when it comes to environmental damage caused 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:45.969 by conflict and how those measurements could 00:01:45.969 --> 00:01:49.450 be used to enact change. As we talk, please make 00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:51.430 sure to add your questions in the chat box via 00:01:51.430 --> 00:01:53.609 the message bubble icon in the top right corner 00:01:53.609 --> 00:01:56.840 of your screen. and please note within your question 00:01:56.840 --> 00:01:59.379 if you do not want me to read your username out. 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.180 Okay, Owen, I'm going to mute my mic and pass 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:07.219 it over to you. So yeah, hello everyone and thanks 00:02:07.219 --> 00:02:11.240 for having me. So environmental scientists, we 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:14.520 often struggle to document harm and conflict 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:19.419 zones. We can't get to sites, samples are dangerous 00:02:19.419 --> 00:02:23.080 to collect and information is tightly controlled. 00:02:23.389 --> 00:02:27.069 But with OSINT, we have opened doors that were 00:02:27.069 --> 00:02:30.150 previously shut. So we now have satellite archives, 00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:32.669 we have underground footage, and we have community 00:02:32.669 --> 00:02:35.849 reporting. And so what we do is bring together 00:02:35.849 --> 00:02:39.710 environmental science and OSINT. And this allows 00:02:39.710 --> 00:02:42.810 us to understand wartime environmental harm in 00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:46.509 ways that simply were not possible a decade ago. 00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:50.409 But first of all, let's start with a big question. 00:02:50.469 --> 00:02:53.979 Why? Should we care about war and the environment 00:02:53.979 --> 00:02:57.699 given everything else that happens in war? Well, 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:00.780 environmental harm and conflict translates directly 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:04.159 into harm to people. Pollution, destroyed ecosystems 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:07.500 and collapsing services create immediate health 00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:11.139 risks and they also leave long shadows. You know, 00:03:11.259 --> 00:03:14.000 sometimes for generations, for example, the legacy 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.419 of herbicides in South East Asia. Just one example 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:20.800 of how long these effects can linger. And once 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:23.259 the war finishes, once the front lines move on, 00:03:23.539 --> 00:03:27.699 people remain and they're left to live amongst 00:03:27.699 --> 00:03:30.900 toxic residues, damaged infrastructure, chronic 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:33.879 exposures to pollution and maybe more importantly 00:03:33.879 --> 00:03:37.180 governance vacuums where further environmental 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:40.360 exploitation can flourish. We should also care 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:43.680 because the environment has intrinsic value of 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:45.639 its own. It's the only one we have. It's the 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:50.060 only one in the universe. But conflict accelerates 00:03:50.060 --> 00:03:54.400 harm to the biodiversity, to wildlife, exactly 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.800 when ecosystems are already under lots of pressure. 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:00.460 And so for as long as this damage continues, 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:04.080 there's a real need for organizations like SeaOps 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:08.599 to exist. So SeaOps, the Conflicts and Environmental 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:11.699 Observatory, we have a simple goal, and that 00:04:11.699 --> 00:04:14.000 is to reduce environmental damage from armed 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.459 conflict and military activity. There are many 00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:19.279 ways to achieve that, but today I'm just going 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:22.399 to focus on one of those, hopefully of most interest 00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:25.060 to the audience here, and that's monitoring and 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:28.920 evidencing environmental harm in a robust and 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:32.199 at times systematic way. Now, if you haven't 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:35.560 come across us before, we are a small UK charity 00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:40.379 formed in 2018 and that was building on earlier 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:42.920 work around toxic remnants of war and in part 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:46.779 we emerged because of the big potential of open 00:04:46.779 --> 00:04:49.860 source investigation to give a voice to the environment. 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:54.620 2018 now maybe seems a bit of a bygone age given 00:04:54.620 --> 00:04:57.319 how dramatically the world around us has shifted. 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:01.139 Geopolitical fragmentation, climate stress, AI, 00:05:01.860 --> 00:05:05.879 disordered discourse and also the growing securitisation 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:08.939 of the environment. However, I think in that 00:05:08.939 --> 00:05:11.699 time the dial has shifted a bit. The environment 00:05:11.699 --> 00:05:14.779 is perhaps no longer the silent victim. as we 00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:17.959 used to say back in 2018, but we need to continue 00:05:17.959 --> 00:05:21.459 to work hard to ensure it's not a pyrrhic victory 00:05:21.459 --> 00:05:23.319 and that the environment does not now become 00:05:23.319 --> 00:05:26.699 the sidelined victim. So we need to sort of stick 00:05:26.699 --> 00:05:30.639 to our core values to keep on track. So that's 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:33.240 solidarity, it's collaboration and it's expert 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:36.779 situated knowledge. And yeah, I think at this 00:05:36.779 --> 00:05:38.699 point it'd be nice before you see all the pictures 00:05:38.699 --> 00:05:41.100 and images and stuff to give full credit to my 00:05:41.100 --> 00:05:44.300 colleagues. So we are comprised of environmental 00:05:44.300 --> 00:05:47.540 scientists, remote sensing specialists, policy 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:51.459 analysts, legal experts, and based in the UK, 00:05:51.879 --> 00:05:54.319 the Ukraine and beyond. So for anyone in the 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:57.199 audience thinking about Korea, maybe in investigative 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:00.379 environmental work, it might seem very niche, 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:02.740 but I think it's a growing field and there's 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:05.759 lots of space to work in and lots of different 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:09.579 paths. So what do we mean? What do I mean when 00:06:09.579 --> 00:06:12.740 I say environmental harm? and why is this so 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:17.259 much different in war to in peacetime? Now, in 00:06:17.259 --> 00:06:19.720 conflict, environmental harm takes many forms. 00:06:19.899 --> 00:06:22.319 Some of this is really immediate and obvious, 00:06:22.939 --> 00:06:26.240 big explosions. Other forms are slower or more 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:30.160 systemic, polluted soils, damaged water systems, 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:34.560 or a collapse in environmental governance. But 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:36.600 let's start with something very clear and obvious 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:40.139 and direct, which is air pollution. Often what 00:06:40.139 --> 00:06:44.420 we see in almost every war is that oil facilities 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:49.100 are targeted and this is just one example from 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:51.939 earlier this year in Tehran where there's a nice 00:06:51.939 --> 00:06:54.779 satellite image here with two fuel storage sites 00:06:54.779 --> 00:06:57.639 that have been simultaneously attacked. This 00:06:57.639 --> 00:06:59.480 is one big difference to peacetime, you might 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.339 have one of these incidents as a one -off. In 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:06.240 war you get them simultaneously, very frequently. 00:07:07.710 --> 00:07:09.829 And whereas in peace time you have a big civil 00:07:09.829 --> 00:07:14.050 response to this, most of the time in conflict 00:07:14.050 --> 00:07:15.870 settings there is no civil response. There's 00:07:15.870 --> 00:07:17.649 no people, there's no bodies going out to measure 00:07:17.649 --> 00:07:20.750 air quality and provide PPE and safeguard health 00:07:20.750 --> 00:07:24.329 and so on. The air quality impacts, now maybe 00:07:24.329 --> 00:07:26.970 we don't know anything much about what's going 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:29.490 on in the stratosphere, mass missile launches, 00:07:30.009 --> 00:07:32.430 you know, they could be depleting ozone. So there's 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:34.310 different interesting research angles to go in. 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:37.540 But maybe bringing things back down to the ground 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:42.120 is exposure to air pollution that is very linked 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:46.120 to war, so energetic compounds and repellents 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:48.600 that you wouldn't, civilians would not be exposed 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:52.180 to in peacetime. So this on screen here is an 00:07:52.180 --> 00:07:54.259 explosion of an ammunition storage site in a 00:07:54.259 --> 00:07:57.519 densely populated area. Sticking with this example, 00:07:58.139 --> 00:08:00.560 showing the damage from such an explosion in 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.079 eastern Ukraine, you can also see how it may 00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:07.579 lead to widespread land contamination and energetic 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:10.300 materials, for example, TNT. We know this is 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:14.000 a possible carcinogen and exposure to even low 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.319 concentrations can lead to long -term health 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:20.220 impacts. You know, waste from these kind of explosions 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:23.139 can also pose serious health threats. So even 00:08:23.139 --> 00:08:25.100 from the very building materials themselves. 00:08:26.300 --> 00:08:28.920 So these, for example, the Asbestos Mountains 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:32.080 in Gaza. You could have imagined a child surviving 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:34.220 everything that's gone on there, only to grow 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:39.759 up and die from asbestosis. Examples of complex 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.700 land contamination in urban areas, especially 00:08:42.700 --> 00:08:45.500 when different types of facilities with different 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:48.379 pollution profiles are hit. So here's the area 00:08:48.379 --> 00:08:51.539 of about a kilometre by a kilometre in Bari Industrial, 00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:55.600 this area in Khartoum, which has destroyed plastic, 00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:59.259 pharmaceutical and food factories. Next to destroyed 00:08:59.259 --> 00:09:02.000 warehouses and car workshops, together this creates 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:06.840 a very complex pollution mix. So land contamination, 00:09:07.139 --> 00:09:09.779 it's not just an urban problem. When the fighting 00:09:09.779 --> 00:09:12.220 is in fields it becomes a big problem for crops, 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:15.000 both now and in the future. That speaks to food 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.259 security, it speaks to livelihoods. Soil is physically, 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:22.919 biologically and chemically damaged. Explosives 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:26.730 like RDX can bioaccumulate in crops and pose 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:31.389 reverberating threats for many many years. On 00:09:31.389 --> 00:09:34.830 top of this is the risk from unexploded ordnance 00:09:34.830 --> 00:09:38.610 and other military litter. So particularly at 00:09:38.610 --> 00:09:41.590 the moment there's concern from the impact of 00:09:41.590 --> 00:09:43.690 fibre optic drones and the impact they will have 00:09:43.690 --> 00:09:46.889 on wildlife in Ukraine especially. But there's 00:09:46.889 --> 00:09:48.690 also reports of them being used elsewhere now 00:09:48.690 --> 00:09:51.629 so we've seen this major change in material being 00:09:51.629 --> 00:09:54.139 used in war. which could have really significant 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:57.960 long -term effects on wildlife. Even entire nature 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:01.919 reserves have been transformed delicate ecosystems 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:04.700 into military training grounds. This has happened 00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:09.639 a lot in Ukraine. So then we come to the very 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:13.840 profound impact war has on water and its reverberating 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:17.919 impacts. Just one example would be the militarisation 00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:21.120 and draining of the Mesopotamian marshes in Iraq. 00:10:21.320 --> 00:10:25.460 starting back in the 80s, not only altering the 00:10:25.460 --> 00:10:28.500 entire hydrological system, but also an entire 00:10:28.500 --> 00:10:32.000 culture. Nowadays we're seeing this over -resurgence 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.399 in using water as a military tactic. Huge events 00:10:36.399 --> 00:10:38.899 like the Kokovka Dam collapse, but in addition 00:10:38.899 --> 00:10:42.120 to those very large events, there's also thousands 00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:45.360 of small -scale damages to water and sanitation 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:48.200 infrastructure, and this can release pollution 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:52.210 into both surface waters. but also down into 00:10:52.210 --> 00:10:55.210 groundwater where the impacts are stored for 00:10:55.210 --> 00:10:58.269 many years. Out of this thing called climate 00:10:58.269 --> 00:11:01.610 change and yes, wars and military activities 00:11:01.610 --> 00:11:05.309 contribute to this. We are really only just finding 00:11:05.309 --> 00:11:08.350 out the magnitude of these conflicts and military 00:11:08.350 --> 00:11:12.269 missions and more monitoring is urgently required 00:11:12.269 --> 00:11:16.029 and a big space to expand into for us into work, 00:11:16.029 --> 00:11:18.929 I think. But really I could have taken you through 00:11:18.929 --> 00:11:22.149 dozens of examples of environmental harm and 00:11:22.149 --> 00:11:24.649 gone into way more depth for the more indirect 00:11:24.649 --> 00:11:28.470 and reverberating impacts. But I hope those slides 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:30.870 gave you a brief taste of the range of harm that 00:11:30.870 --> 00:11:36.549 we see. One overarching feature of environmental 00:11:36.549 --> 00:11:40.289 harm in warfare is the convergence of vulnerabilities. 00:11:41.049 --> 00:11:44.870 So damage, stacks upon damage. This then compounds 00:11:44.870 --> 00:11:48.340 everything else. the human rights risks, the 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:51.700 displacement, the food insecurity, public health 00:11:51.700 --> 00:11:56.059 crises. And this all unfolds in places where 00:11:56.059 --> 00:12:00.059 data is scarce, governance is weak, and accountability 00:12:00.059 --> 00:12:04.379 can be contested. And this is exactly where OSINT 00:12:04.379 --> 00:12:09.179 methods come into their own. OSINT satellites, 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:13.100 social media posts, eyewitness footage, and public 00:12:13.100 --> 00:12:15.799 dead sets. They give us a way into understanding 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:18.139 how on the ground, I'm fairly sure everyone in 00:12:18.139 --> 00:12:22.279 this room and listening understands that. Now 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:24.340 earlier in COB's work we carried out a lot of 00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:27.279 ad hoc investigations. This could be verifying 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:30.059 an oil spill clean up, could be assessing ammunition 00:12:30.059 --> 00:12:34.600 storage explosions, flooding events, so on. These 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:38.179 snapshots were valuable, but they were just at 00:12:38.179 --> 00:12:41.019 snapshots. They told us what happened that day 00:12:41.019 --> 00:12:45.610 to that site, or maybe over a few days. However, 00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:48.289 as we've just found out, conflict -related environmental 00:12:48.289 --> 00:12:51.490 harm is anything but a series of isolated events. 00:12:52.149 --> 00:12:57.070 It's dynamic, it's cumulative, and it's all interconnected. 00:13:00.070 --> 00:13:02.789 So this is why we've moved towards more systematic 00:13:02.789 --> 00:13:06.029 monitoring. OSINT remains absolutely central 00:13:06.029 --> 00:13:09.629 to this, and it's what led us to develop the 00:13:09.629 --> 00:13:12.970 approach I'll describe next. I'll bring you on 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:16.710 to Wyzen. We'll soon be launching this formally, 00:13:16.850 --> 00:13:19.230 but today I'm going to give you a sneak peek 00:13:19.230 --> 00:13:21.649 of something we've spent the last few years developing. 00:13:22.809 --> 00:13:26.169 Wisen, the wartime incidents to environment database. 00:13:27.789 --> 00:13:30.950 The idea is straightforward. Conflicts generate 00:13:30.950 --> 00:13:33.070 countless environmentally harmful incidents, 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:37.190 but the evidence has been scattered, inconsistent 00:13:37.190 --> 00:13:41.610 or disappearing. Wisen brings that information 00:13:41.610 --> 00:13:45.600 together in a structured, verifiable remote analysis 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:49.360 framework, and assesses each incident's environmental 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:52.860 risk and harm from the local level to the national 00:13:52.860 --> 00:13:56.500 scale. So I'd like you to think of it as a sort 00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:59.480 of counterpart to what organizations like Air 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:01.799 Wars and ACLID have done in their respective 00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:05.039 domains. I think that's an outstanding idea, 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:07.860 but it emerged in its earliest form in the early 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:09.840 days of the full scale of invasion of Ukraine. 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.039 when it was immediately obvious that the scale 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:15.720 of environmental damage required systematic tracking. 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:19.320 We had the tools, satellites, OSINT, environmental 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:22.620 expertise, and why the Ukraine grew from there. 00:14:24.379 --> 00:14:27.080 Now, there are really many other important ways 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:30.080 of studying conflicts in the environment, like 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:32.600 mapping burned areas, vegetation loss, crater 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:35.379 detections, air quality time series, all of these 00:14:35.379 --> 00:14:38.320 things, very important, we call them continuous 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:42.500 cohort approaches. They're essential and academics, 00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:44.799 especially now, are doing fantastic work in that 00:14:44.799 --> 00:14:48.379 space. But WISON is the counterpart to that. 00:14:48.820 --> 00:14:52.340 It focuses specifically on discrete incidents 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:57.399 affecting specific facilities. It's built around 00:14:57.399 --> 00:15:01.120 hierarchy. So at level zero, we have damaged 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:03.519 facilities, but where we don't have enough temporal 00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:07.519 detail to define an incident. Level one is a 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:10.529 wide ranging list of verified incidents. with 00:15:10.529 --> 00:15:14.730 calculated environmental risk scores. And level 00:15:14.730 --> 00:15:17.289 two is the big deep dive investigations into 00:15:17.289 --> 00:15:19.909 the highest risk incidents where we assess the 00:15:19.909 --> 00:15:26.090 actual environmental harm. When we cast a wide 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:29.070 net, we do systematic searches of social and 00:15:29.070 --> 00:15:32.149 mass media, emergency services updates, curated 00:15:32.149 --> 00:15:36.289 data sets, OSINT community outputs, and satellite 00:15:36.289 --> 00:15:39.100 driven findings. to generate a list of potential 00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:43.000 incidents. We then verify those, geo and chrono 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:45.980 locate them. And if it meets our definition, 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:48.820 we give it a score for the environmental risk. 00:15:49.379 --> 00:15:54.179 And that's calculated based on the theoretical 00:15:54.179 --> 00:15:57.039 risk. So what the type of facility is and where 00:15:57.039 --> 00:15:59.059 it's situated. Is it near people? Is it near 00:15:59.059 --> 00:16:01.500 crops? Is it near ecologically important areas? 00:16:02.460 --> 00:16:05.720 And also an event magnitude score based on the 00:16:05.740 --> 00:16:11.419 the magnitude of what would have happened. We 00:16:11.419 --> 00:16:16.899 can see that these occur across Ukraine and Norway 00:16:16.899 --> 00:16:20.279 really escapes. This gives you a real sense of 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:23.840 the breadth of incidents and the highest risk 00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:28.759 incidents we then promote up to level 2 analysis. 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.360 Level 2 is where the serious OSINT work happens. 00:16:33.230 --> 00:16:36.789 For each priority incident, we build a structured 00:16:36.789 --> 00:16:39.990 dossier. So we have a chronology of social and 00:16:39.990 --> 00:16:43.490 mass media posts, capturing the earliest posts, 00:16:44.049 --> 00:16:47.450 multiple viewpoints, testimony, screenshots, 00:16:47.710 --> 00:16:52.590 URLs, all of that business. So we have a reproducible 00:16:52.590 --> 00:16:57.470 search trail. We also generate a stack of annotated 00:16:57.470 --> 00:17:01.509 satellite imagery before, during, after, from 00:17:01.509 --> 00:17:04.609 all of the openly available satellite feed sources 00:17:04.609 --> 00:17:09.650 and occasionally some commercial ones too. We 00:17:09.650 --> 00:17:14.490 then do more detailed geolocation of key footage 00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:18.269 even if we know it is definitely where it is 00:17:18.269 --> 00:17:21.650 it's good practice to do so and maybe a more 00:17:21.650 --> 00:17:24.710 unique element is we collect subsequent evidence 00:17:24.710 --> 00:17:28.190 from later imagery a month later two months later 00:17:28.190 --> 00:17:31.430 or from local reporting or from official assessments. 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:35.160 And this means we can do an assessment of not 00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:36.940 only the immediate damage, but also the longer 00:17:36.940 --> 00:17:41.279 term damage. And that's exactly what we do. We 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:43.400 have a sort of structured environmental harm 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:46.859 assessment, looking at hazards, affected media, 00:17:47.140 --> 00:17:50.000 loss of ecosystem services and local vulnerabilities. 00:17:50.819 --> 00:17:54.880 So this gives us then a scorecard record of harm. 00:17:56.160 --> 00:17:59.000 And if the same facility struck multiple times, 00:17:59.019 --> 00:18:01.890 we can add that together. and work out cumulatively 00:18:01.890 --> 00:18:06.910 the most impacted facilities. The result is a 00:18:06.910 --> 00:18:10.509 detailed, scalable and transparent picture of 00:18:10.509 --> 00:18:14.069 environmental harm. We can see national patterns, 00:18:14.329 --> 00:18:19.490 we can see regional trends, individual facility 00:18:19.490 --> 00:18:24.190 histories. WISEN has already been used in our 00:18:24.190 --> 00:18:27.509 advocacy, media work and external investigations. 00:18:27.880 --> 00:18:30.119 and also for ground proofing with mine action 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:33.900 teams. And because the methodology is transferable, 00:18:33.980 --> 00:18:36.920 we've also applied it in Khartoum and Al Jazeera 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:41.460 states in Sudan. Our in now is to partner up 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:45.599 so we can scale up, develop it more and roll 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:48.319 it out to other appropriate armed conflicts, 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:54.119 employing local situated expertise and ultimately 00:18:54.119 --> 00:18:57.180 and eventually handing responsibility. over to 00:18:57.180 --> 00:19:01.759 those local partners. Now, Wisen isn't perfect. 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:04.079 No data set is, but it gives us something we've 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:06.559 never had before, which is a replicable way of 00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:09.240 understanding environmental harm of scale in 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:12.579 conflicts. And so this sets up the question. 00:19:13.079 --> 00:19:15.720 Now that we have this data, what can it help 00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:21.640 us change? So one is accountability. Once harm 00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:24.519 is documented clearly and consistently, we can 00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:28.849 use it for justice. This can be very simple in 00:19:28.849 --> 00:19:31.549 terms of recognition or for transitional justice. 00:19:31.769 --> 00:19:34.809 It could even extend as high up as international 00:19:34.809 --> 00:19:39.190 legal processes. What it does is it moves the 00:19:39.190 --> 00:19:41.869 conversation from we think this happens to here 00:19:41.869 --> 00:19:45.950 is the evidence and here is the scale. It can 00:19:45.950 --> 00:19:50.069 also support behavior change and norm development. 00:19:52.130 --> 00:19:55.450 So we can work out all the time which actions 00:19:55.450 --> 00:19:57.390 are causing the greatest environmental harm, 00:19:57.609 --> 00:20:01.569 which tactics, and then we can make the argument, 00:20:01.789 --> 00:20:04.309 maybe some of these tactics are not appropriate. 00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:07.890 And then finally there's recovery. If we know 00:20:07.890 --> 00:20:10.390 where contamination and ecological damage are 00:20:10.390 --> 00:20:12.990 concentrated, we can prioritise those areas for 00:20:12.990 --> 00:20:16.930 remediation, for restoration and for resource 00:20:16.930 --> 00:20:19.789 and funding basically. And this is central to 00:20:19.789 --> 00:20:23.029 any green and just recovery process. And that's 00:20:23.029 --> 00:20:25.519 something we're working on. actively in Ukraine 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:31.220 at the moment. So to close I'd like to turn the 00:20:31.220 --> 00:20:34.640 question back to the audience actually. What 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:37.579 are we missing? Are there other places OSINT 00:20:37.579 --> 00:20:41.619 can help? WISEM captures what we can observe 00:20:41.619 --> 00:20:44.539 but what are we not seeing? Could we be looking 00:20:44.539 --> 00:20:48.259 more at health impacts and assessments? More 00:20:48.259 --> 00:20:52.759 at prevention and predictive analytics? More 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:57.500 at supply chains, the militaries for example 00:20:57.500 --> 00:21:01.380 and all of this in the context of the information 00:21:01.380 --> 00:21:04.539 space which is shrinking is becoming more fragmented, 00:21:04.940 --> 00:21:08.319 more content is ephemeral and there's more this 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:11.900 and misinformation and that is they also impact 00:21:11.900 --> 00:21:15.299 environmental narratives. So how do we go about 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:19.220 keeping documentation trustworthy? So genuinely 00:21:19.220 --> 00:21:22.880 welcome your ideas, your questions. And thank 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:27.539 you for being here today. Thank you. Thanks for 00:21:27.539 --> 00:21:31.319 being patient as well with my clicking. Apologies 00:21:31.319 --> 00:21:34.700 about the tech issue there that prevented you 00:21:34.700 --> 00:21:36.720 from clicking yourself, but I really appreciate 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.160 you taking us through that and actually taking 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:42.319 us through some quite surprising to me anyway, 00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:45.799 impacts of war. Some of the things like air pollution, 00:21:45.819 --> 00:21:48.680 I'd not even thought about when we're covering 00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:53.180 conflict. Usually we look at fires. and deforestation 00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:55.119 as environmental impacts, but not necessarily 00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:57.779 air pollution, which was super interesting. We 00:21:57.779 --> 00:21:59.880 have a bunch of questions in the chat, but just 00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:02.579 to respond initially to your question at the 00:22:02.579 --> 00:22:04.960 end there, a lot of people are saying, what are 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.839 we missing? Somebody said my answer, volunteers, 00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:10.759 and they are ready to volunteer. I don't know 00:22:10.759 --> 00:22:13.059 if you have a volunteer program or a way that 00:22:13.059 --> 00:22:17.980 people can get involved. It's almost like a set 00:22:17.980 --> 00:22:22.750 up question. So we previously have trialed volunteers 00:22:22.750 --> 00:22:26.269 like maybe like a couple of years ago and what 00:22:26.269 --> 00:22:28.750 we found was that we were probably asking too 00:22:28.750 --> 00:22:32.690 much of them in terms of like the there's the 00:22:32.690 --> 00:22:34.369 awesome knowledge but then there's like an extra 00:22:34.369 --> 00:22:36.970 bit of environmental like knowledge that's missing. 00:22:38.190 --> 00:22:40.150 So we've been sort of learned from that and we've 00:22:40.150 --> 00:22:44.309 been thinking about it and I certainly do think 00:22:44.309 --> 00:22:48.220 there is a role for volunteers and At the moment, 00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:53.160 we're trialing out with some sort of, some students 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:56.880 are working part time on the level zero part 00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.000 of the database, which is just damaged facilities. 00:23:00.180 --> 00:23:02.299 So we're going to see how that goes and maybe 00:23:02.299 --> 00:23:05.319 see if that is something that we can roll out 00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:09.460 as a, as a wider thing for volunteers as a citizen 00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:12.140 science thing perhaps. Could it be hosted somewhere 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:14.380 like Zooniverse? We're just, we're sort of, yeah. 00:23:15.470 --> 00:23:17.190 investigating these ideas, it would be good to 00:23:17.190 --> 00:23:21.849 know what's too much to ask of volunteers and 00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:23.930 what's the reasonable ask. That's maybe where 00:23:23.930 --> 00:23:28.269 we struggled before. Yeah, perhaps people can 00:23:28.269 --> 00:23:30.549 put their experience of volunteering in the chat. 00:23:31.150 --> 00:23:33.609 I know, for example, we have a volunteer group 00:23:33.609 --> 00:23:37.390 here at Bellingcat and it's always a learning 00:23:37.390 --> 00:23:39.970 process in terms of how much to ask for and how 00:23:39.970 --> 00:23:42.660 much to get back. What I often find is that people 00:23:42.660 --> 00:23:45.960 are very willing to give a lot of time and actually 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.019 it's up to you as the responsible organization 00:23:49.019 --> 00:23:51.920 to make sure that they're not overworking, which 00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:56.240 I think is a key point. We've got a few questions 00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:01.180 about the Wison map as you presented it. Saiba 00:24:01.180 --> 00:24:04.039 has asked, that Wison map of Ukraine, does that 00:24:04.039 --> 00:24:07.079 show overall environmental damage or is there 00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:10.559 a way or reason? to separate it into air, water, 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:15.140 ground and damage, et cetera. And somebody else 00:24:15.140 --> 00:24:17.099 has put, is there a correlation made between 00:24:17.099 --> 00:24:20.059 the WISEN findings and population health after 00:24:20.059 --> 00:24:23.839 an incident? For example, degradation in crops 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:26.559 slash animal health, et cetera. So have you thought 00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:30.140 about breaking down the things mapped on the 00:24:30.140 --> 00:24:33.880 WISEN maps to show kind of the breakdown in different 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:36.000 types of environmental damage? And also is it 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.119 linked to population health as well? Absolutely 00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:43.779 fantastic questions. And yes, we can break down 00:24:43.779 --> 00:24:46.480 that map. We could separate it out by the type 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.380 of facility. So if we just wanted to look at 00:24:48.380 --> 00:24:50.240 water facilities, we could have the same map, 00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:53.900 just looking at water facilities, same for agriculture, 00:24:54.440 --> 00:24:58.539 industry, military even. And we could start to 00:24:58.539 --> 00:25:01.500 see how things look different for different sectors. 00:25:02.940 --> 00:25:04.200 It's important to say that wouldn't give you 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:06.900 the whole story for like water in Ukraine. If 00:25:06.900 --> 00:25:09.480 you were just looking at our our database, it 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:11.140 would give you a lot of information and a lot 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:15.759 of the detail. We also need to then be still 00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:18.839 looking at some of the more, I can mention the 00:25:18.839 --> 00:25:21.140 sort of like continuous cohort approaches. So 00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:24.660 looking at not incidents, but let's say water 00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:27.119 quality over a very long period of time in lots 00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:29.819 of different places, which is not something that 00:25:29.819 --> 00:25:32.539 would be picked up by Vyzen as an incident. You 00:25:32.539 --> 00:25:36.200 might see. the three, four years of the conflict, 00:25:36.779 --> 00:25:38.700 the change in water quality, which you could 00:25:38.700 --> 00:25:40.299 maybe attribute to the conflicts, but it's sort 00:25:40.299 --> 00:25:44.440 of one of these more hidden sort of things. Absolutely 00:25:44.440 --> 00:25:47.859 breaking it down by sector, by domain is really 00:25:47.859 --> 00:25:51.759 important. We're trying to understand this in 00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:56.380 terms of health. That's the sort of next big 00:25:56.380 --> 00:26:02.910 frontier. That's where a present is. exceptionally 00:26:02.910 --> 00:26:06.569 hard to make the connection between environmental 00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:10.509 damage, some exposure to pollution and the health 00:26:10.509 --> 00:26:16.150 impact. The sort of, even in peacetime in civilian 00:26:16.150 --> 00:26:18.589 settings, it's very hard to do that sort of epidemiological 00:26:18.589 --> 00:26:22.130 work because there's so many other confounding 00:26:22.130 --> 00:26:25.009 things happening. That's made even harder in 00:26:25.009 --> 00:26:29.710 conflicts because people's bodies are under more 00:26:29.710 --> 00:26:32.440 stress from the mental stress. physical stress, 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:38.099 there's everything else going on. Um, but it's 00:26:38.099 --> 00:26:42.240 definitely, I think that where if we keep pushing 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:46.279 and keep trying, we will like uncover lots of, 00:26:46.279 --> 00:26:48.880 lots of connections, lots of important connections 00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:55.880 and connections that are not just acute and over 00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.200 a few days or weeks, but like chronic over a 00:26:58.200 --> 00:27:01.720 very long term. More just in the way What's with 00:27:01.720 --> 00:27:04.720 pageant orange and herbicide use in Southeast 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:08.740 Asia? You mentioned a lot of the time in your 00:27:08.740 --> 00:27:12.740 talk about the cumulative effects that you're 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:15.880 monitoring. Where does your organization draw 00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.440 a line on monitoring? Are you monitoring these 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.339 effects of conflict forever? When does it no 00:27:22.339 --> 00:27:26.809 longer become? When does conflict no longer become 00:27:26.809 --> 00:27:29.869 the causation and how long into the future are 00:27:29.869 --> 00:27:33.430 you monitoring this land and these pollution 00:27:33.430 --> 00:27:37.890 effects? I think that's an amazing question. 00:27:39.230 --> 00:27:41.130 And it depends what you're particularly interested 00:27:41.130 --> 00:27:45.829 in, but the answer can be decades. Even now, 00:27:46.150 --> 00:27:49.009 there's fields that farmers can't use in Northern 00:27:49.009 --> 00:27:51.609 France because of contamination from World War 00:27:51.609 --> 00:27:55.220 I battlefields. So you do need to think on those 00:27:55.220 --> 00:28:00.960 time horizons. And I also think there's a lot 00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:03.519 of space to research into some of the wars in 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:10.420 the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, even into the 2000s of 00:28:10.420 --> 00:28:12.940 health impacts now. And there's been like the 00:28:12.940 --> 00:28:16.039 most work done around like US veterans who were 00:28:16.039 --> 00:28:20.460 exposed to burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan and 00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:24.829 so on. where all of the outside the bases they 00:28:24.829 --> 00:28:28.170 were just burning everything and they now have 00:28:28.170 --> 00:28:32.670 elevated health risk let's say. What will happen 00:28:32.670 --> 00:28:36.230 to the local civilian populations in those places? 00:28:36.390 --> 00:28:39.210 We don't really know anything about that so we'd 00:28:39.210 --> 00:28:41.750 need more monitoring and more monitoring into 00:28:41.750 --> 00:28:46.509 the future. Where to draw the line? The line 00:28:46.509 --> 00:28:50.190 gets drawn for us I think by the resource we 00:28:50.190 --> 00:28:54.569 have. More hands on deck are needed by the sounds 00:28:54.569 --> 00:28:58.089 of it. And I'm sure everyone listening is now 00:28:58.089 --> 00:29:01.890 really fascinated and interested in getting involved 00:29:01.890 --> 00:29:05.990 in this kind of work. One of my colleagues, Jake 00:29:05.990 --> 00:29:09.349 Godin, who has been working at looking at the 00:29:09.349 --> 00:29:12.029 land changes in Gaza for quite some time now 00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:15.190 is curious if you or your colleagues have tried 00:29:15.190 --> 00:29:17.849 messing around with hyperspectral imagery yet 00:29:17.849 --> 00:29:20.609 on observing environmental changes slash impact. 00:29:20.809 --> 00:29:22.670 Perhaps you can give us an insight into some 00:29:22.670 --> 00:29:24.670 of the tools you mentioned, satellite imagery, 00:29:25.309 --> 00:29:27.210 but specific tools that you use on a regular 00:29:27.210 --> 00:29:31.250 basis to monitor this work. Yes. Okay. Let's 00:29:31.250 --> 00:29:33.109 start with hyperspectral because it's the most 00:29:33.109 --> 00:29:40.029 exciting. Um, it is, I think if we had access 00:29:40.029 --> 00:29:45.250 to hyperspectral data, so that's where you could 00:29:45.250 --> 00:29:48.309 have sort of the spectral fingerprint for every 00:29:48.309 --> 00:29:52.640 object. on the surface of earth basically. That 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:56.480 would be really, really sort of transformative 00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:59.619 in environmental monitoring conflicts. Environmental 00:29:59.619 --> 00:30:02.119 monitoring overall, but like especially in conflicts 00:30:02.119 --> 00:30:07.599 we could much more easily document change. We 00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:11.299 haven't actually played with hyperspectral, at 00:30:11.299 --> 00:30:15.160 least high resolution hyperspectral, high spatial 00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:18.220 resolution hyperspectral. that we would love 00:30:18.220 --> 00:30:21.579 to if there's any commercial companies out there 00:30:21.579 --> 00:30:24.259 who would like to take us on board to do case 00:30:24.259 --> 00:30:28.660 studies with. What we are doing, otherwise, is 00:30:28.660 --> 00:30:30.720 pretty much the same as lots of people here, 00:30:30.980 --> 00:30:34.980 which is, you know, using the openly available 00:30:34.980 --> 00:30:40.279 stuff. So Sentinel -2, obviously, also Sentinel 00:30:40.279 --> 00:30:45.900 -1, Radar, Danger Detection, Muse. If we have 00:30:45.900 --> 00:30:49.440 to we use proprietary imagery so especially the 00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:54.500 planet scope stuff is good or we can buy some 00:30:54.500 --> 00:30:57.559 very high res imagery which we find we often 00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:01.319 need to do if we want to know if a certain like 00:31:01.319 --> 00:31:04.380 chemical tank has been damaged. You just simply 00:31:04.380 --> 00:31:06.240 can't see that from a Sentinel -2 but you might 00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:09.380 be able to from a very high resolution image. 00:31:11.740 --> 00:31:13.480 I expect a lot of you are familiar with that 00:31:13.480 --> 00:31:15.210 sort of stuff in the room. Maybe what you're 00:31:15.210 --> 00:31:19.650 not so familiar with is all of the sort of open 00:31:19.650 --> 00:31:22.690 environmental data, which is out there. Now this 00:31:22.690 --> 00:31:24.569 will sort of vary between countries, but there's 00:31:24.569 --> 00:31:27.829 a lot of derived products, maybe from satellite 00:31:27.829 --> 00:31:34.789 data, maybe from models. We see loads of value 00:31:34.789 --> 00:31:38.349 of combining the OSINT stuff with that open environmental 00:31:38.349 --> 00:31:41.910 data. And that's what helps us sort of be able 00:31:41.910 --> 00:31:45.740 to, to assess environmental health. I wonder 00:31:45.740 --> 00:31:50.920 if any of our listeners, and I'm speaking more 00:31:50.920 --> 00:31:52.900 directly to the Bellingcat staff members who 00:31:52.900 --> 00:31:55.359 are lurking in here, if they have any suggestions 00:31:55.359 --> 00:31:59.039 for satellite image tools or tools in general 00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:02.579 that might be useful to this group. I've got 00:32:02.579 --> 00:32:05.299 another question. Could you say more about the 00:32:05.299 --> 00:32:07.819 verification process? Do your local partners 00:32:07.819 --> 00:32:11.680 verify the incident and impact assessment? How, 00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:13.640 how do your local partners get involved with 00:32:13.640 --> 00:32:17.940 the verification process? So the way we've, the 00:32:17.940 --> 00:32:24.240 way we've done that so far is have a, uh, bring 00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:27.660 in as a staff member working on the database 00:32:27.660 --> 00:32:36.839 with situated knowledge and, uh, contact with 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:39.779 people who, who are there, even if they're not, 00:32:39.799 --> 00:32:41.559 they might be diaspora. but they have contacts 00:32:41.559 --> 00:32:45.559 for people who are there so they can have the 00:32:45.559 --> 00:32:48.380 situator knowledge. They can tell us that's not 00:32:48.380 --> 00:32:51.779 a, that's not a farm, it's a military facility. 00:32:51.859 --> 00:32:53.920 But as to our eyes on satellite, it might just 00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:59.400 look like a farm, things like this. Um, it's 00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:01.880 something we need to be careful with, of course, 00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:05.920 from the ethics side, exposing people to things. 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:10.359 Um, but generally that's how we get the the expert 00:33:10.359 --> 00:33:13.559 knowledge in for the situated knowledge and then 00:33:13.559 --> 00:33:15.779 for the rest of the verification it's always 00:33:15.779 --> 00:33:22.119 the usual triage. So making sure that there is 00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:25.099 alignment between different satellite products, 00:33:25.180 --> 00:33:27.200 the satellite products and the social media. 00:33:28.279 --> 00:33:33.140 And yet having quite high bar for saying something 00:33:33.140 --> 00:33:38.289 that's happened. You talked about justice and 00:33:38.289 --> 00:33:41.410 accountability as a next step. This might be 00:33:41.410 --> 00:33:45.869 a silly question, but who is responsible for 00:33:45.869 --> 00:33:49.910 protecting the environment during conflict? Are 00:33:49.910 --> 00:33:53.990 there international laws that you can appeal 00:33:53.990 --> 00:33:58.490 against and steps that you could take with evidence 00:33:58.490 --> 00:34:01.410 that you've collected to try and change things 00:34:01.410 --> 00:34:04.109 and make sure the environment is top? of the 00:34:04.109 --> 00:34:08.210 conversation when conflict happens. Ultimately 00:34:08.210 --> 00:34:13.730 the answer is basically no. There are provisions, 00:34:14.250 --> 00:34:16.570 you know, you could apply environmental damage 00:34:16.570 --> 00:34:20.670 as a Rome Statute war crime, but the thresholds 00:34:20.670 --> 00:34:25.889 which need to be met are severe, long -term and 00:34:25.889 --> 00:34:29.730 widespread. The definitions for those thresholds 00:34:29.730 --> 00:34:32.570 are not clear when it comes to the environment. 00:34:33.099 --> 00:34:36.699 And so yeah, no, there's been no successful case, 00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:41.239 environmental case. That might change. There's 00:34:41.239 --> 00:34:45.119 guidance coming out very soon from the ICC on 00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:49.219 better prosecution for environmental crime. So 00:34:49.219 --> 00:34:51.739 we'll see what they come up with. There's also 00:34:51.739 --> 00:35:00.539 the movement towards having ecocide as an international 00:35:00.539 --> 00:35:04.000 crime. which is something that may, may eventually 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:07.099 come, but at the present moment and for what's 00:35:07.099 --> 00:35:11.500 recently happened in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, there's, 00:35:11.699 --> 00:35:15.579 there's nothing, but it's possible that will 00:35:15.579 --> 00:35:17.980 change, it's possible Ukraine will bring cases 00:35:17.980 --> 00:35:21.559 and there will be processes and the lawyers will 00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:25.739 lawyer and, and there will be sort of, yeah, 00:35:25.900 --> 00:35:30.820 maybe reparations, some sort of high level accountability. 00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:34.940 Maybe you can tell I'm not a lawyer. Well, I'm 00:35:34.940 --> 00:35:37.139 hoping that your organization is already speaking 00:35:37.139 --> 00:35:40.079 to legal institutions, but if anyone's listening 00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:42.239 and thinks that they might be the right fit, 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:45.460 perhaps they can reach out to you. I think it's 00:35:45.460 --> 00:35:47.500 great though that you're collecting this data 00:35:47.500 --> 00:35:51.460 in preparation for such a step as well. Speaking 00:35:51.460 --> 00:35:55.159 of Ukraine, I just put some Bellingcat resources 00:35:55.159 --> 00:35:59.739 in the chat. Back in 2023, we built a tool that 00:35:59.739 --> 00:36:02.769 shows what war has done to Ukraine's forests. 00:36:02.949 --> 00:36:05.489 It's a deforestation tracker tool that you can 00:36:05.489 --> 00:36:09.010 use. And more recently, we've just had a guide 00:36:09.010 --> 00:36:14.809 written on visualising impact on the environment 00:36:14.809 --> 00:36:17.690 from conflict, including displacement data that's 00:36:17.690 --> 00:36:20.789 linking to the question about population health 00:36:20.789 --> 00:36:23.489 as well. We've actually had a question on the 00:36:23.489 --> 00:36:25.429 fibre optics waste that you mentioned briefly 00:36:25.429 --> 00:36:28.150 at the beginning. Someone's asked, can you talk 00:36:28.150 --> 00:36:31.059 a little bit more about the impact of fibre optics 00:36:31.059 --> 00:36:33.440 waste on the environment from the Ukrainian conflict. 00:36:33.500 --> 00:36:35.679 I think this is quite a new concept for quite 00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:42.380 a few people in the audience. Yeah. So I'm guessing 00:36:42.380 --> 00:36:45.119 people have seen footage of these fibre optic 00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:47.139 drones. They have a little spool and that may 00:36:47.139 --> 00:36:51.059 have 10 to 40 kilometres worth of fibre optic 00:36:51.059 --> 00:36:55.510 cable on it. And there's thousands of these, 00:36:55.530 --> 00:36:57.570 well tens of thousands of these drones flying 00:36:57.570 --> 00:37:00.690 around the front lines of Ukraine. They use fibre 00:37:00.690 --> 00:37:05.650 optics so that they can't get jammed from electro 00:37:05.650 --> 00:37:10.449 magnetic interference and what we then see is 00:37:10.449 --> 00:37:14.869 this, these fibre optic cables grouped across 00:37:14.869 --> 00:37:19.210 trees, upland. It's really strange when you watch 00:37:19.210 --> 00:37:21.530 a lot of the footage from the conflict they kind 00:37:21.530 --> 00:37:24.400 of glisten and they look almost quite pretty, 00:37:25.139 --> 00:37:27.380 like quite Christmassy, but I think what we're 00:37:27.380 --> 00:37:29.719 going to find is that they have a sort of similar 00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:33.500 impact on wildlife, like, um, so fishing nets, 00:37:33.800 --> 00:37:38.320 um, for fisheries and so on, because they're, 00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:43.519 they end up in a tangle. Wildlife will get trapped, 00:37:43.719 --> 00:37:45.940 but wildlife were also using these. So there's 00:37:45.940 --> 00:37:49.719 like some images of like a bird's nest made out 00:37:49.719 --> 00:37:54.389 of fibre optic cables rather than twigs. pretty 00:37:54.389 --> 00:37:59.849 devastating. Um, and yeah, these are, these are 00:37:59.849 --> 00:38:02.309 all draped over areas of frontline, which are 00:38:02.309 --> 00:38:05.730 heavily mined, inaccessible, and they're going 00:38:05.730 --> 00:38:08.849 to be there for, you know, maybe decades. They're 00:38:08.849 --> 00:38:10.969 not going to degrade very naturally, very quickly. 00:38:11.550 --> 00:38:12.869 It's going to be a very long -term problem I 00:38:12.869 --> 00:38:17.929 think. It actually brings me to my next question, 00:38:17.949 --> 00:38:22.699 which is what do you think is a long -term implication 00:38:22.699 --> 00:38:25.380 of conflict -related environmental degradation, 00:38:26.139 --> 00:38:29.400 which is most underestimated. The thing that 00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:33.239 you are concerned is going to be unraveled in 00:38:33.239 --> 00:38:39.199 a couple of years time as a major issue. That's 00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:40.980 a really good question. I do not have an immediate 00:38:40.980 --> 00:38:51.380 answer for. I think that I don't know. I'm going 00:38:51.380 --> 00:38:52.579 to give an example. I'm not going to say this 00:38:52.579 --> 00:38:55.960 is the most, um, significant, it's just one that's 00:38:55.960 --> 00:38:59.539 immediately come to mind. So I'm thinking in, 00:38:59.579 --> 00:39:02.780 in Ukraine, we have Krakow -Kadan collapse. We 00:39:02.780 --> 00:39:06.119 have the big flood. We also have the, the upstream 00:39:06.119 --> 00:39:09.300 area, which relied on the reservoir for all the 00:39:09.300 --> 00:39:12.800 irrigation. And that's now gone. There's severe 00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:17.579 drought. There's going to be probably, even if 00:39:17.579 --> 00:39:21.659 there is access in the future for farmers, civilians 00:39:21.659 --> 00:39:24.559 to return. It's going to be really hard to make 00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:25.880 a living there. There's going to be lots of soil 00:39:25.880 --> 00:39:28.760 erosion because of climate change. So actually 00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:32.460 southern Ukraine is going to be sort of very 00:39:32.460 --> 00:39:36.360 severe impacts from climate change. And sort 00:39:36.360 --> 00:39:41.340 of there's a risk that areas like that will be 00:39:41.340 --> 00:39:44.739 because of the environmental impacts of war become 00:39:44.739 --> 00:39:49.840 very, very hard to live and survive in. that 00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:52.920 might be a very long -term consequence, like 00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:57.880 people move permanently. And I'm guessing that 00:39:57.880 --> 00:40:00.500 that impact isn't just isolated to Ukraine either. 00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:03.380 There's going to be other regions similarly affected 00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:07.219 in the same way. It's very, very difficult to 00:40:07.219 --> 00:40:09.099 think about positives. And I just wanted to remind 00:40:09.099 --> 00:40:11.000 people that there's about 10 minutes left. So 00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.760 if you want to put your comments in, your last 00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:17.719 final questions, please do. And thank you to 00:40:17.719 --> 00:40:19.440 those who've been dropping links in the chat 00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:21.139 as well. I'll make sure that they're included 00:40:21.139 --> 00:40:23.139 in the description of the podcast. So if you 00:40:23.139 --> 00:40:25.800 do have any helpful links related to this field 00:40:25.800 --> 00:40:29.059 of work, please do pop them there. I was talking 00:40:29.059 --> 00:40:31.179 about trying to pull some positives from this. 00:40:31.280 --> 00:40:34.480 What gives you hope in this field? If that's 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:39.000 an impossible question, please respond as such. 00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:42.380 But is there any hope within this field that 00:40:42.380 --> 00:40:48.829 you've seen from your research? Yes, yeah, there's 00:40:48.829 --> 00:40:51.929 got to be hope. There's always hope. We're here 00:40:51.929 --> 00:40:54.730 today talking about this and that gives us hope, 00:40:55.190 --> 00:41:01.409 right? There's like people who are affected directly 00:41:01.409 --> 00:41:06.989 by environmental damage in conflict. They are 00:41:06.989 --> 00:41:09.150 a source of hope because they do things on the 00:41:09.150 --> 00:41:13.989 ground to make their environment better. What 00:41:13.989 --> 00:41:16.650 we need to do is make sure they get the support. 00:41:16.889 --> 00:41:19.510 to do that in the right way, in the safe way, 00:41:19.869 --> 00:41:26.190 in a sustainable way. And I think that is possible. 00:41:26.710 --> 00:41:28.429 That might come. There are changes going on at 00:41:28.429 --> 00:41:31.449 a high level as well. You know, things like the 00:41:31.449 --> 00:41:37.670 move towards the eco side. These will help. Yeah, 00:41:37.670 --> 00:41:42.889 we always have to have help. It keeps us driving 00:41:42.889 --> 00:41:47.039 forward at least at Bellingcat. As we're talking 00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:49.000 about that, you've mentioned within your talk 00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:52.260 that OSINT is kind of a hopeful method that's 00:41:52.260 --> 00:41:58.360 been helping advance this. What would be your 00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:00.679 advice to people who are listening to this, perhaps 00:42:00.679 --> 00:42:06.199 with open source research skill sets like satellite 00:42:06.199 --> 00:42:09.920 analysts and people who are very used to kind 00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:12.039 of looking at environmental degradation through 00:42:12.659 --> 00:42:15.199 open source methods. What would be your advice 00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:18.320 to them in terms of getting involved in the kind 00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:20.559 of work that you do, not necessarily related 00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:23.239 to your organization, but within the same field? 00:42:24.280 --> 00:42:26.840 What would be your advice to them? Any tips or 00:42:26.840 --> 00:42:29.780 tricks or organizations that you might want to 00:42:29.780 --> 00:42:32.780 point out that people could reach out to as well? 00:42:42.500 --> 00:42:46.840 try and learn as much as you can about the science 00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:50.159 of fires, the science of deforestation, ecology, 00:42:51.099 --> 00:42:55.860 like the more knowledge you have on a particular 00:42:55.860 --> 00:42:58.639 environmental topic, the better your analysis 00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:02.360 is going to be. So I think don't shy away from 00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:06.300 learning stuff as well. Don't just think that 00:43:06.300 --> 00:43:09.150 because you You can write a Google Earth engine 00:43:09.150 --> 00:43:12.949 script that detects burn areas you know about 00:43:12.949 --> 00:43:16.289 fires. Like go away, teach yourself, learn, there's 00:43:16.289 --> 00:43:19.869 stuff out there. Get in contact with organisations 00:43:19.869 --> 00:43:21.610 like us, like we're always happy to answer an 00:43:21.610 --> 00:43:26.409 email. So please do. And then give it a try, 00:43:26.650 --> 00:43:30.210 yeah. See what you can do. Publish it. There's 00:43:30.210 --> 00:43:34.690 lots of, there's like, I can't like reiterate 00:43:34.690 --> 00:43:38.789 enough how much is not being reported and there 00:43:38.789 --> 00:43:46.909 is to report upon. So yeah. Where do you see 00:43:46.909 --> 00:43:49.809 the biggest data gaps? Like if you were, if you 00:43:49.809 --> 00:43:52.789 were wishing on the spot right now for more researchers 00:43:52.789 --> 00:43:55.909 to dive into a certain area of what you've spoken 00:43:55.909 --> 00:43:59.530 about, where are the huge data gaps within this 00:43:59.530 --> 00:44:04.389 field? So I can point to like countries where 00:44:04.389 --> 00:44:07.670 there's massive gaps of information. So Sudan 00:44:07.670 --> 00:44:10.429 is an obvious one. It's probably an answer you've 00:44:10.429 --> 00:44:12.590 heard in relation to not just the environment, 00:44:13.150 --> 00:44:16.250 but there's other places too, places that are 00:44:16.250 --> 00:44:18.269 maybe not so actively at war that just come out 00:44:18.269 --> 00:44:22.210 with fighting, places like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, 00:44:23.130 --> 00:44:27.949 where there is so much that we could know and 00:44:27.949 --> 00:44:30.530 need to know, but you're not currently know and 00:44:30.530 --> 00:44:34.679 people are not researching. If I had to pick 00:44:34.679 --> 00:44:38.679 an environmental domain where we don't know very 00:44:38.679 --> 00:44:42.900 much, I would probably go with biodiversity. 00:44:45.119 --> 00:44:47.159 And not on vegetation, not habitats, but more 00:44:47.159 --> 00:44:52.159 on actual wildlife itself. How particular species 00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:55.320 are affected by something like noise pollution 00:44:55.320 --> 00:45:00.099 from water. We don't know anything about that. 00:45:01.260 --> 00:45:06.940 Really. You mentioned Sudan. I've put the Sudanese 00:45:06.940 --> 00:45:10.179 Civil War link in the chat there for anybody 00:45:10.179 --> 00:45:14.880 who wants to chat, well, research, particularly 00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:19.880 that particular conflict. Don't be afraid to 00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:24.400 also put environmental damage in these conflict 00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:27.480 channels that we have in the server. It's absolutely... 00:45:28.059 --> 00:45:30.019 It's absolutely something we want to talk about. 00:45:30.139 --> 00:45:33.260 It's absolutely fine to not focus so much on 00:45:33.260 --> 00:45:36.800 the immediate effects of war, but the long term 00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:41.800 effects of war. That's absolutely vital as well. 00:45:42.440 --> 00:45:44.659 Cyber's written, good grief. I forgot about noise 00:45:44.659 --> 00:45:47.280 pollution. Yeah. That's what I found through 00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:50.400 this talk is that more and more Owen, you're 00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:52.320 uncovering all these types of pollution that 00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:56.360 we may have overlooked over this time. Have you 00:45:56.360 --> 00:46:01.260 ever had the most surprising kind of effects 00:46:01.260 --> 00:46:04.780 of war? What would you say in terms of environmental 00:46:04.780 --> 00:46:07.760 damage has surprised you when it's come to conflict? 00:46:08.619 --> 00:46:11.579 Did you always expect to, for example, find fibre 00:46:11.579 --> 00:46:16.820 optic cables being polluted via conflict? Has 00:46:16.820 --> 00:46:19.460 there been some surprising aspects that you've 00:46:19.460 --> 00:46:21.340 come across in different conflicts around the 00:46:21.340 --> 00:46:30.429 world? It's a good one. That's a good one. I 00:46:30.429 --> 00:46:37.429 think the sort of conflict is maybe not directly 00:46:37.429 --> 00:46:41.269 conflict but what I maybe didn't have so much 00:46:41.269 --> 00:46:46.889 of an appreciation of before was to how much 00:46:46.889 --> 00:46:50.750 the oceans are like the Wild West and what happens 00:46:50.750 --> 00:46:56.039 in the oceans or dodgy dealings there are. We 00:46:56.039 --> 00:46:57.800 know a bit more about this now, like all the 00:46:57.800 --> 00:47:00.460 great work about ship to ship transfers and so 00:47:00.460 --> 00:47:04.840 on. I think that was quite surprising to me. 00:47:05.639 --> 00:47:09.840 Learning about the amount of marine pollution 00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:16.920 basically. And linked to that is old marine pollution 00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:21.679 as well. So the amount of dumped unexploded ordnance 00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:27.550 from World War II in the Baltic. in the Irish 00:47:27.550 --> 00:47:34.469 Sea and how that's now degrading, corroding with 00:47:34.469 --> 00:47:36.210 warmer oceans and is potentially going to be 00:47:36.210 --> 00:47:41.269 a problem as things that are encased, TNT, et 00:47:41.269 --> 00:47:45.269 cetera, are released into the environment. So 00:47:45.269 --> 00:47:47.570 yeah, maybe, yeah, I'll go with marine pollution. 00:47:49.670 --> 00:47:53.230 Yeah, if you're interested in looking more into 00:47:53.230 --> 00:47:56.269 maritime issues and ship -to -ship transfer, 00:47:56.449 --> 00:47:59.389 I mean, we've recently had a fantastic stage 00:47:59.389 --> 00:48:03.949 talk from Christine Panton, who's just an ocean 00:48:03.949 --> 00:48:07.489 hobbyist, has a full -time day job, but in his 00:48:07.489 --> 00:48:10.829 evenings creates a really amazing tool called 00:48:10.829 --> 00:48:13.710 Sketchy Boats, which looks at suspicious boats 00:48:13.710 --> 00:48:16.989 doing suspicious things around the world. And 00:48:16.989 --> 00:48:20.050 we've also, Bellingcat created a tool, well, 00:48:20.269 --> 00:48:23.170 one of our contributors, Ollie Ballinger, who's 00:48:23.170 --> 00:48:26.289 a fantastic lecturer in London, he created a 00:48:26.289 --> 00:48:29.710 tool that's called the Ship Detection Tool, which 00:48:29.710 --> 00:48:34.110 also highlights using synthetic aperture radar 00:48:34.110 --> 00:48:38.030 imagery when ships are in port or doing ship 00:48:38.030 --> 00:48:39.849 -to -ship transfers in the middle of the sea. 00:48:40.539 --> 00:48:42.840 So you can have a look at that as well. I put 00:48:42.840 --> 00:48:46.460 the link to that in our chat and I'm sure SettleKnife 00:48:46.460 --> 00:48:48.960 or any of the mods listening could also put the 00:48:48.960 --> 00:48:52.500 link to the last stage talk on suspicious boats 00:48:52.500 --> 00:48:56.860 in the chat as well. We are coming close to time. 00:48:57.340 --> 00:49:02.760 I just want to read a final few comments. Someone's 00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:04.599 put, what we are doing right now is actually 00:49:04.599 --> 00:49:06.739 a step in the right direction. Spreading awareness 00:49:06.739 --> 00:49:09.510 is a very real action you can take. By keeping 00:49:09.510 --> 00:49:12.630 yourself informed, you can inform others. Yes, 00:49:12.690 --> 00:49:15.789 hopefully that's exactly what this stage talk 00:49:15.789 --> 00:49:21.170 has done for you guys listening in. And somebody 00:49:21.170 --> 00:49:23.469 else put, more on climate change, the amount 00:49:23.469 --> 00:49:26.170 of CO2 released from burning refineries and ammunition 00:49:26.170 --> 00:49:29.250 depots must be astounding, as well as local environmental 00:49:29.250 --> 00:49:32.690 effects and petroleum chemicals as well. Yeah, 00:49:32.690 --> 00:49:34.610 I think that was mentioned also within the talk. 00:49:34.989 --> 00:49:37.469 Right. Thank you so much, Owen, for your time 00:49:37.469 --> 00:49:40.829 today. I've really appreciated you coming in 00:49:40.829 --> 00:49:45.769 and walking us through what is practically quite 00:49:45.769 --> 00:49:50.230 a depressing view of the impact of conflict on 00:49:50.230 --> 00:49:52.829 the environment, but a very important one and 00:49:52.829 --> 00:49:56.469 the work that your organization is doing is incredible. 00:49:58.110 --> 00:50:00.429 Just to finish off, how can people get in touch 00:50:00.429 --> 00:50:04.730 with you? Where is the best place to find information 00:50:04.730 --> 00:50:08.090 on the observatory. How can people reach out 00:50:08.090 --> 00:50:11.889 if they want to help or offer tools for your 00:50:11.889 --> 00:50:39.989 work? and yeah, happy to speak to people. Great. 00:50:40.150 --> 00:50:42.750 If you want to continue this conversation, I 00:50:42.750 --> 00:50:45.750 mentioned the Sudan channel earlier up, but we 00:50:45.750 --> 00:50:49.929 also have a hashtag environment and wildlife 00:50:49.929 --> 00:50:53.150 as well as many conflict channels within the 00:50:53.150 --> 00:50:57.099 space. Please do jump in. To those, if you want 00:50:57.099 --> 00:50:59.739 to continue this conversation, highlight tools 00:50:59.739 --> 00:51:02.980 and resources that you can use to continue investigating 00:51:02.980 --> 00:51:04.900 this topic. But for now, thank you so much, Owen. 00:51:05.860 --> 00:51:08.659 And we'll be back in two weeks time with another 00:51:08.659 --> 00:51:14.780 stage talk. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for 00:51:14.780 --> 00:51:17.579 listening to the stage talk. If you'd like to 00:51:17.579 --> 00:51:20.480 catch a stage talk live where you can ask the 00:51:20.480 --> 00:51:23.260 guest questions, join the Bellingcat Discord 00:51:23.260 --> 00:51:29.900 server by visiting www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. 00:51:30.380 --> 00:51:33.500 The music you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer 00:51:33.500 --> 00:51:35.960 Self and is courtesy of Artlist.