Since the 1960s the environment has become an issue of increasing public concern in North
America and elsewhere. Triggered by the Second Indochina War (Vietnam Conflict) of 1961-1975
and further encouraged by the International Conference on the Human Environment held in
Stockholm in 1972 the environmental impact of war emerged and grew as a topic of research in
the natural and the social sciences. And in the late 1980s this led additionally to a focus and
debate on environmental security. Arthur Westing a forest ecologist was a major pioneer
contributing and framing both of those debates conceptually theoretically and empirically
starting with Harvest of Death: Chemical Warfare in Vietnam and Cambodia (1972) (co-authored
with wildlife biologist E.W. Pfeiffer and others). As a Senior Researcher at the Stockholm and
Oslo International Peace Research Institutes (SIPRI and PRIO) and as a Professor of Ecology at
Windham and Hampshire Colleges Westing authored and edited books on Ecological Consequences of
the Second Indochina War (1976) Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Environment (1977)
Warfare in a Fragile World: Military Impact on the Human Environment (1980) Herbicides in War:
the Long-term Ecological and Human Consequences (1984) Environmental Warfare: a Technical
Legal and Policy Appraisal (1984) Explosive Remnants of War: Mitigating the Environmental
Effects (1985) Global Resources and International Conflict: Environmental Factors in Strategic
Policy and Action (1986) Cultural Norms War and the Environment (1988) Comprehensive
Security for the Baltic: an Environmental Approach (1989) and Environmental Hazards of War:
Releasing Dangerous Forces in an Industrialized World (1990) --- as well as authoring numerous
UN reports book chapters and journal articles. This volume combines six of his pioneering
contributions on the environmental consequences of warfare in Viet Nam and in Kuwait on the
environmental impact of nuclear war and on legal constraints and military guidelines for
protecting the environment in wartime
