Mine Weeders
The innovative use of e-mail and the Internet to win a treaty banning anti-personnel land mines has made the International Campaign to Ban Landmines one of the most hackneyed examples of high-tech in action. But deminers themselves are still stuck with World War II technology to do their jobs, according to a February 2003 rand ...
The innovative use of e-mail and the Internet to win a treaty banning anti-personnel land mines has made the International Campaign to Ban Landmines one of the most hackneyed examples of high-tech in action. But deminers themselves are still stuck with World War II technology to do their jobs, according to a February 2003 rand report, "Alternatives for Landmine Detection."
Land mines are perhaps the most pernicious obstacles confronting poor countries trying to put their conflict-ridden past behind them. In Afghanistan, for example, an estimated 5 million to 7 million still litter the landscape, maiming children, killing livestock, and rendering vast stretches of territory unfit for habitation or development. To find and remove these flowers of death, today's deminers still use metal detectors and prodding devices. But metal detectors also pick up any scrap of metal, producing time-consuming false alarms. In some cases, deminers may also have mine-detection dogs. Unfortunately, these dogs are as expensive as they are trusty -- breeding and training costs between $13,000 and $25,000 per animal. And as Jackie MacDonald, one of the rand report's authors, explains, "People still have to follow up with a metal detector after dogs go in."
New approaches such as training bees to detect mines or using systems that reflect sound or seismic waves off mines are in the works. But none of these, argue the authors, can alone effectively reduce false alarms in the various conditions and terrain of the roughly 90 mine-infested countries. At the current rate, ridding the world of all mines would take 450 to 500 years -- and that's only if no new mines are laid.
The innovative use of e-mail and the Internet to win a treaty banning anti-personnel land mines has made the International Campaign to Ban Landmines one of the most hackneyed examples of high-tech in action. But deminers themselves are still stuck with World War II technology to do their jobs, according to a February 2003 rand report, "Alternatives for Landmine Detection."
Land mines are perhaps the most pernicious obstacles confronting poor countries trying to put their conflict-ridden past behind them. In Afghanistan, for example, an estimated 5 million to 7 million still litter the landscape, maiming children, killing livestock, and rendering vast stretches of territory unfit for habitation or development. To find and remove these flowers of death, today’s deminers still use metal detectors and prodding devices. But metal detectors also pick up any scrap of metal, producing time-consuming false alarms. In some cases, deminers may also have mine-detection dogs. Unfortunately, these dogs are as expensive as they are trusty — breeding and training costs between $13,000 and $25,000 per animal. And as Jackie MacDonald, one of the rand report’s authors, explains, "People still have to follow up with a metal detector after dogs go in."
New approaches such as training bees to detect mines or using systems that reflect sound or seismic waves off mines are in the works. But none of these, argue the authors, can alone effectively reduce false alarms in the various conditions and terrain of the roughly 90 mine-infested countries. At the current rate, ridding the world of all mines would take 450 to 500 years — and that’s only if no new mines are laid.
The U.S. Army is currently testing a new technology — the Handheld Standoff Mine Detection System — in Afghanistan. Fast tracked through the research and development (R&D) phase, this system combines two existing methods (the metal detector and ground-penetrating radar) and may achieve much better results. But the rand report argues for a "next-generation multisensor system" that integrates mature technologies with newer ones. Estimated costs are up to $135 million; R&D could take up to 19 years.
The U.S. government — not a signatory of the Ottawa land mine treaty, but the biggest spender on demining efforts — plunks down approximately $100 million per year on humanitarian demining. In 2002, only $2.7 million of that sum was invested in R&D. "Right now," says John Wilkinson of RONCO Consulting, a private firm with a five-year contract with the U.S. Department of State for humanitarian land mine clearance, "there’s nothing better than mine-detecting dogs."
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