War and Ecocide—Crimes against Creation
Ukraine and Palestine
I have been reticent to bring war to these pages. The reasons are good ones, first, I didn’t want to be seen as drawing in something as terrible, violent, and destructive as war simply to help make the case for saving creation. That is not this post. Secondly, I am a woman in Oregon, far from any war zone. What I know of war I read in histories, headlines and sometimes testimony. My small view doesn’t meet this moment.
Yet it has weighed heavily on me. The war in Ukraine, now the bombings in Palestine— These pages are about Creation, yes. But as much as these pages focus on just Creation, they also call for a just Creation. Add to that, I got an email this week from a reader who shared the pain of war, the injustice of war, the sheer breadth of war. Her words give me the permission and the courage to speak.
I am nobody. I sit here typing while war rages. My heart opens my mouth.
I learned the term ‘ecocide’ during the pandemic. Ecocide means, ‘wanton acts of destruction of the environment’—to be clear, the destruction of one’s home and the lives of living things. I learned there is an effort underway to establish a 5th law in the International Criminal Court, and that law would formally establish ecocide as a crime. And I learned that alongside that effort was ‘Faith for Ecocide Law,’ comprised of people of faith, such as the World Council of Churches, and included in the recent Al Mizar.
When I first learned the term ecocide, the culprits that came to mind were mining companies, reckless industrialists, colonizers, opportunists, people who ran corporations that destroyed whole ecosystems, and the oil and gas conglomerates spewing the emissions causing climate change. The climate crisis is an ecocide, but one of many. In 2024, some 75% of earth’s land is degraded while our oceans are seething, and rising… We know this.
War is also ecocide. Ecocide is a crime against nature, yes, but we are nature, too. Ecocide names the crime compounded, a combined human and environmental catastrophe. It’s not about which is worse, crime against people or crime against environment. It’s about crime on crime, human life and human home, an unimaginable suffering in the destruction, loss, and even extinction of life.
War is a crime against people. War is a crime against the creation. War is ecocide.
These crimes against people and Creation are slowly breaking into the environmental consciousness, and so, also, the news headlines and reports. I want to amplify that reporting.
From The Guardian, an opinion piece, Russia is committing grave acts of ecocide in Ukraine – and the results will harm the whole world. The writers refer to Oppenheimer’s work, the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to speak of the environmental catastrophes in Ukraine. They speak to the destruction of nature, of habitat, the biodiversity loss, the landmines, and the deliberate mass-environmental harm in the targeting of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and Nova Kakhovka dam. The violent disregard of life in war has at its intent a wounding of home and environment so deep that people and nature either cannot survive the infliction or will be so wounded by it that recovery will take generations.
This is war. This is ecocide.
Ukraine is home to one third of European biodiversity, 74,000 species of animals, plants, and fungi, yet war is an assault in intentional and violent disregard of this. Alongside ruined farmlands are ruined wetlands, ruined forests—from Euromaidan Press, Russia destroys over 60,000 hectares of Ukrainian forests—and volatile marine habitats, from Christian Science Monitor, Dolphins as casualties: The environmental costs of Ukraine war.
Read more in the comprehensive report from the European Parliament, Russia's war on Ukraine: High environmental toll.
Read also the words of Patriarch Bartholomew: 'Every act of war is also a war against Creation' from Vatican News.
Ecocidal war is ongoing right now in Gaza, too. Israeli tactics to suppress Hamas has resulted in direct destruction and violence against people, but also against the land, and so life itself. From Grist, Israel’s campaign in Gaza is fueling demands to make ‘ecocide’ an international crime. And from The Guardian, ‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime? This level of shattering not only destroys what is, it determines what will be. There can be no wellbeing, no future, no justice, when instead of peace, humans practice ecocide.
On the ground, in the atmosphere, for generations, war is a power and it must be stilled. We must find peace, peace is what we are called to as people of faith, our children are calling us to walk with peace, to tend to justice, can we hear them? From The Boar, The effect of Israel’s war in Gaza on the climate crisis.
Why do we do creation justice work? At every level, in every church, in every denomination, why do we call for environmental holiness and environmental peace? Because of this. Because war is a power bent on destruction after destruction, and it must not prevail.
Prayers up,
Richenda
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Read more:
From Bird Life International, The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on wild birds and their habitats.
From Euronews, Euroviews. What brings together Ukraine and Vanuatu? Sadly, it's ecocide.
From the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, The environmental health impacts of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
From European Union, Ukraine and the others: the environmental impacts of war.
Two from Yale Environment 360, from 2022, Collateral Damage: The Environmental Cost of the Ukraine War. And from February 2024, After Two Years of War, Ukraine Sees Deepening Environmental Wound.
A Study and Report from Top Lead, Russia’s War on Ukraine: Environmental Impact, The first study on the impact of war on the ecosystem of Ukraine.
Also from The Guardian, Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe. Exclusive: First months of conflict produced more planet-warming gases than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in a year, study shows.
From Euronews, The UN is investigating the environmental impact of the war in Gaza. Here’s what it says so far.
From Deceleration News, Why Environmentalists Must Speak Up On Palestine.
From Middle East Institute, Climate casualties: How the Gaza war threatens Mideast climate action.
Just to say… my updates are not endorsements, and links are usually third party. Please make your own determinations. My goal here is to amplify the conversation and encourage engagement, learning, and resilience. And of course, to bless your efforts!