Widespread use of a bioengineered plant might mean that thousands fewer people – many of them children - will suffer this sort of maiming:
Nature magazine has the story:
A genetically engineered plant that detects landmines in soil by changing colour could prevent thousands of deaths and injuries by signalling where explosives are concealed.
The plant, a modified version of thale cress (
Arabidopsis thaliana), is sensitive to nitrogen dioxide gas, which is released by underground landmines. The leaves of the plant change from green to red after three to five weeks of growth in the presence of this gas. "They are easy to spot," says Carsten Meier of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who served as scientific adviser to
Aresa, the Danish company that developed the plant.
The team doesn't yet know how sensitive the plant is to nitrogen dioxide, and therefore are not sure how much of the gas is needed to make it turn red.
But they hope the technique will prove useful in field tests. If it does, it should substantially speed up the process of de-mining. Currently, one person can check and clear just two square metres of land a day, says Meier. "Landmines are laid down faster than they are removed," he adds.
So far 150 countries have signed, and 141 have ratified, the 1997
Ottawa Treaty banning the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines. None of the five permanent members of the United Nations, including the United States, has signed or ratified, although the U.S. has not manufactured any new landmines since 1997.
The good news is that 36 countries (30 signatories and six others) have stopped landmine production altogether, global trade in these weapons has dwindled to a very low level and 50 million anti-personnel mines have been destroyed in the past decade. Each signatory has pledged to destroy its stockpile of such weapons within four years of ratifying the treaty.
But the good news is tempered by the fact that each year, according to the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 20,000 new casualties from landmines occur in 65 countries. In 2002, most of the reported injuries and fatalities happened in countries at peace, and only 15 percent were military personnel.
Adding bioengineered plants to the
giant pouched rats and
robotic and other mechanical techniques now being used could help remove the scourge of landmines from our planet. But that’s only half the battle - the U.S. and other recalcitrant nations must agree to stop inventing and deploying new types of these devastating weapons. We've got to stop laying them down faster than they can be dug up.