Customer Reviews

Landmines And Unexploded Ordnance: A Resource Book

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Former Royal Engineer and later Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate, Rae McGrath has written an insightful and very informative work on the work of humanitarian landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance operations.Landmines and UXO's are the explosive residue of conflict and their continued presence is a very debilitating impact on humanity. Currently landmines and UXOs affect the populations of over 70 countries in the world and since the introduction of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, or Ottawa Treaty, in 1997, a number of organisations have been working in cooperation with the United Nations Mine Action Service to assist in ridding the world of this contamination.

Using his extensive personal experiences from his time as Director of the UK NGO 'Mines Advisory Group', the author takes the reader through the background of anti-personnel landmines and UXO's and their effects upon civilians in the aftermath of conflicts from around the world. MAG was one of the first International NGOs to tackle the landmine and UXO problem, commencing work in Afghanistan in 1989 and has since expanded its operations into over 30 countries. The experience of the author is transmitted through dedicated chapters on introducing the landmine and UXO threat; how minefields and dangerous areas, which contain no markings or indicators something dangerous is there, are determined and subsequently cleared. Other chapters examine how a national mine action programme is developed.

I enjoyed this book because it is written in an easy-to-read style that will appeal to any reader; the book is not full of technical jargon that tends to mystify those who are not familiar with the work. The author also writes in a very pragmatic style and pulls no punches in his descriptions of some of the early stumblings of organisations as landmine clearance operations and procedures were developed; together with the development of policy regarding landmines and UXOs. The 'no-nonsense' style of this book is very appealing.

In summary an extremely well written and researched work on the early devlopment of landmine and UXO clearance operations and how the humanitarian work of the organisations involved in this dangerous work has developed since its early interventions 21 years ago. This book was written in 2000 and while a great deal of it is still very relevant, I would look forward to the author revisiting it at some stage to capture the second decade of achievements. Well done, Rae McGrath!