Does Land Releasee Process in Humanitarian Demining Promote Sustainable Land Management? A Review of Available Literature

Abstract

The availability of land is a sine qua non for the livelihood of people and communities. Land availability is invariably and substantially reduced in the regions aftermath of the war and or civil conflict owing to damage caused to the land by environmentally destructive landmines. The “Land Release” process of demining has thus become a significant humanitarian and sociological endeavour in order to restore land for productive use through the removal and destruction of all forms of dangerous battlefield debris, in particular through the removal of landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) are vital prerequisites for any region in order to restore the land from calamitous status. In demining terminology, the purpose of land release is to identify, define and remove all presence or suspicion of mines and other ERW. The purpose of this paper is to examine the land release process in humanitarian demining in general, and to find out whether it promotes sustainable land management. When doing a detailed content analysis, it seems that most of the research work so far has been empirical. This paper will focus on existing publications from mine action organizations working with research and publications, mine action authorities and other referred journals using the systematic literature review (SLR) method. The study shows that approaches based on International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) enriches the land release mechanism leading to sustainable land management. The findings also suggest that incorporating mine awareness and risk education in land release operations will have an added advantage in achieving sustainable land management.