Vietnam War Environmental Effects

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The Vietnam war had many impact on its environment for one was during agent orange were a mix of two herbicides that was dispersed by the air force known as Operation Ranch Hand It killed off vegetation that had provided the enemy with cover, and their food crops. The chemical was very dangerous to people who came into contact with it and its use was stopped in 1971, but the damage was already great after almost a decade of use. Another one was used in deforestation and it was known as a napalm, it would be sprayed onto vegetation and it would be ignited. Napalm also quickly destroyed all surrounding vegetation. Napalm was responsible for the destruction of much of the landscape. Chemical defoliation damage the ecosystem in unimaginable ways, but our government considered it necessary to defeat the enemy. …show more content…

The machines are estimated to have cleared approximately 1,000 acres of land daily at a rate of about one acre of land per hour, and every day they operated a fleet of 150 tractors. Not only did the Rome Plows kill massive numbers of animals and tons of vegetation, they also caused erosion, a problem that is still a concern of ecologists today. If you negatively impact one area, the results will spread. All the forms of deforestation were just the beginning of Vietnam's damaged ecology, because they were tactics to set up weaponry, which also was extremely harmful to the ecology of Vietnam. Many effects of the Vietnam War on the environment have proved irreversible. Many species of animals and vegetation were greatly reduced and, in some cases, became

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