No Help is on the Way – Can Risk Takers Become Risk Reducers?
- Kai Holden
- Jun 18
- 6 min read
In a region somewhere in South East Asia, I once did a field trip to a remote area that had stunning scenery, yet felt cursed to me. There was an entire area that had been mined for over 30 years, yet nothing had been done to clear it. So, villagers had come together and created their own community support system to tackle this issue. They did their own recognition and education, did their own kind of clearance and even developed their own tools (quite an inventive way to use bamboo if you ask me). They had their own safety parameters – not informed by IMAS or any national standards, just what made sense to them through their own accumulated knowledge. They mapped out where they found the items, establishing their own danger zones, limiting movement of children and traffic in those areas, designated a community focal point to deal with the items, and determining whether items were safe to move or not with this focal point. They reported they hadn’t had any accidents in 12 years. And I admired it.
Most HMA practitioners will be horrified reading this – how dare I encourage such unsafe behaviour? Endorsing touching and moving items by people who do not know what exactly they’re dealing with? What about the liability, the professionalism, the training that you need to deal with these items?
And yet, in the sector, we have all witnessed this scene in some form or another.
Another anecdote comes from some small islands in the Pacific, where certain areas are littered with UXOs. The way they deal with it is to make sure everyone leaves and then set the vegetation on fire, and have a healthy distance between where crops are cultivated and towns. They know that it’s dangerous, the items explode, but they also know no one is coming to clear it. Residents have created their own EORE through story telling; they know not to make fire on the ground but to elevate their fires through the stories they tell each other of accidents that have happened in the past.
Let me be very clear: I would never advocate for unsafe behaviour. If there is a responding authority or entity that deals with landmines and UXO, communities should incorporate them, information awareness and messaging should indeed be geared towards training people to avoid items, correct marking and informing the right people.
Yet in the case of this village in South East Asia or the Pacific, there was none. Officially there is – there are units that come once a year to pre-determined areas to do (some sort of) clearance, that may also do some call outs, if the amount of items were worthwhile the trip out to the villages. Yet for the rest of the time, there was no support, and certainly no clearance.
If there is no capacity to follow through, what effectiveness is there for the zero-risk approach of EORE? It’s still inconclusive that heightened awareness through EORE sessions alone results in safer behaviour [1], but this is actually the best case. Anecdotal evidence suggest this zero-risk approach (no touching, marking, and informing), can actually inflict more harm, as people are less likely to take note of advice they feel they cannot follow.
It is very controversial, but I am not alone in advocating for this – actually I am echoing what Jo Durham and Mohammed Ali wrote back in 2008 – having a ‘public health approach’ to EORE [2]. They took the example of major cities tackling illicit drug usage and overdose. The opioid crisis was reaching crisis-level numbers (still are in some places), with public campaigning and policies implementing zero tolerance towards drug usage. Moving on from ‘just say no’ campaigns, certain cities in North America started to reconcile that this drug usage still happens, but rather than having a zero tolerance towards it, they started offering drug users safe spaces for drug injections, and more linkages between those centres, drug rehabs and health clinics. Most studies researching this approach found a reduction in overdoses, less drug-related deaths, a decline in crime and public nuisance, and more access to healthcare by people using these facilities [3].
Before everyone starts accusing me of not only picking up dangerous items, but also shooting some lethal and illegal opioids up their veins, I urge them to look at the bigger picture. The analogy illustrates exactly the moral dilemma we have in EORE in certain contexts – A societal issue with very serious consequences for life and limb, plagued by behavioural problems, where decades of advocacy on zero-risk behaviour has led to limited results in some areas. This approach shows that by working with reality rather than in vain of it, the associated harm done in these urban communities was vastly reduced in several ways.
What I am proposing is not a new approach to EORE or to behavioural change – it is a recognition that this education and behavioural change only works when the systems are in place to back it up – recognising items, marking, and informing authorities only work in places where there are authorities and entities to follow up. In places where there is very limited to no authorities or entities, this approach will ultimately fail. Therefore I propose for those instances to move from a zero-risk approach to a risk reduction approach.
So then the question becomes what does this risk reduction look like for EORE in such contexts? I have a couple of creative suggestions, but I must admit I don’t have clear cut answers for you either. I do think though, that they should be guided by the following principles:
Most communities in such places do already have some sort of improvised system they are working with. Look at how this can be professionalised and refined. Such community initiatives could also serve as advocacy for more professional help in the future.
Risk reduction does not equate to a ‘you’re free to do whatever you want’ approach. Selection of who can actually handle items will ultimately need to be done. People should be kept informed of the risks and understand what they are dealing with. Actively combatting misinformation and misunderstandings on items should be a big part of this approach.
Make the associated risk of moving and picking up items clear and find ways for communities to be prepared for these risks – better preparedness or precautions, for example the explanation of one-person-one-risk principle, having others on standby whilst an item is being moved, movements to be done remotely where possible, etc.
It is also true that this approach will bring additional cans of worms with it – the legal aspect is the first one – what is done in countries where it is forbidden by law to deal with items without formal training or service? How would such an approach be governed? The solution to this would not be an overarching system with standards, but a contextualised approach, guided by the principles outlined above. It’s a question posed best to this community.
Another painful part of this approach is the liability issue – for any organisation or authority to currently advocate for this approach in the HMA sector is like a death sentence on their professional credibility and liability. Any admittance that this approach might be effective would be perceived as undermining decades of standards, safety improvement and institutional building. Yet it does not need to be. One approach does not negate the other. It’s entirely contextualised, again, working with realities rather than in vain.
However more research is needed to fine tune principles, and give practitioners, policy makers and others in the sector advice on best practices in different contexts. Yet it is also an opportunity to demonstrate the power of community resilience, basic realities of life in places where clearance does not reach, and change our sometimes stuck-in-the-mud-like-an-old-Deere-tractor mindset. Indeed, some healthy food for thought that I hope will overcome the initial knee-jerk scepticism that this sector is often plagued by.
In summary, this article advocates for a recognition that the current zero-risk approach in EORE only works in contexts where institutions or entities can follow through on the messaging. In contexts where this is not the case, organisations and relevant policy makers working on EORE should explore risk reduction approaches that would integrate local community resilience practices rather than shun them, and then offering certain principles to follow in this approach. The article cites a previous call for this approach and explains the analogy to an unorthodox approach taken in the public health sector by North American cities tackling the opioid crisis.
Kai Holden (not the author's real name) is an HMA practitioner with a decade of experience in various countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia. They remain convinced that in humanitarian mine action, as in life, the most dangerous things are rarely the ones clearly marked.
[1] Shabila, N. P., & Saleh, A. M. (2025). Evaluation of landmine risk education programs: a scoping review. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 41(1), 41–58.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2024.2437820 [2] Durham, J., & Ali, M. (2008). Mine risk education in the Lao PDR: Time for a public health approach to risk reduction? International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 46(1), 27–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/14635240.2008.10708124
[3] There are a range of studies, two are cited here: 1. Timothy W. Levengood, Grace H. Yoon, Melissa J. Davoust, Shannon N. Ogden, Brandon D.L. Marshall, Sean R. Cahill, Angela R. Bazzi. (2021). Supervised Injection Facilities as Harm Reduction: A Systematic Review, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 61(5) 738-749.
2. Kennedy M., Karamouzian M., Marshall B. (2022) The North American opioid crisis: how effective are supervised consumption sites? The Lancet, 400(10361) 1403-1404.
