50 years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war

When the Vietnam War finally ended on April 30, 1975, it left behind a landscape scarred with environmental damage. Vast stretches of coastal mangroves, once housing rich stocks of fish and birds, lay in ruins. Forests that had boasted hundreds of species were reduced to dried-out fragments, overgrown with invasive grasses.

The term “ecocide” had been coined in the late 1960s to describe the US military’s use of herbicides like Agent Orange and incendiary weapons like napalm to battle guerrilla...