28-minute documentary film

Directed by Catherine Mabilat and Paula DiPerna en 1998

Co-produced by Green Cross International and the Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Sciences

The Gulf war is over but serious environmental effects live on. " Kuwait: War and Environment " depicts the shocking environmental aftermath of the war, an important news event unknown to most people in the world. Everyone remembers the oil fires, but few people have paid attention to what has happened since. This film is the first investigation of the lingering environmental impacts of the Gulf War, with implications for all the countries in the world. It is based upon a written report of the environmental assessment of Kuwait, seven years after the Gulf War.

Huge Oil Lakes: the film presents unprecedented footage of the huge oil lakes that remain around the sites of once-burning oil wells, still filled with thick toxic sludge, made out of sand, mixed with oil and salt water, extremely difficult to clean or contain.

Huge Islands of Military Waste: Never before seen aerial images show the extraordinary amount of military weaponry just lying the desert, some highly volatile and ready to explode, representing an enormous waste and excess military spending.

Permanent Water Contamination: Kuwait has only one strategic reserve of underground freshwater for drinking purposes. Now, forty percent of it is heavily contaminated, probably forever, due to oil seeping from oil lakes in the north. Though Kuwait gets most of its drinking water from desalinization plants, the contamination of the Umm Al-Aish aquifer is a major loss for Kuwait's national security.

Why should the world care? Natural resources of a country have been hi- jacked and destroyed on purpose, heading to the most important ecological catastrophe of humanity. What happened in Kuwait could happen in any country in the world, and poor countries could never even start to meet the clean-up costs without international solidarity.

Green Cross President, Mikhail Gorbachev and evironmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau use the case of Kuwait to call for international action to address the increasing challenge of environmental warfare.

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