Biology+section

During the Vietnam War in about 1960s through 1970s, USA did some massive attack on Vietnamese soldiers. In fact, there were more bombs were dropped during the Vietnam War than in WW2. one type of those bombs were defoliants like Agent Orange, napalm bomb…etc. So, what exactly the defoliant like Agent Orange is? Defoliant contains a chemical substance called ‘dioxin’, which has a lot of poisonous stuff inside. Therefore, this cause a lot animals and human being getting diseases and death. In addition, this also wore down leaves and trees rapidly. Therefore, there were also a lot of environmental problems.

When USA decided to use the defoliants in the middle of the Vietnam War, many people including some scientists considered this situation seriously because the defoliants are dangerous to the environment and human being. However, USA still used it to detect Vietnamese soldiers hiding in the forest. Therefore, there were a lot of damages on the Vietnam forest through during the war. To list some consequences of using the defoliants, millions of Agent Orange was sprayed over 10% of Vietnam from 1962 to 1971. Moreover, there were about 259,000 mangroves were sprayed by the defoliants called ‘Agent Orange’. Because mangroves were the major tree species in Vietnam, the ecosystem and wild life of Vietnam were heavily affected. Agent Orange also affected and damaged trees which were essential for the coast line and environment in Vietnam. Therefore, animal and insect habitats were destroyed in large numbers. In addition, during the period called ‘Operation Ranch hand’, Agent Orange was also sprayed over 20% of jungle in Vietnam for 9 years during the war.

Not only the forests and plants were affected by the Agent Orange, but also animals such as pigs, cows, chickens…etc, were affected too. To list some events about the reduction of animals in Vietnam, most animals in the forest like boars, goat, water buffaloes, tigers and deer were dramatically decreased during the period of Vietnam War. This is because when Agent Orange was sprayed over the forest, most food sources for these animals were gone or being poisoned. Therefore, they had no food to survive and eventually, the population of animal living in the forest declined. In addition, Agent Orange was also sprayed in the human habitat region, therefore domestic animals such as ducks, cows, chickens, pigs…etc, had to suffer from dioxin. Eventually, when people ate those dioxin contained animals, people get infected by the dioxin too. Moreover, when Agent Orange was spread through the forests in Vietnam, American soldiers also sprayed them on the coastline because there were a lot of mangroves around the coastline. For this reason, fishes, living in that region, were heavily affected by this because they lost their food sources and habitats for living. This also causes marine species in declining. In addition to this, Agent Orange also reduces the reproduction of animals. Therefore, when animals breed, males cannot make sperms to make females bear offspring. Eventually, the population of animals living in Vietnam kept declining during the Vietnam War.