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Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA): This is an expression that has been adopted since 2000 as a blanket term to cover all of the following activities:-
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Campaigning and advocacy in pursuit of a global ban on landmine use
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Raising funds to pay for any aspect of humanitarian mine action
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Victim assistance (civilian, strangely not necessarily including deminers)
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Landmine (and ERW) Survey
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Area Reduction
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Stockpile demolition (destroying antii-personnel landmines held in stores)
ERW - Explosive remnants of War: Technically the terms covers mines and all other ordnance fired, fuzed or otherwise that may remain after a conflict. Following a strange definition adoption for the "Convention on Conventional Weapons"(CCW), the term ERW is increasingly used to cover all explosive items dealt with during demining which are not mines. In this website, I refer to mines and ERW other than mines.
Hazard - the risk presented by the threat and its condition and context when deploying any specific demining procedure. The hazard may be high or lower depending on the procedure selected.
Humanitarian Demining (HD): This website is primarily about Humanitarian Demining, how it is done and the problems that arise in the process. The expression "Humanitarian Demining" should not be understood literally. The expression comprises two words, neither of which is necessarily appropriate. Often the primary motivation for funding demining in a country is political rather than humanitarian. Also, deminers are required under International Standards (IMAS) to remove all explosive remnants of war, not just mines. In many places other ordnance greatly outnumbers the mines. So "Humanitarian Demining" does not mean anything as simple as mine-clearance to protect the innocent. Often, "Humanitarian Demining" might be better called "Politically motivated post-conflict remediation", but the accuracy of that phrase would sacrifice the "feel-good" fluffiness now associated with "Humanitarian Demining".
Humanitarian Deminers: Deminers are people whose main activity during a working day is the physical seach for and recovery/destruction of ERW items. Humanitarian deminers can only work on land that has a civilian use. In most countries, deminers are local people. Their organisers and trainers may be foreign specialists. Those foreign specialists are not deminers, unless their main activity during a working day is the physical seach for and recovery/destruction of ERW items. The foreign specialists are often called Technical Advisors.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): Refugees who have not crossed a National border are IDPs and so are not protected by the articles under the refugee convention "monitored" by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The 1951 refugee Convention is available through the UNHCR site.
MIne Awareness (MA);
Mine Risk Education (MRE);
Mine Risk Reduction Education (MRRE): All these refer to the same thing, which is any means of informing civilians about the risks in their areas and changing their behaviour so that they avoid taking risks. Frequently carried out by people who despise landmines to the extent that they will not learn about them, the effort is often ridiculed by those with a more hands-on approach. MRE can range from telling new arrivals (IDPs) in an area where the minefields are (obviously useful as long as the teacher has accurate information) to making TV cartoons about the generic dangers of ERW. The relevance of the latter to places with no power (limited access to TV), with a specific ERW problem and where tribal languages prevail may be "questionable". That people engage in MRRE without understanding the risks or the context in which a lesson will be applied is unfortunate. The best MRE people must have saved lives. The worst have just cost money.... but that is also true of the worst demining programmes.
Mine hunting: Once ridiculed and considered unprofessional, this describes the process of seeking the mines, rather than clearing the whole suspected area. It is now common to seek methods of finding mine-lines and clearing that area while not clearing as much of the orginally suspect land as possible. The land that is not cleared may be subjected to confidence building procedures, such as running a machine over the ground or making a visual check, but in many cases it is simply "cancelled" because there is no longer any reason to believe that there is a threat there. There is NKR (No Known Risk).
No Known Risk (NKR) - no compelling reason to believe there is a risk from mines and ERW to people in an area. This means than an area previously recorded as presenting a risk can be released without being subjected to clearance processes. The release of areas previously recorded as hazardous without having processed the land with any full clearance techniques is usually referred to as "Area-reduction".
Known Risk (KR) - compelling reason to believe there is a risk to people in an area. This means that the area must be subjected to appropriate clearance processes before being released for public use.
No Immediate Risk (NIR) - no compelling reason to believe that any risk there may be in an area adversely effects people at this time. A Known Risk area may also be an NIR area. This means that the area can be given a low priority in a list of clearance tasks that is prioritised according to their impact on people.
Perceived Risk (PR) - people believe that there is a risk but there is no compelling evidence to support their belief. In this case, area-reduction and/or confidence building processes can be appropriately deployed. The priority given to this kind of task will be dictated entirely by the "impact" that the demining work will have on people wanting to use the land.
Technical Advisors (TAs): Also Chief Technical Advisors (CTAs), Senior Technical Advisors (STAs), etc., a Technical Advisor is an honorific that may be borne by people with no relevant technical skills and who play a commanding rather than advisory role. Equally, the title may be borne by people who do have some relevant technical skills and may work to an advisory remit. The term is broadly applied to any ex-patriot staff member regardless of their skills and competences and so may, or may not, be a misnomer. A Technical Advisor's presence may be required to give a donor confidence of a demining group's probity, or may be required to provide essential training in some aspects of Humanitarian Demining. In my experience, young Technical Advisors usually lack the relevant skills and training to enable them to be able to train local staff in safe demining practices. When Technical Advisors are seconded from serving military forces (frequent within UN circles), their presence is part of their own training and is very rarely of any advantage at all to deminers in the field. When Technical Advisors are appointed because of their experience within serving military units, their appointment is, in my opinion, always misguided.
Threat – the actual item(s) that present an explosive risk. These may be mines or other Explosive Remnants of War (ERW). The word does not appear in the IMAS. The word "Hazard" is used instead, and this causes confusion between hazards, hazardous areas, dangers and dangerous areas.
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