Ecological Paradoxes of Conflict: The Dual Impact of Armed Conflicts and Humanitarian Crises on Africa's Ecosystems

ABSTRACT Armed conflicts and humanitarian crises across Africa generate profound yet understudied ecological consequences, reshaping ecosystems through complex processes of degradation and regeneration. This review synthesises evidence from across the continent to examine how warfare, displacement, and refugee settlements alter land use, biodiversity, and conservation outcomes. Conflicts weaken governance, disrupt protected area management, and enable illegal logging, mining, poaching, and unsustainable resource extraction, driving deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and wildlife decline. Refugee settlements, often located near ecologically sensitive areas, intensify pressures on forests, water, and arable land through high demand for fuelwood, food, and construction materials. Quantitative studies, including standardised biodiversity surveys in northern Uganda, reveal striking declines in amphibian, reptile, and plant diversity in refugee‐impacted areas compared to nearby controls. Moreover, empirical evidence from Central and East Africa documents sharp increases in bushmeat trade and consumption during and after periods of armed instability. Yet conflict can also produce paradoxical positive effects, where human abandonment allows vegetation recovery and wildlife resurgence, as documented in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park and other war‐affected landscapes. These contrasting dynamics highlight the dual role of conflict as both a driver of ecological collapse and a catalyst for ecosystem resilience. Integrating social science, ecology, and conflict studies is essential to develop conservation strategies that address both human welfare and biodiversity protection. By framing conflict and displacement as intertwined socio‐ecological processes, our study highlights the urgent need for interdisciplinary approaches to manage Africa's vulnerable ecosystems under conditions of chronic instability.

Churchill and the Two Variants of Democracy

ABSTRACT In his early political career, before World War I, Winston Churchill was a radical. His first campaign was based on a promise to deliver authentic democracy by establishing economic rights to share wealth broadly. At the hustings, he fought the good fight. When it came to drafting the legislation on fiscal reform, however, he dissembled. This allowed for the continuation of a variant of democracy in which free riders (the idle rich) exercise veto power over tax policies. Statecraft remained compromised. Churchill's vision of a politics funded out of society's net income (rent) remained unfulfilled. Why Churchill failed needs to be understood if we are to enhance the prospects of reshaping statecraft in the 21st century.

Spiritual Manifest Destiny: B.A. Santamaria's Political Theology

This article offers a reading of B.A. Santamaria's political theology and its role in the making of contemporary Australian political imaginaries. The article charts the shifting targets of Santamaria's critique and activism, showing his departure from the perceived communist threat to a wide‐ranging attack on liberal and leftist social movements. In so doing, the article argues that Santamaria should be considered an early architect of, and advocate for, the idea and practice of the culture war in Australian politics, one that rallies conservative political actors around concepts of the traditional family, normative gender politics, and the defence of Christianity.

The McKinleys of Punch : Politics and the Press in Melbourne, 1870s to 1920s

This article re‐examines the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925; known simply as Punch from 1900) as a political weapon in the cut‐and‐thrust of Victorian, local, and national politics, in the hands of its longest‐serving, but least‐known proprietor, Alexander McKinley (1848–1927). Long known as a useful source for historians of Melbourne in the colonial era, and recognised as a vibrant Bohemian magazine in its early days, Melbourne Punch is also known as the publisher of Tom Carrington's (1843–1918) cartoons attacking the radical reforming premier Graham Berry (1822–1904). Yet the role of Carrington's employers—Alex McKinley and his brother and long‐time Punch editor James McKinley (1847–1908)—is not well appreciated, despite it being fundamental to the political message conveyed on a weekly basis by the magazine and its contributors. Through a close study in particular of Alex McKinley's career, Melbourne Punch is revealed to have been much more than the stereotypically conservative magazine of scholarship to date; or a backward‐looking periodical fixated on its British model out‐of‐touch with the coming generation of the Bulletin school. Rather, it was a powerful tool, indispensable to the McKinleys as nascent press barons, Land Boomers, and even budding statesmen, before the disastrous 1890s crash. Thereafter it was crucial in the rebuilding of their reputations and their power, as Alex pursued local politics and attempted to define the upper echelons of society, from the Federation era, and through the Great War, right down to the mid‐1920s.

“It Is Vital That We Should Not Keep It to Ourselves”: The Rats of Tobruk Association and the Siege of Tobruk in Australian National Memory

The siege of Tobruk is one of the most well‐known Australian actions of the Second World War, enjoying special attention on Anzac Day. Its elevation within Australian national memory is by no means accidental. Rather, it is the result of decades of lobbying by the Rats of Tobruk Association (ROTA), which positioned veterans of the siege as the successors to Anzac and fought to ensure the siege was not forgotten by subsequent generations. In charting ROTA's lobbying efforts after the war, this article argues that while ROTA's successful campaign for a national memorial in Canberra ensured Tobruk's place in the national commemorative landscape, the association's development of relationships with schools across Australia has ensured the posterity of the siege in Australian popular memory at an individual level. On the other hand, ROTA's failed attempts to secure a dedicated National Day of Commemoration for the siege and legal protection for the word “Tobruk” demonstrate the dominance of Anzac within the Australian psyche, which influenced government decisions on these matters. Finally, it highlights the potential for conflict between veterans' organisations, whose interests do not always align and raise questions about which groups should determine how events are remembered.

The Impact of War on Asthma, a Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis: An EAACI Task Force Report

ABSTRACT Wartime events have been followed by an increase in asthma prevalence, which is believed to result from a combination of environmental hazards and psychological trauma. This systematic review and meta‐analysis aimed to investigate this relationship by pooling available data on various wartime exposures, such as occupational, environmental, and psychological factors. MEDLINE, Scopus, and Cochrane databases were searched for articles that measure the effect of war‐related exposures on asthma. Risk of bias was assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool. The retrieved effects were then used to fit meta‐analytical models. A total of 48 studies, corresponding to 90 effect measures, were included. War‐related post‐traumatic stress disorder showed the strongest association with asthma outcomes (OR [95% CI] = 2.25 [1.04, 4.89]), followed by experiencing at least one life‐threatening event (1.96 [1.18, 3.26]) and depression (1.56 [1.02, 2.37]). Although environmental exposures were also associated with an increased asthma risk in subgroup analysis (1.64 [1.32, 2.04]), this effect was mitigated when psychological variables were included in the models. The study's results show that wartime events and conflicts may increase asthma prevalence and outcomes associated with asthma. The management of asthma symptoms, lung function, and mental health seems fundamental in individuals who have experienced psychological trauma in war zones. Trial Registration: PROSPERO registration number: CRD42023444101

EAACI Guidelines on the Importance of Green Space in Urban Environments for Allergy and Asthma Prevention

ABSTRACT The allergy and asthma epidemic in urban societies following World War II is mostly caused by changes in the environment, diet and lifestyle. Disconnection of urban populations from the wider environment has reduced the protective factors building up immunological resilience. The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) guidelines on greenness impact on allergy and asthma follow the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach and provide eight recommendations encouraging greenness exposure to support immune health. Controlled follow‐up studies are still scarce, and the strength of evidence is generally low or moderate at best. For primary prevention of allergy and asthma, most of the evidence indicates beneficial effects. Exposure is also useful for secondary prevention. Asthma patients may feel better and need less medication by combining green space exposure with physical activity. During the high‐pollen season, effective seasonal medication is necessary for patients with pollen allergy. In urban planning, implementing appropriate green infrastructure and easy access to green space promotes immune health and reduces risks of air pollution and heatwaves. These EAACI guidelines are the first recommendations highlighting the importance of urban green spaces on immune health and call for prioritising innovative research in this field.

From the Cold War to the manosphere

Abstract Since the end of the Cold War and the rise of new right‐wing political movements across Europe, the US, and elsewhere, gender has taken on heightened political and social significance. To better understand this phenomenon, AE ’s editors interview two specialists on contemporary gender: Greg Downey, a psychological anthropologist, and Kristen R. Ghodsee, an ethnographer and historian of socialist and postsocialist women's struggle for equal rights. Herein, they discuss the rise of the manosphere, the American trad‐wife movement and its eastern European counterpart, and what both of these have to do with economic‐political upheavals and the rise of militarization in the US and Europe.

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Investigating Remote Warfare as the Radical Undoing of Life: The Compounding Civilian Harm Effects of US ‐Led Coalition Bombings in Iraq

Abstract The increased reliance on remote warfare by US‐led military coalitions presents us with questions of “what war is” and “how to know about war” in the 21 st century. In this article we substantiate calls for an embodied epistemology of war by introducing a transdisciplinary research agenda to investigate the temporal and spatial civilian harm effects of late modern warfare. Through on‐the‐ground research, we empirically illustrate how a US‐led bombing campaign against the ISIS‐held city of Hawija, Iraq, did not merely provoke harm instantly; its impact reverberates and compounds. This approach enables us to advance a de‐militarised ontology of war, which highlights how remote warfare is essentially centred on multiple ways of “undoing”: not merely the undoing of bodily and material life, but also the undoing of the human ability to seek redress and speak back. With this we—however briefly—open debates on lines of responsibility and political accountability.