Cutting intrusion by rewilding the borders

The Guardian -  Countries should look to rewild their land borders as a deterrence to invasion and build up other geographical defences to attack, Europe’s environment chief has said.

Jessika Roswall, the EU’s commissioner for the environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, said nature should be used to improve national security. “Investing in nature and using nature as a natural border control is necessary, and actually increases biodiversity. It’s a win-win,” she said.

Poland and Finland, which both share land borders with Russia or Russian allies, have rewilded areas near their frontiers, making invasion more difficult. “I’ve visited them: they transfer the land to more hostile nature, leaving bushes and trees. Then it’s not so easy for others to cross it,” she told the Guardian.

Restoring wetlands also provided a natural barrier, she added. “It’s very difficult for big tanks to go through.”

Roswall wants countries to treat nature as a defence asset, and to consider the national security implications of their environmental failures.