How great would it be to have nature tell you if the ground you walk on is safe?

Obviously this is not anything we have to worry about here in Western society (click here to see the video of what it could be like). However,  it’s a very different story for millions of other people around the globe.

Estimates say that there are more than 110 million active land-mines scattered throughout 68 countries, many of them leaking toxic chemicals into the earth as they decay. In fact, so common are mines in Cambodia that they are now used for fishing, to protect private property and even to settle private disputes. Once laid, a mine may remain active for up to 50 years.

The statistics are just horrifying. Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia have suffered 85 per cent of the world’s land-mine casualties. Overall, African children live on the most mine-plagued continent, with an estimated 37 million mines embedded in the soil of at least 19 countries. Angola alone has an estimated 10 million land-mines and an amputee population of 70,000, of whom 8,000 are children. Since May 1995 children have made up about half the victims of the 50,000-100,000 anti-personnel mines laid in Rwanda.

Land-mines pose particular dangers for children. Naturally curious, children are likely to pick up strange objects, such as the infamous toy-like ‘butterfly’ mines that Soviet forces spread by the millions in Afghanistan. In northern Iraq, Kurdish children have used round mines as wheels for toy trucks, while in Cambodia, children use B40 anti-personnel mines to play ‘boules’. Their small bodies succumb more readily to the horrific injuries mines inflict.

In Cambodia, an average of 20 per cent of children injured by mines and unexploded ordnance die from their injuries. Children who manage to survive explosions are likely to be more seriously injured than adults, and often permanently disabled. Because a child’s bones grow faster than the surrounding tissue, a wound may require repeated amputation and a new artificial limb as often as every six months although the prosthesis is not likely to be available. Moreover, competing demands for scarce medical services also mean that children injured by mines seldom receive the care they deserve. Only 10-20 per cent of children disabled by mines in El Salvador receive any rehabilitative therapy.

So I found it very encouraging when I stumbled up an interesting article about how scientists are now using flora to discover these barbaric devices.

Aresa, a danish research company, has developed the Bio-Sensor – a genetically modified tobacco plant that changes from green to red when it comes into contact with nitrogen dioxide leached from underground explosives. Researchers drop seeds from a plane, wait 10 weeks while the plants grow, then look for leaves that have changed colour.

Mother Nature shows us, now all we have to do is act.