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Hampshire Gazette (New Hampshire) May 5, 2005
Students learn of work dismantling tool of war
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| Anthony Lake, a former national security adviser for President Clinton, shows students at the Mosier Elementary School in South Hadley what a landmine looks like. He was at the school to promote a campaign to uses dogs to sniff out unexploded landmines in countries around the world. |
SOUTH HADLEY - The dog named Rosa has talents far beyond those of the
average pooch. She can detect the odors of 11 distinct types of explosives.
South Hadley elementary students, who watched Rosa in action this week,
also learned she has another talent.
The dog understands Dutch.
In a demonstration Tuesday joined by Anthony Lake, the national security
adviser under President Bill Clinton, Rosa found a device hidden from
her in a gym at the Mosier Elementary School - just as hundreds of dogs
like her are doing in 24 countries around the world.
Their assignment: help locate the estimated 50 million unexploded landmines
that kill or maim someone every 20 minutes.
Lake, a former professor at both Amherst and Mount Holyoke colleges,
now leads the Marshall Legacy Institute, formed in 1997 on the 50th anniversary
of the Marshall Plan. The institute works to address the problem of landmines,
and one of its initiatives is the Children Against Mines Program, or
CHAMPS.
The program works with schools to educate students about landmines. It
offers them the opportunity to get involved by adopting a mine-detection
dog.
Lake told South Hadley students that the project now has 800 dogs at
work and is trying to raise money to train another 36 dogs, which will
be sent to Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Ethiopia and other countries.
The dogs are sent to the affected countries in groups of six after receiving
training in Texas.
Lake's assistant, David Berlin, demonstrated that with the help of dogs,
people seeking to clear an area of mines can be 10 times as effective.
''Imagine that you live in a little village in Asia or Africa where there
was a war. How many landmines in the surrounding area would it take to
make you not want to go out of your village?'' Lake asked his young audience.
''None,'' he said, ''if you think they are there.''
Farmers won't work their fields, children won't play outside or walk
to their schools, he said. ''The threat of landmines kills villages.''
The CHAMPS project director, Kimberly McCasland, introduced students
to Rosa, the 11-year-old Belgian Malinois who represents '' the breed
choice'' for the task.
The dogs are smaller and lighter than the German shepherds with whom
they share a bloodline.
Rosa, now a mascot, worked in the field for seven years, clearing a total
of one million square meters of land in six countries.
For the trial run, McCasland hid an empty mine that contained explosive
residue, as Lake covered Rosa's eyes.
She was released and told, in her native language, Dutch, to find the
mine, which she did quickly and eagerly. The actual work is, of course,
dangerous for the dogs. Roughly 1 percent of the dogs who have performed
this work have been injured or killed.
The students were engaged and attentive. They seemed to grasp the horrific
issue before them. One fourth-grader asked, ''Why should people get killed
if they didn't do anything wrong?''
High school sophomore Chelsea Fernandes is working to raise the $20,000
said needed to train one dog.
''A year from now, a dog in Africa or Asia named South Hadley will be
clearing mine fields,'' said Lake.
Fernandes said she hopes to involve the entire town in her efforts, beginning
with a fundraising walk in the fall.
''Landmines are a terrible problem, but there is a solution,'' Lake told
the students. ''The best way to find landmines is with man's best friend,
the dog. When you pat Rosa, say 'Thank you.' ''