Clearance: Restoring Safety, Land and Lives
Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) continue to threaten communities long after conflicts end. Clearance is the process of finding and safely removing these deadly hazards so people can return home, send children to school, farm their land, and rebuild their futures.
Clearance is one of the five core pillars of mine action. It includes the identification, survey, marking, removal, and destruction of landmines and ERW — including unexploded submunitions and other explosive hazards. Clearance operations also involve mapping dangerous areas and collecting information that helps communities stay safe.
What Does Clearance Involve?
Clearance is much more than removing explosives from the ground. It includes:
- Surveying hazardous areas to accurately define the extent and nature of contamination to be cleared
- Marking dangerous locations to prevent civilians and their livestock suffering accidents
- Searching the hazardous areas to locate and eliminate all explosive threats
The goal is simple but life-changing: removing the danger, to make land safe again, and providing the confidence for people to use it.
Humanitarian vs. Military Clearance
There are two main types of mine clearance: military demining and humanitarian demining.
Military Demining
Military demining is designed to support military operations. The priority is speed and mobility, allowing armed forces to move through an area quickly. Clearance may use heavy equipment and rapid methods, and the acceptable level of risk is different from humanitarian standards. The aim of military demining is to breach minefields, not to clear them.
Humanitarian Demining
Humanitarian demining focuses on protecting civilians and restoring communities. All reasonable efforts are used to ensure all mines and explosive hazards are located and removed before the land is declared safe for public use.
This work is painstaking, highly technical, and often dangerous. Teams rely on trained deminers (normally using handheld detection systems), animal detection systems, mechanical equipment, and advanced survey methods to ensure land is cleared to internationally recognized safety standards.
Before land is officially released, non-technical surveys, technical surveys, and other reliable information are used to confirm that hazards have been removed.
Why Clearance Matters
Clearance saves lives — but it also restores opportunity.
When land is cleared, communities can:
- Return safely to their homes
- Reopen schools, roads, and health facilities
- Restart agriculture and local businesses
- Deliver humanitarian aid safely
- Support long-term peace and development
Every square meter cleared represents more than safe ground. It represents renewed freedom, dignity, and hope.
The Human Impact
For communities living with explosive hazards, daily activities can become life-threatening. Farmers may be unable to plant crops. Children may walk to school through contaminated areas. Families displaced by conflict may not be able to return home.
Clearance operations help communities recover from conflict by removing the barriers that prevent safe and sustainable development.
International Standards
Humanitarian mine clearance is guided by the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS), which help ensure operations are safe, effective, and accountable worldwide.
For more information on clearance standards, visit:
International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) – Clearance Requirements