Purpose:

To use specially trained rats to detect and remove landmines, which harm or kill one person every 20 minutes.

Background:

Bart Weetjens

More than 70 million landmines are still in the ground in at least 60 countries, posing great risk to civilians. Each year, they harm or kill as many as 20,000 people.

Cheap to produce, landmines are costly and dangerous to remove. That’s why Bart Weetjens decided to recruit rats in the heroic effort. They have a highly developed sense of smell, are easy to train, cheap to sustain, and they are not heavy enough to set off the mines (unlike dogs).

After training them in Tanzania, Weetjen’s organization (apopo) has deployed them in real minefields in Mozambique.

Countries/Regions Affected:

For now, Mozambique.

Which groups do this?

• Hero Rats

Measurable Result

For €5 a month, you can “adopt” a rat through Hero Rat. But Hero Rat does not specify how many landmines each rat helps clear on average.

What You Can Do

• Donate money to Hero Rat and help fund the training and deployment of the rats.

Videos:

• Hero Rats (PBS Frontline/World)
• Animal Planet

Popularity: 95% [?]