Bart Weetjens had an idea in 1995 that sounded like a joke: train giant African rats to smell landmines. People laughed at him for years. In 1997, the Belgian government decided to fund him, and APOPO was born.
The rats begin their training at four weeks of age, learn to associate the smell of explosives with food, and before going out to work they must pass a demanding test in 400 square meters. They weigh so little that they walk over mines without detonating them. One of them checks in 30 minutes what it takes a human with a metal detector four full days to inspect.
By December 2023, APOPO had already cleared 100 million square meters of contaminated land, the size of Paris, and destroyed more than 31,000 mines. Mozambique was declared free of known mines in 2015. Magawa, the program’s most famous rat, retired as a legend. In 2025, another HeroRAT named Ronin broke a Guinness record in Cambodia. The idea everyone ridiculed now gives the land back to millions of people.
