Richard Powell, a freelance reporter who spent time in the post-Bosnian war minefields, investigates the scale of the problem as UK organisations prepare for Landmine Action Week.

Following Ivica, the chief de-miner of one of the Balkan's biggest minefields, into an 'uncleared' field, I take great care to ensure every footstep I take fits perfectly inside his.

As we navigate metre-wide paths marked by red tape on the ground, he told me how two of his staff had been killed as many months ago, digging around PROM-1 'jumping mines.'

These, he explains, are spring-loaded mines that leap to waist-height before sending out hundreds of white-hot steel fragments that kill or maim up to 50 meters away.

This minefield was located in Karlovac, one of the frontlines of the Bosnian war, 50 kilometres south of the Croatian capital, Zagreb.

Seven years after the war, it remains one of the most densely mine-laden areas within a country whose 1.2 million anti-personnel mines cover more than 4,000 square kilometres of countryside.

Stopping to take pictures in the middle of the field, I am transfixed by an old woman tending to her sheep less than 100 meters from me; the other side of the thin red line at my feet.

Alexandra Lagelée, Director of Adopt-A-Minefield (UK), explains how clearly marked 'mined' areas continue to claim fatalities when they divide people from the resources they need to live.

"People have to have access to grow food or obtain water," she says. "If they are cut off by an area of ground that is mined, it will only take so long for someone to take their chances if there is no other way to access them."

However, it is not just living essentials which determine the importance of clearing an area, it can equally be symbolic factors.

Lagelée says: "We cleared an old cemetery in a Croatian village earlier this year where people had not been able to bury their dead from the war.

"They had been using the local football pitch instead. Some people may ask: 'Is the cemetery really a priority?' But we let the villagers set the priorities and in this case it was very important for them to come to grips with the war and honour the people they had lost."

Adopt-A-Minefield - along with affiliated groups in the US, Canada and Sweden - have cleared 147 minefields over the past four years.

Lagelée said although the number of anti-personnel mines located throughout the world still numbers between 45 to 70 million, more land is being cleared now than is being laid with mines.

"Groups like ours are doing everything we can to keep it that way," she adds.

About 90 countries across the world are affected by landmines; 25 of them are deemed to be 'critical.'

Egypt is the world forerunner with 23 million mines; followed by Iran and Angola, where 1 in every 334 people is an amputee as a consequence of stepping on a mine. Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bosnia and Croatia follow.

The number of annual casualties from mines had, until two years ago been put at up to 26,000. However, the US State Department last year reported this figure to have dropped to around 10,000.

Unexploded ordnance (UXO), including mortars, missiles and cluster bombs, also contributes greatly to the number of injuries and fatalities each year.

Richard Lloyd, Director of Landmine Action UK, said raising awareness of the dangers of unexploded ordnance (UXO) would be his organisation's key focus during Landmine Action Week.

"We're calling for a new treaty to cover all the other explosive remnants of war, not just landmines.

"Cluster bombs are causing particular problems at the moment. We say if Governments use explosive munitions they should clear up the danger they create afterwards," he adds.

A cluster bomb contains around 150 brightly coloured 'bomblets' which spread out on impact. Unexploded bomblets can remain live for many years afterwards, effectively turning into landmines that detonate on contact. The bombs prove a lethal source of fascination to children due to their colour, shape and size - resembling soft drinks cans - but can detonate at any point after being picked up, administering a powerful explosion at close range.

Landmine Action's lobbying efforts for a new treaty over explosive remnants attained preliminary success earlier in the year when 122 MPs signed an early day motion in its favour. The treaty also received the personal backing of Claire Short, the secretary of state for international development.

The stepping up of landmine and UXO clearance is not being treated as a priority by the UK Government, which last year cropped its annual budget for international 'clear-up' operations by 33 per cent, according to Lloyd.

He says: "We think the percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the UK invests in mine clearance should be proportionate to the GDP equivalent that is invested by Norway and Canada. This would mean a trebling of the current resources pledged. The UK was a top producer and exporter of landmines and I think we should give much more than the £10 million that was earmarked for this year."

The UK government introduced a moratorium on all exports of anti-personnel landmines in April 1996. Prior to that, Britain was the world's 11th most prolific producer of anti-personnel landmines, used widely in: Afghanistan, Angola, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

The Landmines Act, passed in 1998, officially prohibited the use, manufacture, export or possession of anti-personnel mines within the UK. However, Landmine Action says it has caught three companies trying to promote anti-personnel mines in the UK since 1999.

With 15 governments and rebel groups reported by the Landmine Monitor to have used anti-personnel mines within the last year, and the US and Russia refusing to ratify the international anti-landmine agreement - the 'Ottawa Treaty' - campaigners fear it may be some time before any substantial progress can be made.

Looking out across the field in Karlovac, I ask Ivica how long he thinks it would take him and his team to finish.

"Who knows," he said, shaking his head. "Maybe years… maybe never. It depends on how much money they find us to do the job."

With governments cutting back on spending and clearance an expensive, not to mention unappealingly dangerous business, costing between £1 and £6 per square meter, it might take a while longer yet.