Environmental cost of Afgan bombing

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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991733

 

Afghanistan faces an environmental crisis

 

19:00 02 January 02

Fred Pearce

 

A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan - the US bombing

campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict

and drought to create an environmental crisis.

 

Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the

headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance

of the country's once rich habitat and wildlife, which

are quietly being crushed by war.

 

The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the

region in February to evaluate the damage. " A healthy

environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation, "

says Klaus Töpfer, head of the UN Environment

Programme.

 

Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest

watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than

two per cent of the country. " The worst deforestation

occurred during Taliban rule, when its timber mafia

denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets, " says

Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in

Quetta, Pakistan.

 

And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last

of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of

what remains.

 

Farming and firewood

 

The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment,

and much damage may be irreversible. Forests and

vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming,

but the gains are likely to be only short-term.

 

" Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most

basic form of agriculture, " warns Hammad Naqi of the

World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees -

around four million at the last count - are also

cutting into forests for firewood.

 

The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making

life particularly hard for the country's wildlife.

Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian

crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of

the world's great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia

to Pakistan and India.

 

But the number of birds flying across the region has

dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. " Cranes are very

sensitive and they do not use the route if they see

any danger, " says Ashiq Ahmad, an environmental

scientist for the WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has

tracked the collapse of the birds' migration this

winter.

 

Mountain hideout

 

The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven

for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo

sheep - the world's largest species. " The same terrain

that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into

the hills has also, historically, enabled wildlife to

survive, " says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife

Conservation Society, based in New York. But he warns

they are now under intense pressure from the bombing

and invasions of refugees and fighters.

 

For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow

leopards to buy safe passage across the border. A

single fur can fetch $2000 on the black market, says

Zahler. Only 5000 or so snow leopards are thought to

survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in

Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by

extensive hunting and smuggling into Pakistan before

the conflict.

 

Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being

smuggled across the border. The Taliban once

controlled much of this trade, but the recent power

vacuum could exacerbate the problem.

 

Bombing will also leave its mark beyond the obvious

craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted

uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in the

Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter

the country with pollutants. They contain toxic

compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket

propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid

glands.

 

19:00 02 January 02

 

 

 

 

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