snow leopard

[Guest guest]

LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

LONDON — Western aid workers and soldiers are pushing the snow leopard,

one of the world's rarest cats, toward extinction by buying pelts for $1,500

each in Afghanistan.

The pelts, used to make fur coats and rugs, are sold in shops used by

foreigners in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and Faizabad in the northeast,

despite an international ban on the trade.

The U.N. Environment Program, which is seeking to preserve the

endangered animal, says many of the buyers are aid workers, who have moved

to Afghanistan in large numbers since the end of the war with the Taliban in

December 2001.

The United Nations also accuses soldiers from the international

peacekeeping force of purchasing the leopard skins and says it is " appalled "

that Westerners are buying the pelts of an endangered species.

" The pelts are being bought by the growing number of Westerners in

Afghanistan, mostly soldiers and aid workers, " said one official from the

U.N. Environment Program.

" It is a disturbing development and will encourage poachers to kill

even more snow leopards. "

The official added that the killing of snow leopards appeared to have

increased significantly since the fall of the Taliban regime, which

restricted foreign access to Afghanistan, although precise figures were

impossible to establish.

A spokesman for the International Snow Leopard Trust said there was

also evidence that the snow leopard pelts were being bought by gangs who

sold them for profit in the West.

There are estimated to be fewer than 100 snow leopards left in

Afghanistan and about 3,500 throughout their Central Asian habitat.

Lucy Morgan Edwards, a British reporter based in Kabul, said that there

were many different pelts on sale in Chicken Street, the capital's main

shopping area for Westerners.

" They are not being bought by the locals because they are too expensive

but by soldiers and the aid workers. The aid workers are much more careful

with their money, perhaps because they are not very well paid. They tend to

spend more time haggling over prices than the soldiers. "

The spending habits of Western soldiers in Afghanistan, whose official

title is the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, are

well-known, and much appreciated, by the locals, who refer to them as the

" International Shopping Around Force. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

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