At the time that environmental concern and sustainable development is the agenda of international community, our war-ravaged land is facing a devastating social as well as environmental crisis in her history. While other speakers may address many social issues we are facing, I would like to raise the very unconventional topic among Afghans; that is the critical state of our natural heritage, problems of this arena and some thoughts on sustainability as our mandate at the verge of the new millennia.

In our modern literature as well as classical, we have almost nothing on our natural heritage. This may have resulted from the false notion that we have an unchanging natural environment, which we took for granted. We at least for the last thousand years have ignored the effects of slowly changing nature on our ever-changing culture. The result is the loss of our sense of place. However, this loss came to us very gradually in the past thousand years, it is dramatically speeded by the introduction of colonial influences from the middle of the 19th century onward.

In most parts of our country people typically live on the economic margins as nomads, small farmers and feeders, loggers, miners, wage workers, part-time hunters and foragers, traders and even in households headed by women while men pursue seasonal work elsewhere. Their survival closely depends on their knowledge of local ecology. The existence of sharp differences in the kind of foods, fuels or medicines that can be found or grown in different parts of the country results in similarly sharp differences in the knowledge- and hence the culture- of those inhabitants.

Cultural diversity in our country is not a historical accident. It is the direct outcome of the local people believing to live in harmony with the extraordinary biological diversity. These two types of diversity- biological and cultural – are inextricably linked (1).

We must understand that our identity is deeply rooted in our natural heritage. Ignoring this fact means that we deliberately put our identity in jeopardy. The realm of the Hindu Kush is a challenging environment. Its mountainous terrain and inaccessibility throughout the history have provided sanctuary to refugees, indigenous people, and ethnic minorities of many backgrounds and acted as a historical melting pot; thus creating a cultural diversity that defines the cultural beauty and richness of our land.

Discussion:

An Overview of the Problems

Lack of scientific data about the nature of environmental problems and consequences have always been the source of uncertainty and confusion among our policy makers and practitioners. Understanding sustainability requires easily available and user-friendly information. We lack this information and are in a disadvantage.

The people of Afghanistan until mid-twentieth century kept their almost natural and self- sufficient way of living. We have not absorbed the environmental side effects of the industrialisation as directly as other countries in the world. However, the ecosystem in the territory of Afghanistan had never been damaged to the extent of deterioration caused in the last two decades. This is a trend created by uncontrolled and unlimited use of nature, triggered by the war. Consequently, the pre-war relatively balanced ecosystem and environment started to degrade in an unbelievable rate. In twenty years, this resulted in the seemingly uncontrollable environmental crisis in our history.

Until the recent war, environmental changes in Afghanistan were naturally very slow and gradual. Due to this slow nature of the changes, the effects were not very visible for the public (2). It was only during these years that all the changes showed themselves in an explosive manner in a short time span. It is true that the general public may blame the war for the deterioration of the health of people and animals, the productivity of the farmland and other resources, and finally the social structure of the country. I believe we substantially neglect the negative environmental consequences occurred in the past because of their gradual nature that hides their visibility.

Nature in our country always took us by surprise. Such is the numerous avalanches in Salang that occur every year or the numerous devastating flooding or the earthquakes that kill more than war in a shorter time and confined area. Only last year our toll to earthquakes in the northeastern corner of the country was more than seven thousands lives and tens of thousands of injuries. Damages to residences and livestock reach to millions of dollars (3). This is very comparable to what we lost to war in the past two years in terms of lives and damages.

Today as of many other third world countries, our environmental problems are wider in scope then those conventionally considered in the North. The housing environment of rural communities and low and middle-income groups in our cities ranks among the most life- threatening and unhealthy living environments that could exist. When confronted with statistics such as one child in three dying there before the age of five, the seriousness of the problem become apparent (4). The need for more documentation, monitoring and pressure for action is acute, and should be encouraged by the fact that an enormous reduction in these problems is relatively easy to achieve, even within limited resources.

The most immediate environmental problem in Afghanistan is the ill health and premature death caused by biological agents in the human environment in water, food, air and soil. As a WHO Commission on Health and the Environment pointed out, it is biological pathogen in the human environment plus the high proportion of people who lack access to fresh water and other essential natural resources which represent far more serious problems than chemical contamination (5).

Infant and young children are at greater risk of dying from many environmental diseases like diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, pneumonia, or measles (5,6). It is sad to say that today in fact Afghanistan has the highest child mortality in the world (7).

Rural and agricultural environmental problems such as deforestation, soil erosion water pollution and deaths and disablement by land mines are other urgent problems to be addressed.

It would be relevant to quote from the Afghan short story writer Hussain Fakhri's narrative (8), in order to get a relative picture of the miserable life of the Afghans discussed in the context of their relation with ecosystem:

"…The people in Ghazni use firewood to warm their homes in the winter. Since most of the desert vegetation and mountain shrubs are uprooted and been used as firewood, now these kinds of material became rare and consequently only mosques use them for warming purposes. Sometimes the ownership over these desert and mountain bushes creates ugly confrontations among the people of Kakrak and Sarab, Jarmatu and Qiyaq, Naitakhta and Qooliaqul villages; apparently a never-ending headache for these people.

While the old woman was trembling with tears continually flowing from her tired eyes, running down her bony cheeks; the pale face and dull eyes of her grandson were expressing a much deeper sense of hopelessness- a boy with long bony legs and the color of skin exactly of turmeric. As I moved forward to Aadina, Behmat, and Musakhil, I found that every one of these villages was engaged in these skirmishes. Confrontation over water, trees, desert shrubs, mountain bushes, livestock grazing…"

It is very sad to see in these pictures that the survival strategies of our poor people destroy the very source of their own livelihood. If needs of these people are not met in a timely manner, their future is uncertain. At the same time, if these needs continue to be met through present survival strategies, even the present may not exist long enough for the younger generation of the poor to reach into adulthood.

Impacts of War on Afghanistan's Habitat

War has led to water pollution, soil infertility, and salination, deforestation, desertification, forced migration and resettlement and the spread of environmental diseases, as is the case with any modern war in third world countries (9).

The worst nightmare of the war-induced environmental problem in our country is the legacy of land mines. The presence of more than ten million land mines in the country makes it the world's most deadly minefield. Only the human's life daily toll to these devices is 20 to 30 persons, mostly children and civilians (10). The degradation of farmland and pastures by land mines forced millions of farmers and nomads to abandon their traditional activities. The burden of land mines is extremely heavy for nomads of Afghanistan, who are making one fifth of the population. These people have adopted and developed a nomadic lifestyle for thousands of years, suitable for this terrain. Now they are facing a sudden change in their habitat and environment, which seems to be a tragic end to their natural livelihood.

So far, vast tracts of forested areas of the country are burned during the war. Farmlands were destroyed and degraded by heavy war technology and chemicals. More than ten thousand villages with their surrounding environment were destroyed (11). It seems that the same process continuously takes its toll on our environment to date.

In 1999, people in the province of Parwan, which is the most fertile region close to the capital Kabul, witnessed a mass burning of crops and mulberry trees. More than three hundred thousands of inhabitants of this area were forcefully evacuated from their residences, while they were preparing for their crops to be collected (12). This is still a common practice as it was in the past twenty years of war in the country.

Afghanistan's Agrarian Culture

The complexity of mountain topography - including variations in elevation, slope, and orientation to the sun – create large variations in temperature, radiation wind, moisture availability, and soils over short distances (13). This physical diversity of our land leads to comparable varieties in vegetation and animal life, thus, making it one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on earth.

Because of this vulnerability and even partly because of it, life in such regions is highly diverse. In the Andes for example, because of the intrinsic risk of agriculture in a complex environment, a farmer may plant up to 47 varieties of potatoes to exploit subtle differences in climates and soils. Indigenous Andean crops include more than 200 species of potatoes (14).

Prior to industrial influences, our society existed for generations as a sophisticated agrarian society. Time-tested diversified organic farming practices, many of which go back to centuries, are being abruptly threatened by the fast-growing global economy, and overwhelming cultural influences from the industrialized West. However, the shift towards market agriculture in our country have not been so rapid, but adverse economic, ecological, and cultural impacts are very visible.

At present, only six percent of the whole fifteen percent of usable agricultural land in Afghanistan is under cultivation (10). In the past twenty years, the area of agricultural land has drastically decreased. If we relate the net loss of agricultural products to the loss of agricultural land, we reach to an average annual loss of 3.5% of net agricultural products since 1978. If we consider some of this decrease to be resulted from temporary degradation of land or loss of harvest due to war, in the past two decades we lost thirty to thirty five percent of our agricultural land and pastures (15).

Compared to that of 1979, our agricultural products have decreased more than fifty- percent (15). To compensate this loss, rural people started to utilise the free and uncontrolled natural resources of their environment. The end result of this process was a disaster for our few natural forests, which were cut and smuggled to Pakistan or used locally. Once the forest productivity was declined or monopolised by a few warlords, the poor farmers sought another cheap and accessible alternative. That was the cultivation of opium, which was encouraged by market economy and assisted by Afghan warlords and the international growing drug market. This substantially enhanced further degradation of agricultural lands in very fertile regions of Afghanistan, such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Recently, more and more traditional crops such as barley, wheat and rice have been abandoned for crops that generate higher returns, namely opium. Surprisingly, by the coincidence of the right soil and climate conditions and the poverty of farmers, most of the world's cocaine, heroin, and opium productions are concentrated in three compact mountain region (13). Among these producers, last year we broke the record in opium production and became the major producer in the world (16).

Although the price paid to farmers by this produce may prove irresistible, drug production and trade create enormous environmental and cultural devastation - namely, deforested hillsides, declining soil fertility, soil erosion, and water pollution, in addition to the ultimate harvest of drug addiction, AIDS, and violence among competing drug lords (17). At least until 1995, we could rarely see a heroin addict in our society, by today it is a major drug used by our youth.

Uncontrolled urbanisation is another threat to our agriculture. In Kabul, Herat and to a certain extent Kandahar and Mazare-Sharif, the expansion of urban developments constantly eat up the most fertile lands that once were feeding these cities. Possibly, the cities themselves were built there initially because of these lands. While rural-urban links could be very positive in supporting each other, as was the case in our historical cities, today this link seems to go the wrong way.

The greatest ecological damage has been imposed on Kabul by eliminating the fertile farmlands of Deh-Sabz and Char-Dehi that were providing fresh vegetables for the city. The ignorant administrations in the past two decades drained very important elements of the ecosystem, namely wetlands and marshes at the city fringes. While marshes and wetlands act as groundwater purifiers, filters and climatic normalisers and accommodate hundreds of species of plants and animals, they were seeing them only as sources of Malaria.

Thus, after drainage, Dand-e Bini-Hesar was handed over to industrial developments such as fur processing factories that create enormous amount of chemicals and biological pollutants inside the city. The same marshy area that twenty years ago held a small lake and was a resting ground for the graceful Siberian Cranes on their way to India and a hunting and fishing ground for Kabul residents, now is a reeking biochemical waste disposal ground.

While a return to the virtual self-sufficiency of traditional subsistence agricultural system is neither possible nor desired, making agriculture sustainable will also not be possible unless it includes a painstaking integration of indigenous knowledge with modern technologies and practices. Moreover, the modern inputs cannot be effective unless they are developed for –or adapted to –specific local ecological problems and human need (13).

Deforestation of the Afghan Landscape Is a Major Concern Archaeological studies revealed that at least until 2000 BCE the land of Afghanistan was partly covered with deep cedar-rich forests (18). Today, except the Sulaiman Ranges that support comparatively dense vegetation due to Monsoon rainfalls, the rest of the Hindukush, specially the north and north-western extensions, either support sporadic vegetation of shrubs and bushes; or no vegetation at all. However in most of these valleys, the vegetation in the low and medium altitudes makes the livelihood and in some cases the only resource for the continuation of life.

Forests in Afghanistan occupy a very fragile mountain ecosystem and once lost, may not be restored ever. Over the course of these twenty years, the central governments of Afghanistan lost control over them and local commanders hold control of the forests. The bad news is that economic benefit of clear cutting overwhelmed most of these commanders and in this way wide areas of the forests were either clear-cut or partially cut to the extent that restoration of them may take more than a century, if possible at all.

The forests of the south-east cover only 2.0% of the area of the country (19). These forestland pose their own peculiar wild life, specific to each micro-ecosystem of the region. According to a report in 1997 (20) between 1995-1996 two and half million cubic feet of lumber have been cut from these forests and ended up for sale in Pakistan with permission from the Pakistani Government. Much of the revenues from these illegal transactions have been gone to six high ranking officials of the Pakistan Government headed by then Prime Minister, Binazeer Buhttu. However, the illegal amount of the timber smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan is much higher than that.

In the northern slopes of Hindukush, besides sporadic but widespread medicinal shrubs and pistachio trees all over, we have an extremely beneficial and interesting wild forest of Pistachio, which I think is a unique ecological entity, located in Badghis province. Unconfirmed reports in 1998 claimed that the uprooting of pistachio trees in northern provinces and especially from this forest is encouraged by unknown merchants from Pakistan who purchase only the roots of these trees apparently for medicinal uses (21). If true, this could be another effort to bare the people from the economic benefits of this vital resource so they also turn to opium cultivation; as was the case in the southern and south-eastern regions of the country.

Until 1980's wild Pistachio was one of the major agricultural export items in the Afghan economy. Comparing the amount of Pistachio that have been exported from Afghanistan in recent years with that of pre-war amounts, one can estimate that more than fifty percent of these trees must have been lost in the past twenty years (15). This fragile forest is endangered in a way that if not rescued immediately, could be lost forever. With the loss of this, the livelihood of thousands of families that relied partially on these resources are at stake.

Other than huge economic losses, these forest cuts in turn triggered extensive soil erosion and wash outs from the slopes. This not only made it difficult to restore these forests, but also dramatically increased the frequency of floods and avalanches all over the country. Only in Salang valley in 1997 more than eighty lives have been lost to avalanches directly resulted from the cutting of the vegetation cover on both sides of the highway, which was easily accessible. Flood occurrences have been very frequent, resulting in further soil erosion and destruction of farmlands.

For example in 1998 only in Faryab province, more than twenty lives have been lost to a sudden flood, 600 houses were destroyed and more than seven thousand acres of farmland have been stripped of the fertile soil cover and 1900 cattle were washed away. In the same year, thousands of acres of farmlands were flooded and destroyed in the Harirud valley in Herat province, as well as Helmand, Urezgan and Kandahar provinces (15).

It is sad to see that in our country, forests are ecologically degraded to a disastrous state by unsustainable timber, fuel-wood and charcoal wood cutting, as well as illegal commercial extraction and trade in their plants and animal life.

Could We Become Victims to Our Own Mineral Wealth? While the forests are gone, in the past few years, the hotspot for some opportunistic foreign companies has been the mineral resources. Historical facts show that of all the economic activities in third world countries, nothing rivals the destructive power of mining (13), socially and environmentally. Environmental impacts include habitat destruction, increased erosion, air pollution, acid drainage, and metal contamination of water bodies. The cleanup cost of these hazardous wastes and restoration of the environment can easily reach to hundreds of millions of dollars, way beyond the affordability of these countries.

Fortunately, presently other than small-scale illegal mining activities in extracting precious stones and placer gold by local warlords, apparently no foreign investor is directly engaged in these practices. However, using the constitutional vacuum and lawlessness in Afghanistan, some companies are trying to buy the rights of mineral exploration and extraction by providing financial support to their favorite militia groups in the hope of securing their future presence and influence over our untapped mineral resources.

Is Sustainable Development Possible in Afghanistan?

Acknowledging all these problems, isn't it the time for us to raise the concept of sustainable development? My answer is: sure it is the time. The term sustainable development brings together two standards of thought about the management of human activities- one concentrating on development goals- the other on controlling the harmful impacts of human activities on the environment.

This concern was made more explicit and the use of the term 'sustainable development" promoted by "Our Common Future" - the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The report states that we must meet the need of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (22).

However it may surprise you, sustainable development for Afghans is not a new concept. It was practiced for thousands of years in almost all traditional societies. Our ancestors understood it as a way of life defined by their conscious and spiritual connections to their natural surrounding. In our ancient societies, right was carefully matched with responsibility to each other and to the surrounding nature. However, this connection and bonding to nature was broken once we were pushed towards a more extractive and exploitative relationship with nature. Nature was to be tamed, conquered and exploited not only for our basic needs, but also for the insatiable wants and greed of our foreign masters.

Today, looking from a community perspective at sustainability, the challenge is to involve the people once again in a process that looks at sustainable futures at the community level and making communities accountable for their own future. It is to gradually understand how we as a society can live within acceptable limits. It means relying more on our bio-region and less on the global market to supply our basic needs (23).

Sustainable peace and development should come out of Afghan people's strive for harmony- harmony with God, among themselves and their environment. Sustainable development has more meaning for us in terms of human values; that are philosophical rather than economical. For us, the principle of sustainable development should contain the re-establishment of a conscious and spiritual connection with nature. Viewed this way, sustainable development may simply be defined as a process of productive life in complete harmony with one another and nature.

However, we should keep in mind that the question of survival twenty or more years into the future has little relevance in our country to those concerned with survival today. Thus, it is impractical, indeed hopeless to try to prevent people from carrying out environmentally unsound activities until they have alternative choices of economic activities that enable them to support themselves.

At the same time, there is a concern about the finite nature of many renewable resources especially fertile soil and freshwater. For us to prosper and secure a sustainable peace in our country, we should bear reference to 'green growth' that is economic growth, which also seeks to minimize ecological damage (4). Here, the key to a sustainable future lies in sustainable communities. For us at this point, environmental sustainability depends more than any thing on public awareness of the problems at the local level.

Conclusion:

It is a pity to find out that previous administrations in our country did not have a scant idea on how the environment affects our lives. No consideration has ever been given to the environmental issues involved in our development plans. Further, ignoring the fact that our cultural identity is rooted in our natural heritage threatens our sole identity and in one word, our existence as a nation, confined to live in this unique geographical setting.

For sustainability to work we have to do more than love our country in words. We have to love our physical land- the placenta of soil that nourishes us and upon which we depend. Without it, we will become extinct, as were the doomed people of Easter Island. Our land does not need us, but we do need it.

In closing, I believe that educating people about the environment offers us the most intelligent way to attack the question of our survival through this crisis. This means promoting the idea of personal freedom, tolerance for other ways of life and points of views. If the beautiful and majestic Hindukush has been able to inspire our epic imaginations and extraordinary fortitude in defending its realm as our homeland, then the endangered and fragile ecosystems and related cultures from which its pinnacles rise now merit no lesser commitment and attention from us. |

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