Afghanistan Establishes First National Park
Good news from Afghanistan this week: the country declared its first internationally recognized national park today, called Band-e-Amir, which includes a striking series of six deep blue lakes in one of the country’s best-known natural areas.
The area of Band-e-Amir is near the Bamyan Valley, where 1,500-year-old giant Buddha statues once stood before being destroyed by the Taliban.
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Historically, Band-e-Amir was a destination to visit in Afghanistan since the 1950s, but from 1979-2001, the war kept many tourists away. Thousands of Afghan tourists and religious pilgrims now visit the area each year, and many other travellers are drawn to the beauty of the travertine dam network that separates the lakes.
Recent surveys of the park have found that it still contains ibex and urial, along with the Afghan snow finch, believed to be the only bird found exclusively in Afghanistan. Snow leopards were once found in the area but have not been sighted for years, having vanished due to hunting in the early 1980s. The park could be the beginning of the creation of an Afghan Protected Area System that may include the transboundary area in the Pamirs shared by Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and China, which contains a rich variety of wildlife.
“At its core, Band-e-Amir is an Afghan initiative supported by the international community. It is a park created for Afghans, by Afghans, for the new Afghanistan. Band-e-Amir will be Afghanistan’s first national park and sets the precedent for a future national park system.” - Dr. Steven E. Sanderson, President and CEO of the WCS
The establishment of the national park provides the international recognition essential for developing Band-e-Amir as an international tourist destination, and will assist the park in obtaining World Heritage Status. The National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA) of Afghanistan will manage the park, along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, and the Band-e-Amir Protected Area Committee.
Funding for creating the park came from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the WCS conducted the preliminary wildlife surveys, and helped to identify and delineate the boundaries of the park. WCS also helped the government to hire and train local rangers, developed the management plan for the park, and provided assistance to the government to craft the laws authorizing the park’s creation.
Images: Top:©Alex Dehgan/WCS - Gallery: Carl Montgomery at Flickr
[...] Although international law protects animals like the snow leopard from international hunting and trade, such practices were legal within Afghanistan for nationals until now. The news brings further cheer in an exciting year for Afghanistan’s environment. Just months ago, the country also established its first national park. [...]
The Great American Neanderthal, now lacking cheap oil to continue his extravagant existence, and in his fight to stave off his extinction, will run a pipeline on behalf of Halliburton(Dubai) and their fortunes, to Turkmenistan, bordering North of this great beauty, for the oilfields there, said to be bigger than all Saudi Arabia’s huge deposits and a guarantee for the Great American Neanderthals wasteful way of life for at least another fifty years if not longer! Problems? A rapidly arming China also claim these fields for themselves, and the oilfields border on their lands as well as Russian land claims! oops! One other problem, distances to New York Harbor, and the environment - a pittance to the Great American Neanderthal in all cases before, hardly worth mentioning,in his case! Truth is: Iran now has “Secret” Chinese nukes, much as Israel has “Secret” American ones! To protect China’s recent purchase, right under the Great American Neanderthal nose of the South Azadegan Oilfields - the greatest oil discovery in thirty years in the Middle East - by China from Iran and recently! Armageddon is armed, Who will fire the first shot? The Jews, anxious to engage the Great American Neanderthal here, or the Chinese, ready to fight for huge oil deposits that promise their prosperity for a very long time? Such beauty belays the final horror for the world? Is this Biblical? Revelations in the flesh? Even involving Russian nukes nearby? Confirming the Bible as more than a Jewish fairy tale? Will we have a nuclear showdown for the last oil reserves of significance on earth here? Soon?