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Bare
mountains, poor people; Missing trees reflect the country's woeful recent
history
White peaks, brown hills, a muddy river and pungent
blue wood-smoke in Faisabad, the largest city in opposition-controlled
Afghanistan, all mark the opening of the latest chapter in the dismal story of
the country's environmental collapse. Afghanistan is now losing its last trees
for firewood, or for export by the Pakistan-based logging mafia. The latest
estimates are that forest cover is now below 0.5% of the country's land, down
from more than 3% in 1980. By 2005, environmentalists fear, all the natural
woods will have gone. Like most Afghans, Faisabadis population of more than
100,000 relies entirely on firewood for cooking and heating. The price in the
bazaar is soaring as snow starts to cloak the mountains-a sign of winter's
arrival in the valleys sometime next month. A donkey-load of fuel to provide
warmth for a family for a few days costs $7-more than the average weekly wage. "The wild trees that we can reach have gone. Now
we are buying wood from farmers, who are cutting their trees because they have
nothing else to sell. when that is gone, only God knows what we will do,"'
says a wood-trader in the bazaar. Nearby, a three-year-old child picks up some crumbs of donkey dung and puts them carefully in a bag she is dragging be- Last winter, aid agencies started providing other fuel,
such as coal and paraffin, for destitute families. This winter they plan to do
more, probably also including liquid-fuel stoves, which few Afghan families own.
For a sickly and ill-nourished population, the fuel shortage will make things
even worse. Poorly-cooked food brings stomach bugs, and unheated homes mean
coughs, colds and worse.
Twenty years ago, when Afghanistan still had a functioning forestry service, the
hills around Faisabad were thickly wooded. Since then deforestation, a
three-year drought and poverty have formed a vicious circle. Wars since 1979
have ended all controls, while greatly increasing the
number of poor people desperate to fell any tree they can find. Now the hills
are a barren brown in all directions. When the trees go, the soil follows. The first rain of
the year, which fell last week, turned the Kukcha river, a snow-fed torrent that
rushes through the town, from its normal milky jade to a muddy brown. Water
sweeping off the mountains also causes floods, which destroy irrigation canals
and can even sweep away the mud huts in which most rural Afghans live.
Many of the trees smell delicious when burnt. But the scent is bitter-sweet.
When alive they were rural money-makers: the source of mulberries, walnuts,
juniper berries, apricots and pistachios. Even with a mighty forestation effort,
they will take a generation to replace. There are some glimmers of hope. A Norwegian aid agency
is persuading villages in the Keshem region, where there are still some natural
forests, to appoint local forest wardens, who are paid in sacks of donated
wheat. Villagers there hear lectures on conservation at Friday prayers in the
mosque. There are pilot-projects with fast-growing trees that can be pollarded
for firewood, and drip feed irrigation for saplings. One ingenious device
generates gas from animal droppings, replacing firewood altogether. Dig a deep
hole, add 60 kilos of dung and 60 litres of water every day, and you will
generate enough methane for a 16-person household. All these are good ideas, no doubt. But none of
them will have much effect without peace and a proper government. 2006 Update.
David Langer writes that the illegal lumber trade was very extensive in 2004.
War lords were running a steady supply of lumber across the border.
However, it had apparently reduced somewhat, at least in Kunar province, last
year (2005).
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