In hopes of attracting international tourism, obtaining World Heritage Status and protecting land, Afghanistan has declared its first internationally recognized national park. Coinciding with Earth Day, celebrated worldwide every year April 22, officials signed a decree to create Band-e-Amir National Park, encompassing six mountain-fed lakes held back by natural calcified dams. Band-e-Amir translated to mean, "Dam of the Amir" is a spectacular series of six deep blue lakes separated by natural dams made of travertine, a mineral deposit. Travertine systems are only found in a few locations around the world and are all considered World Heritage sites as well as major international tourist attractions. Band-e-Amir has been a tourist destination since the 1950's but was absent as such due to increased violence in the late 1970's through 2001. It is visited by thousands of Afghan tourists as well as religious pilgrimages and international tourists in country each year. Planning for the park has gone on for decades but was launched in 2006. "The park will draw people from Herat to Kabul to Jalalabad... to be inspired by the great beauty of Afghanistan's first national park, Band-e-Amir, " said Mostapha Zaher, NEPA's director-general.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) helped to fund the creation of the park as well as identify and delineate the boundaries. The WCS also helped performed preliminary wildlife surveys and aided the government in hiring and training local rangers, developing the management plan for the park, and providing assistance to the government to craft the laws authorizing the park’s creation. 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.
Band-e-Amir has lost much of its wildlife due to human degradation, but the WCS surveys indicate that it still contains ibex (a species of wild goat) and urial (a type of wild sheep) along with wolves, foxes, smaller mammals and fish, and various bird species including the Afghan snow finch, which is believed to be the only bird found exclusively in Afghanistan. Also snow leopards once inhabited the area but are no longer present due to hunting. The park may be the creation of an Afghan Protected Area System which would share borders with other nations that contain a rich diversity of wildlife.
Conservation of land and the creation of national parks has become a topic on many peoples mind in the last few decades, and it is refreshing to see a step in the right direction from a country plagued with violence. For me when I think of Afghanistan, national parks with beautiful blue lakes does not immediately come to mind. Hopefully now Afghanistan will get some recognition for taking the step to declared Band-e-Amir a national park. It is important that agencies of United States are able and willing to help establish programs like this one to not only help that country but to help on a global level. Environmental issues are not restricted to our country and I think the establishment of this park sets a precedent which needs to be repeated in other countries.
With the introduction of this park, improved knowledge and interest in the environment is almost guaranteed to those in the area. We need more people to become aware of the benefits of national parks and conservation and hopefully this project will spark something to that effect. I imagine that with the success of Band-e-Amir there will be a push to create new policies and environmental laws in the region, which could drastically change the way land is managed and possibly save land and species which are already in danger.
No comments:
Post a Comment