by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Enlarge Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR Donkeys
are the main mode of transportation for villagers in the remote
Band-e-Amir region, home to Afghanistan's first national park.
Morning Edition, May 7, 2008 ·
In Afghanistan, Americans are working with the government in Kabul to
create something that has never existed before in this war-ravaged
country: a national park.
It takes several hours by
four-wheel-drive vehicle, riding on rocky roads that wind through
mountains and across streams, to get to the 220-square-mile site.
But the drive is easy compared to the obstacles planners face to make this park in central Bamiyan province a reality.
Many Natural Wonders
Between
mountains in the Hindu Kush range lie six, sky-blue lakes. They are the
lifeline of 15 villages, where people live pretty much as they have for
centuries.
The lake region and its many streams, called
Band-e-Amir, boast some of the most beautiful landscape in Afghanistan
— including crystal-clear waterfalls cascading over naturally formed
dams that keep the lakes in place.
Such natural wonders make
Band-e-Amir the perfect place to create Afghanistan's first national
park, says Bamiyan Gov. Habiba Surabi.
"This is one of our
desires ... that we at least will have something for the tourism
attraction, the tourism destination here in Bamiyan," he says.
Surabi
and other Afghan officials have joined forces with the Wildlife
Conservation Society, the U.S. Agency for International Development and
other foreign donors to make the park a reality: not just as a tourist
haven, but as a place where the country's fledgling conservation laws
can take root.
A planned, paved road will make Band-e-Amir more accessible, although it could take years to build.
"There
was a sense with the donor community, as well as the government, that
this particular natural resource was something that was so attractive,
desirable and generally worth protection that it needed to be made an
example of," says Loren Stoddard, who directs USAID's office of
alternative development and agriculture in Afghanistan.
Challenges Lie Ahead
But
there are problems in the effort to create a national park. Animal
droppings are everywhere. Discarded plastic bags flutter about in the
wind. Empty bottles also litter the area.
Sayed Hussein runs a flour mill built three generations ago next to some waterfalls at one of the lakes.
Like
many other villagers, the 60-year-old is nervous about the proposed
park. To him and many others across Afghanistan, conserving natural
resources is a foreign concept. Natural resources are what they depend
on to survive.
Trees are cut down for firewood. Landscapes are
turned into farmland and pastures used to grow food and raise
livestock. Trash is hauled to the edges of one's neighborhood to be
dumped or burned. Water is harnessed for consumption and power.
So
to Hussein, the waterfalls next to his mill aren't something beautiful
to be gawked at, they are a way to power the heavy stone wheels that
grind wheat into flour.
He is reluctant to consider how he might change his life to make the park work.
But
villagers do get a say in what happens here.但是村民们对即将发生的事是拥有发言权的. Decisions about the
proposed park and its rules are in the hands of a committee that
includes not only the government in Kabul and its Western advisers, but
Band-e-Amir elders and other village representatives.
A Homegrown Park
Peter
Smallwood, country director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, says
the aim is for the park to be a homegrown one. It is to be a national
landmark that benefits residents and tourists.
"I don't think
that our job here … is to re-create an American park. And, in fact,
other than gentle nudges, I don't really want to be saying, 'Here is
the vision.' I want the vision to be grown from theirs," Smallwood
says.
So the park will likely have some features one doesn't
usually see in the West, such as a Shiite Muslim shrine on a lakefront
that will remain open.
Even so, the committee's ideas for creating this park aren't necessarily popular with residents.
Some
accuse the Asian Development Bank, which built the park's first ranger
station, of failing to pay the owner for the land. Others complain that
the committee has yet to come up with a new location for the
marketplace that was moved from the lakefront area last fall.
A
local teacher, Roghiah, says park planners should hurry up with a plan
for the herders of sheep, goats and other livestock, who take their
flocks to the lakes to drink and graze on nearby mountainsides.
"Our
entire livelihood depends on farming and livestock. But no one — not
the government nor the committee — has given us any real assurance with
regards to how we can continue living here," Roghiah says.
War Poses Difficulties
American proponents of the park say those decisions must come from the Afghans themselves.
Smallwood,
of the Wildlife Conservation Society, admits it's slow-going for
efforts such as getting the Afghan government to establish a general
set of rules for protected areas. That's the last hurdle before the
park officially opens.
With the ongoing war against the Taliban
elsewhere in the country, he and others say it is difficult to get the
government to focus on protecting the environment.
A Band-e-Amir
park ranger, Sayed Zaher, says he and the other three rangers assigned
to the park have not been paid in four months — since the government
took charge of them from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
But
he adds that he believes in what he has been hired to do — and that he
is having some success in getting fellow Band-e-Amir residents to
cooperate with conservation measures.