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Poaching
Although the number of troops on the ground might be relatively small, these troops will still need food and resources. In order to maintain an income for weapons and arms, poaching may also become a very realistic option for the guerrilla fighters. This has proven to be the case in war-torn regions of Africa: in Somalia, guerilla forces were frequently behind poaching of elephants for their ivory, while in Rwanda guerrilla activity in the 1990s resulted in the deaths of a number of mountain gorillas. Prices in war-ravaged Afghanistan would undoubtedly be lower, but in a country with almost no economic structure, where household income only averages the equivalent of a few hundred dollars or less a year, and where environmental policing is essentially nonexistent, this kind of potential income is a huge incentive for both troops and local villagers.
Landmines
Another important but less obvious impact of the presence of military forces is the introduction of antipersonnel mines (landmines). It is thought that about 10 million mines have been laid in Afghanistan over the last two decades. These mines have been scattered randomly, placed in concentrated clusters, and laid singly as traps. These landmines have not only caused damage to humans and wildlife, but have destroyed hundreds of irrigation systems in Afghanistan. Landmines not only accelerate environmental damage through their explosions, but the fear of mines will drive herders, villagers, and others from areas thought to be mined into more marginal and fragile environments and speed the depletion of resources and destruction of biological diversity. The collateral damage associated with landmines is not just limited to civilians; wildlife is often killed by exploding mines. In Croatia, where landmines are still common, brown bears are regular victims. In India, rare species such as barking deer, clouded leopard, snow leopards, and Bengal tigers have been killed by landmines. In Libya, gazelles are reported to have disappeared from sites that were mined during World War II. Even the retrieval of landmines has a detrimental effect on the environment. In the process of clearing Iraqi minefields, bomb disposal units ploughed up large areas of the desert, tearing up and damaging fragile and slow-growing vegetation and destroying habitat for numerous animal species.
Refugees
While wildlife in Afghanistan will suffer from direct killing from poaching, subsistence hunting, and collateral damage from bombing and landmines, perhaps the greatest environmental impact of military actions in Afghanistan will be from the displacement of people and the large number of refugees. There are close to four million Afghanistan refugees currently, and that number is expected to grow as this war continues.
Although the existence of these refugees and the need for humanitarian aid is known, the larger impacts that these refugees have on the environment is very rarely discussed. The arrival of large numbers of refugees into an area previously containing few or no people will create intense pressure on the environment. The refugees from Afghanistan will be trying to find some source of income as well as food, shelter, and heat to sustain them. The dependency and need that each refugee camp will have on the natural resources in the immediate area will greatly outweigh the available resources in Afghanistan's already depleted environment. Deforestation, soil erosion from overgrazing of refugee livestock and from the large number of people in the area, and water contamination are all serious issues that impact the health of wildlife and the refugees themselves. A secondary effect of refugees on wildlife is that mobile species capable of fleeing will be driven from suitable habitat into less habitable areas. With most of the borders of Afghanistan now officially closed by neighboring countries, refugees will be forced to use less traveled roads in more mountainous country to reach border areas where security is weak or nonexistent. This means that there will be a sudden and massive influx of people into regions that otherwise have low human presence and pressure, regions which are now the only remaining habitat for wild goat, sheep, and snow leopards. Numerous studies have shown that many species of wild goats and sheep actively avoid areas where their domestic cousins are found. This situation is exacerbated in Afghanistan by overgrazing from domestic flocks that remove forage for wild species, and by the presence of shepherds who are usually well-armed with powerful weapons readily available from decades of war. Refugees will also naturally congregate around the few water sources in this arid land, essentially sealing them off from wildlife that may have historically depended on these waterholes for survival The impact of refugees on vegetation can be swift and dramatic. Thousands of goat and sheep can quickly denude arid grasslands and shrublands. Refugees, in their quest for food and fuel, will chop down trees in the few remaining forests and sell or use the wood. This is a very real concern for refugees as winter descends on the region many refugees are forced to live out in the open or in makeshift shelters in a country where winter temperatures fall well below freezing. Locating fuelwood quickly becomes an issue of life or death in these conditions. Afghanistan is a country that is only 3% forested, and much of the forests remain as isolated patches in previously remote mountain locations. With the influx of millions of refugees moving through the mountains, these forest patches, which are vitally important wildlife habitat and help control erosion on steep mountain slopes, will likely be destroyed. The loss of these forests and grasslands can have a cascading effect through the ecosystem, as many other plants and animals depend upon them for food, shelter, and breeding. The situation described above is not limited to Afghanistan it is, unfortunately, an accurate depiction of the situation in the refugee camps that presently exist in the Pakistan side of the border in the North West Frontier Province, with over 1 million refugees, and in Iran, with over 2 million Afghan refugees. Both countries are suffering from a three-year drought that has decimated resources. Ashiq Ahmad and Dr. Javed Khan of WWF-Pakistan report that hundreds of thousands of refugees have already entered the forests in this area and cleared them of vegetation through cutting and overgrazing, and a national park near Quetta was invaded by 15,000 people, decimating the woodland and wildlife. Eleven new refugee camps have been opened up in the last few days as new refugees pour into the country and existing camps become overfilled. Habitat degradation from refugee activities is especially insidious, since even after refugees return to their homes the land around the camps will remain degraded for some time. This puts a burden on local "host" communities, who are forced to use whatever resources remain just to survive, which continues the downward cycle of destruction. At repatriation sites, returning settlers may find no shelter due to destroyed buildings. Food may be scarce as no crops have been planted, economic infrastructure (e.g., stores, transport of goods) will be nonexistent, and livestock may be dead or missing. In Kuwait, it was estimated that more than 80% of livestock died during the Iraqi occupation of the early 1990s. Therefore, repatriated refugees may need to depend on the remaining natural resources around their homes for survival, often decimating areas already under stress from decades of excessive resource extraction and three straight years of drought.INDIRECT EFFECTS OF THE PRESENT CONFLICT IN AFGHANISTAN
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aneel SALMAN
aneel SALMAN Lecturer, Dept of Economics Forman Christian University, Pakistan. Currently a Fulbright Scholar, pursuing PhD in Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy, NY USA 12180-3590 Email: aneelsalman@yahoo.com
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Comments
Request sources Zohra Sultan | Dec 31st, 2017
This is an excellent info about the effect of war on the environment. I did not find the sources I need work Citation.
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