Rangeland management and conservation in Afghanistan

Abstract

Over the last nine years, substantial investments in the agricultural development of Afghanistan were made a key element of the international peace building operation. These efforts will fall short unless they include confronting the pervasive destruction of the natural vegetation (rangelands). Reasons include the near total dependence of the rural population on vegetation resources for fire fuel and livestock forage, and the dependence of irrigation water availability (upon which almost all agriculture depends) on the integrity of rangeland vegetation. Several factors appear to be responsible for the lack of resource protecting range management: population pressure, lack of robust, traditional communal management systems, and lack of government technical support capacity. Land tenure, or lack thereof, does not seem to be an important driving force. Neither does it appear probable that previously functional communal rangeland management systems succumbed to consequences of the war, as the destruction of Afghanistan’s rangeland vegetation is clearly a process dating back hundreds of years. The paper offers a problem analysis and suggestions for a national program for rangeland conservation management.