A Key To Peace In Afghanistan? Consider Conservation, Says One Scientist
Snow leopards and Marco Polo sheep have not been on the agenda for peace talks involving the Taliban, U.S. officials and Afghan opposition figures.
But going forward, should they be?
"If you're not managing the natural resources well in Afghanistan, you are undermining the very national security and human security of the people," says former State Department official Alex Dehgan, an evolutionary biologist and co-founder and CEO of Conservation X Labs, which works to develop innovative technology to address the human causes of extinction. "So thinking about this as part of our national security calculus is important."
Conservation and protecting wildlife, he says, can provide common ground, even among enemies.
Dehgan knows what he's talking about: From 2006 to the end's Afghanistan program, which received support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Based in Kabul, his team's work led to the founding of the country's first national park, , in 2009, as well as the first extensive surveys in decades of Afghanistan's wildlife â including the near-threatened Marco Polo sheep and the snow leopard, now by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
