Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

NEPA assessments indicate a 7 per cent rise in public awareness of the environment and biodiversity throughout the country. Promotion through respected religious scholars and educational institutions has had a particularly positive impact [ ] 44 Development of national parks and a snow leopard ecosystem protection plan The National Environmental Protec- tion Agency (NEPA) is updating the National Biodiversity Action Plan, which will include alignment with the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. This includes the establishment and management of Afghanistan’s first National Park, situated in Band- e-Amir, Bamyan Province, which provides conservation education. Promoting community livelihoods in and around Band-e-Amir’s 14 surrounding villages has been a key strategy in reducing the pressures of desertification and shrub collection. The Wakhan District in Bada- khshan Province, one of Afghani- stan’s foremost natural landscapes, providing habitat for at least 17 species of mammals, ungulates and birds, was declared as the country’s second National Park, with provision to protect the majority of its habitats and landscapes. For Afghanistan’s biodiversity con- servation, there are extensive courses on forestry, land, geosciences, and water issues. As of 2014 there are 80 agricultural colleges with vocational environmental, horticultural, forest- ry, and land management curricula, training over 10,000 young natural resource management professionals. Biodiversity conservation and implementation of the CBD have been taken seriously by the Afghan- istan government and many citizens intuitively recognize the importance of biodiversity, with good progress made on awareness raising across the country at both government and community levels. A national snow leopard ecosystem protection priority plan has been de- veloped in tandem with the promotion of nature-based tourism, the build- ing of 34 communal predator-proof corrals and 688 household corrals to safeguard livestock and reduce human wildlife conflict. Two male and two female snow leopards were captured in three different valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains and fitted with GPS collars set with a timed system that automatically removed the collar after 13 months. Captures were without in- cident and the data from four dropped collars was retrieved. There is no evi- dence that radio-collaring affected the behaviour of the tagged animals. The study provided 13,370 location points for analysis. A fghanistan is one of the world’s most significant centres of study of the origin and development of crop plants, with numerous local landraces of wheat and other crops currently in use by farmers. Three of the Global 200 ecoregions are in Afghanistan, all of which are in the mountainous regions of the northeast. Within these, 38 per cent of land area is endangered while 61 per cent is classified as vulnerable, and only 1 per cent stable. The most threatened ecoregions are located in an arc around the country’s mountain areas and consist of both open and closed woodlands covering approximately 49,124 km 2 or 8 per cent of the country. Closed forest is now represented by only 3 per cent of its original forest cover representing 0.25 per cent of the country’s area. Recent satellite imagery suggests that open woodland throughout much of the country might now be seriously threatened as a viable ecosystem. Nine local breeds of sheep are found in Afghanistan, along with eight breeds of cattle, and seven of goat. Species numbers are estimated at 137–150 mammal, 428–515 bird, 92–112 reptile, 6–8 amphibian, 101–139 fish, 245 butterfly, and 3,500–4,000 native vascular plants. Afghanistan snow leopard camera-trap picture from the Wakhan Corridor Wildlife Conservation Society Afghanistan