Afghan wetland cleaning up its act
Birds return to old haunt and to prepare for the Himalayas
JUST South of the Afghan capital, on a busy road lined with car repair shops, goat corrals and rubbish pits, a narrow lane opens unexpectedly onto a small natural wonder – a picturesque, nearly hidden marsh that is known only to a few Afghans and inhabited only by migratory birds and several families of wild dogs.
The 190-hectaresite, known as Kole-Hashmat Khan, is one of the rare recognised wetland areas in central Afghanistan. Once it drew wealthy sightseers and royal hunting parties, but during four decades of war and turmoil it lay abandoned and neglected. The water filled with sludge, unauthorised settlements sprang up around the edges, and fewer birds stopped to rest or breed in the desiccated marsh.
Now, an ambitious effort to clean up and restore the site, launched several years ago by the Afghan government and local civic groups with support from the UN Environmental Programme, is starting to bear fruit. Water from the nearby Logar River has been diverted with sandbags, and new reed growth has attracted an increasing number and variety of birds.
This month, the UN took a further step, declaring Kol-e-Hashmat Khan a protected conservation site and bird sanctuary, which could bring more funds and attention to efforts to save it. The site, also an important source of reservoir water for the capital region, dries up in certain months, and officials worry it could eventually disappear.
“Some of the birds stopping here travel from India to Siberia,” marveled Arif Azimi, an engineer and civic activist, looking out over the marsh one recent morning as a wildlife ranger with binoculars pointed to several pairs of waterfowl flitting among the reeds. Last year, officials said, 157 different species were identified at the site – a healthy increase from 93 species in 2010.
All morning, as Azimi and a group of visitors watched, two government workers wearing rubber boots and gloves waded through the knee-deep water, raking up debris and collecting it to be hauled off. But just a short distance away, where a row of mud-walled houses lines the marsh, children emerged periodically with buckets of household slops and tossed them into the water.
“We have put up collection sites, and the municipal government has signs telling people to use them, but it doesn’t always happen,” Azimi said. He said mechanics also dump used oil and metal scraps at the wetlands site. “We do our best to make people aware, but we need more support,” he said. “It takes time to change people’s behaviour.”The site attracts experts and occasional groups of birdwatchers, and during the early-morning visit by Azimi, UN officials and several journalists, the wildlife ranger eagerly named two dozen species of ducks, egrets and other waterfowl seen there this season. He said the number of visiting birds had been growing every spring, when the great south-north migrations take place and millions of birds must fly over the nearby Himalayan peaks.
Clean-up efforts have also begun to revive the fish population, he said, but he also pointed to discarded plastic bags clogging the water’s edge, noting that they contaminate the water and make it harder for aquatic life to survive. – Washington Post