ABSTRACT
Afghanistan belongs to the zone of recurrent drought typical of the arid Sahel belt of Africa and the Middle East. During the last 7,000 years of domestication and adaptation of pastoralism and agricultural settlements, man’s impact on the environment in the form of overgrazing, soil degradation and erosion has accelerated, mostly within historic time. In part of the Sahel belt desertification has accelerated at an alarming rate. In the western part of the Himalaya range, including Pakistan, deforestation has led to serious soil erosion (the highest on record in the world today) with increased unpredictability of floods and siltation of arable land. There are no indications that these changes over time are caused by climatic deterioration.
Afghanistan is situated between the zones of deserts and the forested Himalayas. Against this ecological background I shall try to assess the situation in Afghanistan in relation to that in the rest of this ecological zone. Animal stocking rate and degradation of the environment appears to be higher in most other countries within the zone. There are in the main three causes of continued degradation: increasing human populations, disruption of cultural land-use patterns affecting the practice of pastoralism, and warfare. Increased human populations is the main ecological problem in Pakistan and most countries of the Sahel. Disruption of nomadism by the former 176Shah Reza regime in Iran led to serious overgrazing due to human concentration. Afghanistan appeared to have one of the most favourable land-use practices within the zone before the Soviet invasion and apparently within ecological carrying capacity. I shall discuss some disease problems resulting from Soviet destruction of the ancient irrigation systems in Afghanistan and assess some alternatives to food production.
