U.N. Voices Worry Over Afghan Deforestation
6/4/99
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Title: U.N. Voices Worry Over Afghan Deforestation
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: June 4, 1999
ISLAMABAD, June 4 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday voiced
concern over increasing deforestation in war-ruined Afghanistan where
it said old growth forests were facing the danger of complete
disappearance.
A spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan, Stephanie Bunker, also called
upon the foreign timber industry to boycott any lumber originating
from Afghanistan's old growth forests.
``These forests constitute an invaluable natural resource for the
people of Afghanistan and they are in danger of complete
disappearance,'' Bunker told a news briefing on the eve of World
Environment Day.
She said the environmental degradation facing Afghanistan was among
the most severe in the world.
``While it predates 20 years of turmoil, it is a result of poverty,
under-development and neglect,'' Bunker said.
``Like many other developing countries, Afghanistan's environment is
affected by desertification, erosion, as well as land and water
pollution. However, in the last two decades, environmental conditions
have worsened mainly because of war-related activity -- including
landmines and bombing.''
Bunker said deforestation was the most important single factor
affecting environment in Afghanistan where in the 1980s alone, forest
and woodland cover shrank from an already low of 3.4 percent of the
total area to an appalling 2.6 percent.
She said some 85 percent of the rural Afghan population depended
primarily on wood as fuel for heating and cooking because of non-
availability of other fuels.
The shrinking forest resources were also being targeted by the timber
trade, Bunker said.
``Even trees such as oak are being cut for fuel, while old growth
forests in Nooristan and Kunar in eastern Afghanistan are being
decimated for timber for export. In the north and west of
Afghanistan, natural pistachio and juniper forests are also being cut
for both fuelwood and timber.''