War brings destruction, takes human life, and makes mothers grieve over their children. It makes brides mourn over their young husbands, spouses lament the loss of their soul mates and subjects all citizens, military and civilian to unprecedented suffering. Huge masses of humanity are forced to displacement and migration. Homes and hearths are ruined or raised to the ground and human values are disturbed with social norms violated and the organization of the society terribly damaged. As a result all citizens suffer. But it is not only human beings that are subjected to inhuman physical and mental violation, all other living beings in the country bear the same burden. This includes plants and animals as well. But war does not stop there; it affects the whole environment and the ecology in gravely adverse ways.

While Afghan motherland has suffered from all aspects of war for the past quarter of a century, she is now lamenting over loss of the balance in her ecology. In the beginning it was animals that were killed indiscriminately by the warring parties. The Red Army, with its scorched earth policy killed thousands of livestock including cattle, sheep, camels, horses and especially donkeys and mules that were used by the freedom fighters. Later, the Arab rich started the trade of buying Afghan falcons to the limit that they became endangered species. These are but a few examples of the injury inflicted on Afghan motherland. Due to war and warlordism as well as lawlessness, the forested mountains of eastern and southern Afghanistan became bare as timber was cut indiscriminately and transported by lorries and or rivers to illegal buyers in Pakistan.

Land erosion and destruction of traditional irrigation channels, underground Karaizes, canals, levies and dams helped truly scorch the land in a country where over 85% of population engage in agriculture and live in the countryside.

And then huge problems of air and water pollution as well as consequences of unchecked war techniques such as the use of depleted uranium in metal penetrating bombs used in Afghanistan by her friends, the United States forces and in the proximity of population centers as well as the collateral effects of the same wounded and bruised further the body of the Afghan motherland and provided continued danger to human life into the future.

Today, Kabul that boasted of the bluest of skies is a city of recurrent dust storms that daily blow over the overpopulated capital. The mid-size city of Kabul that could hardly sustain half a million people as her residents three decades ago, now has to house more than four million people, about half of the population of New York City. Kabul residents need services that are drastically insufficient and inefficient or simply not there. Among the most urgent needs of the city are water, electricity. Garbage disposal services need emergency consideration as the Kabul River bed that is traditionally used for damping of refuse and is at least flushed once a year has been affected by grave drought conditions in the recent past. But air pollution is dramatically on the increase. The unprecedented increase in the number of vehicles in Kabul including thousands upon thousands of taxi cabs together with a more recent phenomena of bakeries burning plastic material and giving out of thick unhealthy smoke all over Kabul are other problems that face the city. A recent UN report includes cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Herat. Mr. Amani of the Institute of War and Peace in a report quotes Dr Ghulam Sarwar Abassi, director of the environmental health department at the Ministry of Health, saying that high levels of air pollution can cause such illnesses as severe bronchitis, emphysema, allergies and asthma as well as cardiac problems. This statement reflects the concern of the health authorities over the increased risks city residents are facing. The same report also touches upon some of the programs envisaged to curb air pollution such as planting of trees.

Kabul once was a city of gardens and palaces and the valleys surrounding it were verdant with lots of decorative and fruit trees. Many of the streets were lined with trees on both sides. But war, first the Soviet army and later infighting and the people themselves cut many of the trees; the Soviets for decreasing the chances of freedom fighters using the shrubbery as hiding places for attacks on foreign invaders and later the people for want of cooking and heating source.

The country's pastures are devastated and large areas of fruit bearing trees such as pistachio trees that grew over wide areas of northern Afghanistan have been destroyed. The little amounts of money the country receives for fighting these important ailments of the environment go to the pockets of advisers and NGOs who have not gone further in their efforts that making probably the first drafts of their reports on an anecdotal description of the problem. The agriculture ministry has reported importing of as many as one million trees from many countries, but without the support of a wide scale educational program and enlisting of peoples' support as well as finding of new sources of energy for the people to use for cooking and heating such as natural gas, the situations will continue to deteriorate.

While there is also an urgent need to help the people with their needs, time is also of essence in meting the needs of the environment on a scientific and calculated manner, as this will complement all other efforts for the reconstruction of the country. The government will be well advised if it considers the following remedies:

Working together in earnest with the UN System such as the UNEP, the United Nations Environment Program, FAS, Food and Agricultural Organization, and relevant aid giving agencies of friendly countries address the problems in the following manner or any combination thereof:

a) Adopting a Province, or
b) Adopting a problem area
c) Embarking on national education programs
d) Investing in bringing Afghan natural gas into the cities for domestic use either through a gas pipeline from the northern gas fields or in compressed containers.
e) Establishing of an environmental national council responsible for supervision of environmental improvement projects and program including reforestation and safeguarding of the country's natural treasures of forests, pastureland and fruit bearing trees and prevention of land erosion etc.
f) Creating of a master plan for safeguarding of the ecology and preservation of animal and plant species.

The Afghan motherland is in need of emergency care. 7/19/04