Getting to Know Afghanistan's Huge New National Park

Getting to Know Afghanistan's Huge New National Park



Wakhan National Park—Afghanistan's second such sanctuary—protects mountains, snow leopards, and indigenous people.

 

Afghanistan announced the creation of its second national park this week, a new protected area that is 25 percent larger than Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.

 

Wakhan National Park encompasses soaring mountains, alpine grasslands, and unique wildlife in the northeastern part of Afghanistan, where it will preserve the traditional ways of life practiced by communities inside its borders.

Prince Mostapha Zaher, the director-general of Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency, called it "one of the last truly wild places on the planet." Zaher said his grandfather, King Zaher Shah, had first dreamed of creating a national park in the area in the 1950s.

"We can prove that the cause of protecting the environment and wildlife can also be utilized as an instrument of peace and tolerance," said Zaher.

"The government of Afghanistan understands that it is absolutely essential for reconstruction to protect its natural resources," adds Peter Zahler, the deputy director of the Asia program for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which worked with the Afghan government to establish the park.

The founding of the vast new park—which is 4,200 square miles (about a million hectares)—builds on the success Afghanistan has had with its first national park, Band-e Amir, which was designated in 2009.

"The communities in Band-e Amir love it," says Zahler. "[The park] has brought attention, tourists, and jobs. [So] the communities in Wakhan are really enthusiastic."

The Wakhan District—profiled in a February 2013 National Geographic magazine feature—is a narrow corridor of land jutting off the northeastern tip of Afghanistan. It is bordered by Pakistan to the south, China to the east, and Tajikistan to the north. The region contains the headwaters of the Amu Darya River and is the place where the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains meet

 

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