Afghanistan

C

Plant and Animal Life

Plant life in Afghanistan is sparse but diverse. Common trees in the mountains are evergreens, oaks, poplars, wild hazelnuts, almonds, and pistachios. The plains of the north are largely dry, treeless steppes, and those of the southwestern corner are nearly uninhabitable deserts. Common plants in the arid regions include camel thorn, locoweed, spiny restharrow, mimosa, and wormwood, a variety of sagebrush. Animals found in the wild in Afghanistan include the Pamirs argali (also known as Marco Polo sheep), urials (a medium-sized wild sheep), ibex, bears, wolves, foxes, hyenas, jackals, and mongooses. Wild boars, hedgehogs, shrews, hares, mouse hares, bats, and various rodents are also found. Some mammals are nearing extinction. The most seriously endangered are the goitered gazelle, leopard, snow leopard, markor goat, and Bactrian deer. More than 200 kinds of birds make their breeding grounds in Afghanistan. Flamingos and other aquatic fowl breed in the lake areas south and east of Ghaznī. Ducks and partridges are also common, but all birds are hunted widely and many are becoming uncommon, including the endangered Siberian crane.

D

Climate

Most of Afghanistan has a subarctic mountain climate with dry and cold winters, except for the lowlands, which have arid and semiarid climates. In the mountains and a few of the valleys bordering Pakistan, a fringe effect of the Indian monsoon, coming usually from the southeast, brings moist maritime tropical air in summer. Afghanistan has clearly defined seasons: Summers are hot and winters can be bitterly cold. Summer temperatures as high as 49°C (120°F) have been recorded in the northern valleys. Midwinter temperatures as low as -9°C (15°F) are common around the 2,000-m (6,600-ft) level in the Hindu Kush. The climate in the highlands varies with elevation. The coolest temperatures usually occur on the heights of the mountains.

Temperatures often range greatly within a single day. Variations in temperature during the day may range from freezing conditions at dawn to the upper 30°s C (upper 90°s F) at noon. Most of the precipitation falls between the months of October and April. The deserts receive less than 100 mm (4 in) of rain a year, whereas the mountains receive more than 1,000 mm (40 in) of precipitation, mostly as snow. Frontal winds sweeping in from the west may bring large sandstorms or dust storms, while the strong solar heating of the ground raises large local whirlwinds.

E

Natural Resources

Despite a lengthy history of small-scale mining of gems, gold, copper, and coal, systematic exploration of Afghanistan’s mineral resources did not begin until the 1960s. In the 1970s significant reserves of natural gas were discovered in the northern part of the country. Fossil fuel resources also include petroleum and coal. The country has significant deposits of copper and iron ores, barite, chromite, lead, zinc, sulfur, salt, and talc. For many centuries Afghanistan has been an important source of precious and semiprecious stones such as lapis lazuli, ruby, aquamarine, and emerald.

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F

Environmental Issues

Afghanistan has long been a land of marginal environment—too dry and too cold for extensive agriculture. Thousands of years of environmental stress by the country’s people have dramatically altered the landscape and caused extensive environmental destruction. Because the Afghan people lack the financial means to purchase fuel, they must cut trees, uproot shrubs, and collect dung for burning. Domestic animals overgraze the range. The result is extensive soil erosion by water and wind. Long-term irrigation without flushing has added salt to much of the arable land and destroyed its fertility. Polluted water supplies are common, except in the high mountain regions where few people live permanently. Ancient writings and archaeological evidence show that previously rich areas of forest and grassland have been reduced to stretches of barren rock and sand. The government of Afghanistan began to recognize environmental problems in the 1970s with the help of the United Nations and other international agencies. The pressures of war, however, diverted attention from these issues and further aggravated the country’s environmental degradation.

III

People

Afghanistan is home to a variety of ethnic groups, the overwhelming majority of whom are Muslim. Four major cultural areas—Central Asia, China, the Indian subcontinent, and the Iranian plateau—converge at Afghanistan, resulting in an enormous linguistic and ethnic diversity in the country. The people of Afghanistan are related to many of the ethnic groups in Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, with cultural and genetic influences that go farther afield to other places, including Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, China, and the Arabian Peninsula (the large peninsula south of Jordan and Iraq). Centuries of human migrations, political upheavals, invasions, conquests, and wars brought many different peoples to Afghanistan, and some settled to make it their homeland. Political institutions and the concept of nationhood were only much later superimposed on an agglomeration of diverse groups.

The country’s modern borders were drawn in the late 1800s to establish a buffer state between the Russian and British empires. These borders divided the traditional homelands of various ethnic groups in the region, including the Pashtuns, Tajiks, and Uzbeks. Years of war heightened ethnic divisions within Afghanistan. For many, ethnic and kinship ties tended to remain stronger than national ones.

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