Biologist preserving Afghan geology, wildlife
Peter Smallwood is completing an assignment in Afghanistan for WCS. He travels by whatever means is available, such as this yak he mounted to cross a river.BY LINDA EVANS
Editor, RichmondNow
Amid escalating violence in Afghanistan, Peter Smallwood is helping to create a slice of beauty.
On leave from his position as associate professor of biology at Richmond, Smallwood is two-thirds through an 18-month appointment as director of the Afghanistan program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He will complete the assignment in June and return to teach at the University in fall 2009.
Back on campus for a short break in December, Smallwood talked about the challenges he faces in educating the people of Afghanistan about wildlife conservation, tourism and policy development.
He preaches a dual message to his Afghan friends. “These magnificent animals are a gift, and they have a responsibility to see that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have an opportunity to see them,” he says. Also, there is an economic advantage to conserving them.
In the Wakhan region, for instance, his team is teaching residents about protecting the native Snow and Persian leopards and brown bears. The area, he says, “is one of the most important places for biological conservation.” WCS is training more than 30 Afghans, who will work as rangers in the area. For nearby towns and villages, there are economic advantages to wildlife conservation as well. For example, in neighboring countries, trophy hunters pay up to $50,000 for a permit, and most of that money goes to the local community. However, Smallwood says, for trophy hunting to work for conservation, it must be well controlled and limited. “We need good science to determine how much hunting the wildlife population can sustain.”
Smallwood also is working on a large project in the Band-I-Amir region in the center of Afghanistan. WCS is developing a national park there, in a desert area of “spectacular beauty” highlighted by a series of “crystal blue” lakes held back by travertine dams—30-foot, naturally forming rock walls formed into a long, graceful arc. WCS is training park rangers and police to protect the area and hopes that it will become a tourist destination for Afghans and, eventually, international visitors. Although there is not an abundance of wildlife in the park, the natural beauty of the area’s geology is “the engine to pull it along,” says Smallwood.
A larger “Peace Park,” which would encompass land from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and China, is on hold. If and when developed, it could provide ecotourism across borders, says Smallwood.
Finally, Smallwood is helping the Afghan government develop conservation laws and policy. He’s teaching the Afghan authorities about their responsibility toward the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES), an agreement between the United States, Russia and other countries not to trade in endangered species, and he is creating a list of protected species. He hopes UR’s environmental studies students will help him research the list.
When Smallwood returns to campus, he wants to incorporate what he has learned in Afghanistan into new courses, like one he team-taught with Dan Palazzolo on leadership in science policy.
Smallwood’s current assignment is his second in Afghanistan. In summer 2006, he served there as WCS’s interim country director. Conditions have changed dramatically since then, he says. In 2006 he felt comfortable walking the streets of Kabul and rarely saw military personnel. Now, there are more international troops, and security in the capital city is precarious.
“There have been assassinations and kidnappings of NGO workers,” he says, even out of Kabul. The opposition is fighting harder now, although with a military build-up by the United States and international forces, he hopes that security will improve by 2010.
Smallwood previously spent a year in Iraq helping Iraqi scientists find meaningful work after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.