Environmental news service:
By Zabihullah Ghazi
KHOST CITY, Afghanistan, August 28, 2013 (ENS) – Once-green mountainsides across Afghanistan are still being stripped of their trees as the long-running process of deforestation continues.
The head of the agriculture department for Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, Dr. Naqibullah, says that about half of the 1,300 square-kilometre area that was once covered in forests has been cleared over the last three decades.
A view of the deforested landscape of Khost Province, Afghanistan (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)
This reporter visited Qalandar district, in the northern part of Khost, where loggers were hard at work with axes and chainsaws.
They have parceled out sections among themselves, and are steadily turning green woodland into arid desert.
Local people say they have no option but to cut down the forests, as they possess neither farmland nor any other means of earning an income.
By Zabihullah Ghazi
A view of the deforested landscape of Khost Province, Afghanistan (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)
