News and Events
PRESS RELEASE
AFGHANISTAN PEACE PROJECT FIRST FIELD SEASON IS SUCCESSFUL AND PRODUCTIVE: POSSIBLE NEW PLANT SPECIES FOR SCIENCE AND AFGHANISTAN IS DISCOVERED
Kabul, Afghanistan – The Afghanistan PEACE Project, short for Pastoral Engagement, Adaptation and Capacity Enhancement, is a USAID-funded project aimed at facilitating the Government of Afghanistan’s efforts to improve livestock production and range management. Two programs will be implemented in Afghanistan over the 4-year course of the project: a Livestock Early Warning System (LEWS) program and Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) program. These programs are being implemented on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Land (MAIL). The implementing partners include UC Davis and Texas A&M University with funding provided by USAID.
The LEWS program involves surveying Afghanistan’s rangelands in order to obtain data for facilitating predictions of forage production up to 90 days in advance. The predictive models used in LEWS forecasting rely on a variety of data including field, satellite and climate data. In March 2007, the Afghanistan PEACE Project began its first field season. The first field surveys were conducted in Kabul, Baglan, Kunduz, Panshir, Bamiyan, Parwan, Takhar and Badakshan provinces. All eight of these provinces are known to provide critical summer grazing habitat for Afghanistan’s nomadic herders, the Kuchi. Twenty-five surveys were carried out in these provinces by two field teams. The teams included MAIL personnel from Kabul and each of the provinces. In total, 18 MAIL personnel received hands-on field experience in rangeland inventory methods and LEWS-specific field methodology. Also during the surveys, over 500 plant specimens were collected and of these, over 200 individual specimens have been identified. Plant identification was facilitated by Dr. Catherine Schloeder and Dr. Michael Jacobs, Afghanistan PEACE Project Research Scientists, and staff at the University of Göttingen, Germany. During the identification process, a possible species new to science was discovered by Dr. Bernhard Dickore, Mr. Toby Spribille and Dr. Helmut Freitag, staff at the University of Göttingen. The specimen belongs to the genus Ochotonophila, a genus in the Caryophyllaceae family. To date, only three species of Ochotonophila are known to exist in the world; and all are from Afghanistan. Specimens from this genus are rare, and normally found at high elevations on scree or rocky slopes.
The fall of 2007 will see the start of more training for MAIL personnel. In this training, individuals will get hands-on experience at data management and analyses. In addition to being general capacity building exercises, the training is designed to prepare the MAIL to assume responsibility for the LEWS program at the completion of the Afghanistan PEACE Project. MAIL will also participate in preparing the plant specimens from this past field season for preservation. During occupation by the Taliban, all herbariums in Afghanistan were destroyed leaving Afghanistan with little ability to identify specimens or conduct research. The Afghanistan PEACE Project will help overcome this problem by providing specimens to facilitate the MAIL’s efforts to re-establish a herbarium.
Please contact the Borlaug Institute at borlauginstitute@tamu.edu for more information on this activity.
