Kabul
Image: Thomas Abercrombie
Source: National Geographic
Agriculture
Only 12% of the land is arable (suited to agriculture) and the most productive areas are Qandahar, the Kabul valley, Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat. Available arable land is extended with irrigation canals and by the nomadic herdsmen’s use of mountains during summer for grazing goats and sheep. From an estimated population of 30 million, one to two million people in Afghanistan still live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle.
Kunar River
Image: Helen & Frank Schneider
Source: National Geographic
The Magic
Afghanistan’s dramatic landscape juxtaposes very high snow-covered peaks with snow-fed rivers that rush across open plains and along valleys lined with oaks.
The light was as delicate as crystal; I had forgotten its tricks. It stripped far-off shapes and colours of the usual vagaries of distance and played havoc with space, luring the mountains from beyond the city to within arm’s reach... Under its spell the landscape seemed to dance on the very edge of materiality. The light was joined in a gentle conspiracy with the air itself, which whispered in the leaves above our heads, tinged with a faint scent of balsam.
At the pass, the view was breathtaking. Ahead of us to the east was a great cluster of snowy peaks, vast spires of frozen rock eighteen thousand feet high. They looked close enough to touch. Beyond the pass the land fell steeply, scarred with tight switchbacks that disappeared towards a valley several thousand feet below. In the far distance... towered a vast, gold-draped pyramidal beacon of ice.
An Unexpected Light, Jason Elliot, 2011
Afghanistan has inspired many travellers such as Elliott, who draws on the country’s mineral wealth to describe its stunning landscape. Western imaginations imbue its places and its stories with the magic of legends. For example Balkh, which The Great Khan’s 10,000 Mongol troops reduced to rubble, is the city where Alexander the Great married Roxanne and Zoroaster is said to have been born.
Man walking near Band-i-Amir, Hindu Kush Mountains
Image: Thomas Abercrombie
Source: National Geographic
The Natural Wealth
Afghanistan is rich in natural gas and deposits of metals like copper, tin, iron ore and gold. There is also wealth in precious and semi-precious stones – emeralds, rubies, sapphires, aquamarine and topaz.
Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan for over 6,000 years. The finest lapis in the world comes from Badakhstan in the north. One of the earliest gemstone materials, lapis was used for sacred amulets in ancient Egypt, cylinder seals in Babylon and many of the statuettes found in the ancient Sumerian tombs at Ur. Medieval and Renaissance painters used lapis to produce the colour aquamarine.
Significant deposits of emerald, ruby, aquamarine and turquoise have been found in the extraordinary landscape of the Hindu Kush which rises up to 6,500 metres above sea level.
Afghanistan’s wealth in natural resources could finance a recovery program for the region – there are already projects underway through foreign investment. Levels of official and unofficial corruption, however, cause some observers to question whether the benefits of these projects will flow to those who need them most.