Taliban control could reverse years of environmental progress in Afghanistan, activist warns

Far from her homeland in Afghanistan, Farkhunda Ateel Siddiqi frantically writes letters in her Toronto apartment, urging the Canadian government to evacuate her parents and brother.

Having been a victim of the oppressive treatment of women by the Taliban, the 38-year-old environmental activist knows all too well the terror that settles in people’s hearts. A constant stream of messages floods your inbox: notes from friends and family who remain trapped in Afghanistan as the country returns to Taliban control.

“They are overwhelmed. They are in shock, they don’t know what to do. They are in utter misery and they are not safe in Afghanistan, ”said the mother of three.

Although the last American troops have withdrawn from Kabul, ending a 20-year occupation of the country, an ongoing and chaotic evacuation crisis now leaves locals working for NATO allies and fearful Afghans fighting to flee the country. And this new era of Taliban rule has stopped the years of environmental restoration that Siddiqi worked so hard for.

“For now, I don’t have much hope for environmental work in Afghanistan … because when a country is not stable in security level, it is very difficult for people to invest money in the environment,” Siddiqi said.

In the years leading up to his departure from Afghanistan, Siddiqi was the face of the Rural Green Environment Organization (RGEO), a non-profit environmental organization founded by his father Ahmad Seyer.

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From Kabul, she conducted interviews and delivered speeches, translated documents and sought collaborators to elevate the work of the nonprofit organization, while Seyer, a civil engineer, worked with a team in the northeastern province of Badakshan, where decades of war and the Effects of Climate change meant that villagers faced soil erosion, drought and landslides.

According to a 2019 United Nations Environment Program assessment, the Afghan people are facing a growing number of man-made and climate change disasters, including land degradation, worsening pollution air and water and illegal hunting and logging. The assessment names Afghanistan as one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis due to poor infrastructure and insecurity.

“In the beginning, the area was very arid and dry. Forests used to be a wonderful area before the war, ”Siddiqi said.

“He forced people to cut down the trees so they could use them for fuel. Slowly, for 20, 25 years, the forest left ”.

With few resources, Siddiqi joined RGEO in 2015 and worked to reverse the environmental damage caused by climate change and conflict. The organization conducted educational campaigns highlighting the damage caused by excessive logging. Through RGEO training, farmers learned how to protect and manage tree nurseries in a region where deforestation and loss of wildlife habitat were widespread.

Three years after a massive replanting effort, things began to change in what was once a “hopeless land.” Together with the locals, RGEO built terraces to protect young trees along the river banks and built water pumps to irrigate them, built fruit orchards, and worked to reduce illegal logging, fishing, and hunting. In all, the nonprofit organization’s initiatives helped plant trees on a 1,400-kilometer stretch of mountainside.

“You could visibly see the changes in three to five years,” Siddiqi said. “The whole area changed from gray and totally barren to mountainside green. You could see some of the animals that had lost their habitat, they returned to the place in five or six years ”.

RGEO’s programs were so successful that Siddiqi and his father won the prestigious United Nations Equator Prize in 2015. More national awards followed and their work sparked the interest of national and international stakeholders who wanted to collaborate.

But just as RGEO was on the cusp of a green revolution, the Taliban disrupted its ability to work in Afghanistan. In 2018, Siddiqi’s abusive ex-husband died suddenly of a heart attack. As a young widow who worked and lived independently, the community rejected her. The Taliban found out and told Siddiqi to stop working or risk the safety of his family.

It was then that he looked for opportunities to flee Afghanistan. She was accepted to Saint Xavier University and arrived on a student visa in 2019. Siddiqi now works as a chef in Toronto.

Leaving his homeland and putting aside his environmental work was difficult.

“He had done a lot (in Afghanistan). He trained people. I was the face of RGEO, ”Siddiqi said. “But when I came (to Canada), nobody knows me. When I got here, I was alone; I went through a severe depression. ”

To a lesser extent, Siddiqi has managed to stay involved with RGEO from abroad, helping her father with translations and paperwork. But with Afghanistan’s future in limbo, he worries that the progress RGEO has made could be quickly undone.

“All the awareness programs that we have can be stopped or rolled back,” Siddiqi said. “(The Taliban) will tell people that we don’t care about the environment, we only need humans to survive … It will have long-term impacts.”

Like other organizations in Afghanistan, RGEO’s operations are currently on the air due to the change of government, Siddiqi said. The nonprofit organization is “on hold” and monitors security risks to its staff. It is also waiting for funds to be released from its current partner, the German government’s Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), with whom RGEO has a five-year contract to establish fruit orchards in 12 villages in Badakshan.

In an emailed statement to National Observer of Canada, a GIZ spokesperson said the organization has “suspended projects in Afghanistan for the time being.”

For now, Siddiqi emphasizes the need for peace in Afghanistan as the basis for all other vital work to restore the environment.

“Environmental projects will flourish if there is peace. I want the international community to act on this. To raise your voice, not to remain silent. “