Afghans hope to use mountains for tourism instead of war
Afghanistan has struggled to surmount decades of war and poverty. Now, newly trained trekking guides plan to help visitors climb the country’s majestic peaks in an effort to revive tourism.
A total of 22 Afghans from across the country graduated Thursday from an internationally sponsored mountaineering training course in the capital, Kabul, the U.S. Agency for International Development said in a statement.
The guides, hailing from northern Nuristan to central Bamiyan province, are part of a program to establish environmentally friendly tourism in Afghanistan, the statement said. They include two young women and seven former soldiers.
As part of the pilot project, the climbers were given classroom training in Kabul starting July 16 before traveling to the nearby Panjshir Valley mountains for practical instruction. “Participants are trained to assist tourist groups during treks and climbs and ensure that ecologically sound practices and cultural traditions are respected,” the statement said.
The training and graduation ceremony was intended to add momentum to “a dialogue among tourism development parties and environmentalists,” according to a separate statement handed out at the event.
Asif Zaidi, program manager for the U.N. Environment Program in Afghanistan _ a sponsor _ said seven of the 22 Afghans were former soldiers, and that the program hoped to train another group of 20-25 guides next year.
“We’ve encouraged them to form an association so they appear as an entity so anyone coming from overseas can contact them” for guide services, he said.
“For those who work well, we’d like to take them through an advanced course next year” which would also focus on developing their English-language skills, Zaidi said.
Besides USAID and UNEP, other sponsors include Mountain Wilderness International, an Italy-based group dedicated to preserving mountainous regions around the world, and the Aga Khan Foundation, a Muslim development fund.
In July 2003, a team of Mountain Wilderness International climbers scaled Afghanistan’s highest peak for the first time in a quarter of a century to encourage tourism and prove at least part of the war-shattered country was safe for mountaineers. The team of seven Europeans climbed Mount Noshaq _ a 7,492-meter-high (24,580-foot-high) peak in northeastern Afghanistan’s mighty Hindu Kush mountain range.
Over the last two decades, few tourists have visited Afghanistan, which was racked by a 1980s war with the former Soviet Union, a brutal civil war in the 1990s and a U.S.-led war in 2001 that toppled the hardline Taliban regime.
Many parts of the country, particularly the southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, remain off-limits to aid workers because of an insurgency waged by Taliban rebels and their allies. Afghan and U.S.-led forces also regularly conduct operations in the area.
Ismailimail 