The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation

by Alex Dehgan

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The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife-and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.
Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary biologist Alex Dehgan arrived in the country in 2006 to build the Wildlife Conservation Society's Afghanistan Program, and preserve and protect Afghanistan's unique and extraordinary environment, show more which had been decimated after decades of war.
Conservation, it turned out, provided a common bond between Alex's team and the people of Afghanistan. His international team worked unarmed in some of the most dangerous places in the country-places so remote that winding roads would abruptly disappear, and travel was on foot, yak, or mule. In The Snow Leopard Project, Dehgan takes readers along with him on his adventure as his team helps create the country's first national park, completes the some of the first extensive wildlife surveys in thirty years, and works to stop the poaching of the country's iconic endangered animals, including the elusive snow leopard. In doing so, they help restore a part of Afghan identity that is ineffably tied to the land itself.
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While the larger story and embedded stories are quite interesting, I was wishing for more skilled editing to reduce repetition and some wordiness. However, one could argue that the style of the book echoes the ridiculous bureaucratic structures the narrator is encountering while trying to establish national parks in Afghanistan and protecting its wild animals. The contrast between the Kafkaesque processes and the progress made because one or two people make careful and caring decisions is quite interesting. The contrast between the war-torn country and its beautiful corners is just as interesting. Afghanistan sounds like an amazing country to visit, if it were not for the land mines and ongoing instability.

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Genres
Science & Nature, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History, Biography & Memoir
DDC/MDS
333.95Society, Government, and CultureEconomicsEconomics of land and energyOther natural resourcesBiofuel, biodiversity, wildlife refuges
LCC
QH76.5 .A3 .D44ScienceNatural history – BiologyNatural history (General)General
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English
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Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
ISBNs
4
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1