The Snow Leopard Project and other Adventures in Warzone Conservation

12:30–13:00 Wednesday 14 February 2020

Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary Biologist Dr. 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, which had been decimated after decades of war. 

An evolutionary biologist and former diplomat working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Dehgan’s efforts were central to the creation of the first Afghanistan National Park Program. In his book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation, Dehgan takes readers along with him and his team through some of the most dangerous places in postwar Afghanistan as they work to establish the country’s first national park, complete some of the first extensive wildlife surveys in thirty years, and act to stop the poaching of the country’s iconic endangered animals, including the snow leopard. 

Dehgan will reflect on innovative approaches to advancing the environment and security in some of the most politically and ecologically fragile places in the world, while exploring connections between conservation and political stability. This talk will also consider the larger changes of the political landscape and evolving US positions towards Afghanistan, while showing spectacular imagery from Afghanistan that never crosses our televisions or computers.