Afghan camels at desert’s mercy

Where the trees are felled, the desert quickly moves in.

Whole villages have been abandoned as wells have run dry. In southern Kandahar 90 per cent of grape farmers have been forced to abandon their crops because there’s no water.

Camel watch

Watch Al Jazeera’s report on Afghanistan’s desertification

The relentless push of the the desert has forced farmers to dig tunnels several kilometres long to tap spring water.

Hussein Khawreen, a spokesman from the Afghanistan forestry department, said: “There was not a single unplanted square metre [in southern Kandahar].”

“But now 95 per cent of it has turned into desert.”