Today’s Afghanistan is a country with no intact forests. Decades of conflict and overexploitation of natural resources by the impoverished population have destroyed the original natural landscape. To help address this problem, a GIZ-funded Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) project aims to restore the ecological and productive functions of degraded forest landscapes in five provinces: Badakhshan, Khost, Paktia, Samangan and Takhar. The project contributes to the implementation of Afghanistan’s strategy for the management of natural resources. GIZ commissioned UNIQUE with an evaluation of the plants (trees, bushes, grass) coming from drier areas of the region (Tajikistan, North-Western China, Northern China, Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) in order to assess their suitability for planting in the villages of the FLR project.

• Assessment of the occurrence of drought resistance plants suitable for FLR in other semi-arid countries
• Make a list of suitable plants that could be introduced to Afghanistan
• Development of a concept of respective innovations in the target areas/villages of the FLR
• Webinar in Dari and English presenting results and recommendations