In a mountain village outside the city of Bamiyan, CRS helped the community cope with extreme weather and stark terrain. As part of the community-based natural resource management project, CRS conducted two primary interventions: creating retaining walls to prevent erosion and slow avalanches on pasture land, and preparing previously-unused sections of hillside for growing crops.

The community learned the value protecting land from over-grazing and stripping the hillsides for fuel collection. The walls created through the cash-for-work component of the project retain moisture in the soil, and moving the rocks into place for walls cleared land for agriculture.

A farmer harvests wheat grown on land newly-suitable for agriculture. The CRS project hired cash-for-work beneficiaries to build retaining walls along contour lines with rocks that covered potential agriculture land.

Photo by Jennifer Hardy/Catholic Relief Services