For Leopards in Iran and Iraq, Land Mines Are a Surprising Refuge

SULAYMANIYAH, IraqFew parts of the world look more hostile to big cats than the rugged wilderness that flanks the northern Iran-Iraq frontier.

Laced with land mines and roamed by packs of dedicated poachers, it's an environment seemingly calculated to imperil even the most fleet-footed animal. Yet this is the place the world's largest leopard calls home.

Once spread across the Caucasus region, Persian leopards now are relegated to this former war zone, along with a few isolated pockets of rural Iran. Here, hundreds of thousands of Iranian and Iraqi soldiers bludgeoned one another to death in some of the late 20th century's most brutal battles. Even today, border guards patrol the once fiercely contested high ground.

NG Staff. SOURCES: IUCN (2015); Arash Ghoddousi, University of Gttingen; Amirhossein Kh. Hamidi, Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation

But through it all the leopard has endured, and oddly enough, the region's violent past has contributed to its survival. As part of the decade-long conflict, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his Iranian counterparts planted an estimated 20 million to 30 million land mines in the 1980s. Two decades after the last of the big minefields were laid, the explosives continue to maim and kill local residents.

But the mines also have become accidental protection for the leopards, discouraging poachers from entering certain areas.

And now interest in clearing the land mines throws into sharp relief the conflict between human and wildlife interests. Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan region is developing swiftly, and along with that comes hot pursuit of oil and gas depositsmany of which lie in leopard-heavy highlandsto fuel its likely bid for independence.

Conservation efforts have struggled to gain traction in large swaths of the Middle East. As in many developing regions, the welfare of the environment is a distant consideration amid economic peril and political flux. But the emergence of the Islamic State jihadist group, which now controls swathes of Syria and Iraq and which was recently camped on Iran's doorstep, has pushed the plight of the Persian leopard even further from local decision-makers' thoughts.

That's why the region's conservationists now find themselves in the not-so-comfortable position of opposing some land-mine clearance efforts. Clearing the way for people to return to those areas could put the leopards back at humans' mercy, they say. (Read about how Mozambique is clearing land mines.)

"Environmentally speaking, mines are great, because they keep people out," said Azzam Alwash, head of the conservation group Nature Iraq.

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For Leopards in Iran and Iraq, Land Mines Are a Surprising Refuge