Dinder National Park, Sudan, A War zone
Sudan's Dinder National Park has beome a battle field in the fight between humans and wildlife for land. Vast grasslands, lakes and woods are spread over more than 10,000 square kilometres, making it an important flyway for migratory birds. But the massive reserve is under threat. The population has exploded, putting pressure for new croplands on this area tucked away by the Ethiopian border. "It (birds) enjoys the richest wildlife in Sudan," said Albadri Alhassan, head of the park's development organisation. "But the growing human violations threaten to diminish the wilderness." When the park was first declared a protected reserve under Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1935, the area was sparsely inhabited. But in recent decades, the population has soared in the villages that dot the park and its surrounding buffer zone, creating huge pressure for new land to grow crops. And as cattle herders' traditional grazing lands have been ploughed up, they in turn have i