Cycling Silk is a bike expedition along the Silk Road that aims to explore and advocate for transboundary conservation as a force for peace. Kate and Mel are a two-woman, alpine-style team who will cycle more than 15,000 kilometers through the shattered mountains and scorched deserts that span the Silk Road from Europe to Asia. Along the way, we will use our scientific, environmental, and sustainable development training to investigate the natural and social impacts of eight existing or proposed transboundary protected areas. The goal is to raise awareness about environmental conservation across borders as a peace-building endeavor in mountain wildernesses along the Silk Road, and beyond.
For millennia, the Silk Road has been a dynamic flux of people, products and ideas between the East and West. Today it links countries with borders demarcated based on politics, rather than natural or cultural boundaries. But the alpine ecosystems along the Silk Road, whose mountain glaciers sustain vast populations, defy the arbitrary lines that fragment them on maps. Conservation efforts, then, must transcend borders to be sustainable on environmental and human scales.
Transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) strive to achieve this. The IUCN defines TBPAs as natural areas that straddle borders between states and cooperatively protect biodiversity. Though conceived as conservation strategies, not peace-building initiatives, neighboring nations often cultivate friendlier relations as an offshoot of environmental cooperation. "Peace parks" are TBPAs formally dedicated to promoting peace through conservation. Silk Road countries contain approximately 26 TBPAs, either existing or proposed. None are official peace parks.
Over the course of a year, starting in Italy and ending in India, we will use bikes to access and explore eight existing or proposed TBPAs straddling the borders of France, Italy, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Turkemenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Nepal, and India (see map). At each TBPA, we set up base camp for at least a month to explore the area; to meet and interview locals, conservationists, scientists, and politicians; and to learn where and how transboundary conservation succeeds and fails to translate to more peaceable relations across borders. We will film, photograph, and write about the rugged lands each TBPA encompasses, and about the communties that call these mountains home.
Cycling Silk is both an epic adventure and an exercise in environmental advocacy. By researching and raising awareness about transboundary conservation, we hope to generate the public endorsement and support needed for proposed TBPAs to become a reality, and for existing TBPAs to declare themselves peace parks. Our ultimate goal is to channel this Silk Road cycling odyssey into practical conservation results.
"I know of no political movement, no philosophy, no ideology, which does not agree with the peace parks concept as we see it going into fruition today. It is a concept that can be embraced by all. In a world beset by conflicts and division, peace is one of the cornerstones of the future. Peace parks are a building block in this process, not only in our region, but potentially in the entire world." -Dr. Nelson Mandela