Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25037
On the heels of an international campaign to ban land mines comes surprising news out of Africa: Biologists credit a strip of mine-ridaen desert between Morocco and .au itania with protecting the last known co any of Me BE nean monk seals. On the coast of Western Sahara, the endan gered seals live in caves accessible only by cross ing a dangerous minefield and rappelling a 30-foot cliff. A research project was cut short when three French sci entists en route to the remote beach were blown up in 1988. The daunting barrier, which Morocco laid down to quash Western Sahara's battle for independence, has kept at bay the human activities-hunting and habitat encroachment which have all but destroyed the seals elsewhere. Biologists estimate that fewer than 500 seals remain in scattered corners of the Mediterranean and West African coast, usually in such small numbers that they can't reproduce at sustainable rates. The Western Sahara seals, more than 150 strong, represent the only viable population left. The result, say researchers, is that survival of the species rests on the bomb-protected beaches of the Cabo Blanco Peninsula. Unfortunately, the seals' refuge comes at high cost to Western Sahara's human inhabitants, themselves endan gered refugees. A 15-year guerilla war waged by the Sahrawis' liberation movement, the Polisario Front, against Morocco has left most Sahrawis (about 170,000) in Algerian refugee camps. The former nomads are now stationary, locked out of their country by the land mines. A United Nations-brokered cease-fire in 1991 for mally ended the violence, but the Sahrawis and seals still share an uncertain future. A long-awaited referendum on