Tag Archives: environment

Central Asia’s largest botanicals garden in Kyrgyzstan withers

NOV. 6 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin)– Famed across the Soviet Union as the biggest and most beautiful of Central Asia’s formal gardens, the Botanical Garden in Bishkek is now, quite literally, dying.

Once a peaceful sanctuary of bright exotic flowers and their perfumed scents, the 152 hectare Botanical Garden is overgrown and decrepit.

There are few visitors and even fewer staff. Most left in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, dragging down people’s salaries too. Now just a handful of under-paid scientists tend to the garden.

A weather-beaten Dmitry Vetoshkin, was one of these.

“For such a small city as Bishkek having a Botanical Garden is a luxury,” he said. But it’s a luxury that is under increased threat.

Kyrgyzstan’s capital is growing and has swallowed up the Botanical Garden. It once lay on the southeast fringe

of the city. Now, it is ringed by busy road and houses. Property developers are pinching parcels of land to build houses and gardens.

But for most people, the political elite included, the fate of the Botanical Garden is of little concern. “While political parties promise to improve people’s lives during current election campaign, none of them

announced a course to take up and renovate our natural heritage, our Botanical Garden, that stands at the entrance of the city,” said Vetoshkin.

Kyrgyzstan held a parliamentary election on Oct. 4.

There has though, despite the lack of support from the political elite, been some sort of grassroots resistance against selling off or giving away the Botanical Garden to developers. Vetoshkin said citizen power helped to defeat a proposal from developers to build new greenhouses in exchange for taking a large slice of the garden to develop.

Even so, the reprieve may just be temporary. It’s difficult to see just where the Botanical Garden fits into modern Bishkek life.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)

NASA publishes mysterious earthworks in Kazakhstan

OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – NASA published satellite pictures of earthworks found in north Kazakhstan which have baffled scientists. The photos of the Turgai region show massive stone circles. It’s unclear exactly what they represent, how old they are or who built them.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)

Uzbek authorities plan Aral Sea salvage

SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan will spend $4.3b over the next three years improving living conditions around the Aral Sea, media reported. The Aral Sea had been the fourth largest lake in the world but upstream Soviet irrigation policies diverted water from its tributary rivers and shrunk it to a fraction of its former size.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Despair hangs in the air in rural Azerbaijan

SHARABASH/Azerbaijan, SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In northwest Azerbaijan, rain coated the mountain-ringed village of Sarabash with a glossy sheen. Walnut trees glistened and the smell of grass lifted up from the wet fields. It was 8am on a weekday morning but there were no signs of commerce or industry. Just silence.

Remote and cut-off, Sarabash was not connected to the rest of Azerbaijan by road until the 1970s. Today, the track is rock-strewn and rough and the villagers feel, once again, as though they have been forgotten.

The Soviet-era collective farming system, and their livelihoods, have collapsed. Baku and its environs may glow from a beautifying oil boom that has made Azerbaijan rich over the past decade but rural areas have been left behind. Sarabash feels forgotten.

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, collective farms did well up here. In the 1960s there were 40,000 cows and dozens of farming families.

The pair of crumbling statues that stand in the fields are testament to this. They represent the two shepherds who played a part in the village being given a Communist award in 1964. Since independence the villagers admit they have fallen on hard times. Only 40 people – and one shepherd – remain.

When the school principal, Migdav Sofiev, grimaced he revealed his full set of gold teeth. He shook his head and described the desolate state of the village.

“There are only seven children at the village school and when they leave, it will close,” he said.

By comparison the town of Qax lies just 45-minutes away from Sarabash. Throughout the summer there holidaymakers eat in garishly decorated restaurants while their children play in bowling alleys and on bouncy castles.

Over a glass of ayran, a thin, sour yogurt drink; some mountain honey; a disc of tandoor-baked bread, villagers said that despite the untouched mountain scenery it is extremely rare for foreigners to visit. Tourists are keener on the amenities in Qax and they don’t bother to come either.

A sense of resigned despair lingered over the breakfast table.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Mudslides hit rural Tajikistan

JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Landslides in eastern Tajikistan have killed at least seven people and destroyed 50 homes, media reported quoting local officials.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Kazakh court fines Karachaganak

JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in west Kazakhstan handed the Karachaganak oil and gas project a fine of 7.3b tenge (roughly $40m) for excessive flaring, media reported quoting a court statement. Karachaganak’s shareholders are BG Group, Eni, Chevron, Lukoil and Kazmunaigas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Nearly half of Kazakhstan’s saigas died

MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Kazakhstan said 127,000 saiga antelopes out of a herd of 300,000 had now died from an outbreak of a respiratory disease. Kazakhstan has the largest herd of the endangered saiga antelopes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)

Kazakh police detain anti-Baikonur campaigner

MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan detained Saken Baikenov, who campaigned against Russian Proton rocket launches from the Baikonur station, for hate crimes. Proton rockets, which are used for commercial missions, have exploded and polluted the countryside. Rights groups have questioned Kazakhstan’s commitment to free speech.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)

Germany-Uzbekistan trade deal

MARCH 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Berlin, Uzbek officials agreed business deals worth $2.8b, Uzbekistan’s trade ministry said. The statement said most of the deals were related to various infrastructure projects. Relations between Germany and Uzbekistan are relatively close. Germany maintains a military base in south Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)

Uzbek/Kazakh water politics

>>Is Kazakhstan shifting away from pro-Uzbekistan stance?>>

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Astana has been a reliable supporter for Tashkent on some major regional issues over the past 20 years, backing Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s opposition to prospective Tajik and Kyrgyz hydropower dams and also deporting Uzbek asylum seekers.

But the Kazakh authorities may have recently started sending signals that suggest they want changes in Uzbekistan. For instance, Rapil Joshybayev, the Kazakh first deputy foreign minister told a group of Tajik officials in Dushanbe that Kazakhstan may have had a change of heart over the hydropower issue (Feb. 4).

“Kazakhstan is ready to consider the Tajik party’s proposals on fulfilling contracts as part of the hydropower stations construction projects,” he said.

This statement may signify a change of approach by Kazakhstan over a major piece of regional politics — the expansion of hydropower.

In short the upstream countries, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, want to build hydropower dams. The downstream countries, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, want to stop this.

These are tricky times for Uzbekistan. Next month, Uzbekistan will also have to deal with a presidential election.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)