Turkmen Ecological Wonders Endangered

Environmentalists in Turkmenistan have expressed shock at plans to allow sheep to graze on the country’s renowned nature reserves, which are home to many endangered animal and plant species.

President Saparmurat Niazov, who calls himself Turkmenbashi, or Father of Turkmen, issued a decree in April permitting farmers to graze their animals on all eight reserves, one of which, Badkhyz, is being considered by the UN agencyUNESCO for inclusion on its list of sites of international cultural and natural heritage.

“In Soviet times too many nature reserves were created, and now we have no reason to fence them off from the people. Animals can be put out to pasture on these territories – there will be much more benefit from this,” Niazov is reported to have said at a recent government meeting.

Environmentalists are alarmed at the prospect of areas of outstanding beauty and scientific interest being swamped by herds of sheep – the country, whose staple food is lamb, has 16 million of the animals.

But the authorities have promised that the development of new pastures on the reserves - which possess unique ecosystems with an unknown number of rare plant and animal species – will be strictly controlled to ensure there’s no environmental damage.

Badkhyz is the most famous of the country’s reserves, comprising populations of endangered species, such as the Central Asian gazelle, argali (wild sheep), kulan (wild ass), striped hyena, snow leopard, serpent eagle, golden eagle, Afghan awl-headed snake and others. There are more than a thousand species of rare plant in Badkhyz alone.

Local environmentalists have over the years become dismayed by what they see as the government’s diminishing commitment to the nature parts, pointing out that there’s been a marked decline in both funding and large-scale scientific and environmental studies of the areas since independence in 1991.

They say that Niazov’s latest decree is a real blow to their efforts to maintain the reserves.

“Even though funds have not been provided, we are still trying to protect these truly unique and endangered species, for the sake of our children,” said a worker at the Repetek nature reserve, in the central part of the East Karakum desert.

“But when we heard that sheep would be allowed to graze in nature reserves, we were shocked. This decision will lead to ecological degradation and cause rare species of plant and animal life to disappear from the face of the earth.”

No mention of the plans was made at Turkmenistan’s most recent ecological forum, held at the end of February 2005, in which cross-regional environmental monitoring was discussed.

Turkmenistan has no independent environmental organisations, while international groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have been banned from operating on Turkmen soil.

One health ministry employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IWPR that the government has paid only lip service to conservation issues.

“Unfortunately, in recent years the environmental and nature management situation has been regressing, in spite of Turkmenistan’s declared commitment to international conservation activity,” the official said.

“All kinds of conferences, meetings and forums are held, but these are just empty statements. Any feeble attempts by our scientists to put forward initiatives are nipped in the bud.

“Furthermore we are prohibited from working with international organisations on various ecological projects, as this apparently would conflict with national policies.”

A number of Niazov’s recent decisions concerning the environment have raised concern at home and abroad – most notably his November 2000 order for a 2,000 square kilometre artificial lake to be developed in the desert at Karakum.

This is the largest construction project in the republic, with an estimated cost of some five billion US dollars, and is expected to run for another three years at least.

To create the lake, rainwater will be channelled from collection canals in every region of the country. However, no ecological surveys have been carried out to assess the impact on the environment.

This has outraged Central Asia environmentalists, who argue that this process could destroy Karakum’s ecosystem, causing the extinction of many species of animals and plants whose habitats will be divided up by canals or swallowed by the lake.

Murad Novruzov is the pseudonym of an IWPR reporter in Ashgabat