Nature Reserve Under Threat

One of Tajikistan’s most important nature reserves may turn into a barren salt desert within five years if the government does not increase environmental spending, experts warn.



The Khatlon regional prosecutor has brought criminal charges against a number of individuals accused of causing environmental damage to the Tigrovaya Balka (Tiger Gully) reserve. The Avesta news agency reported on February 28 that the accused are said to have grazed livestock illegally and cut down trees.



Tigrovaya Balka, in the south of Tajikistan, is one of the country’s oldest reserves, covering an area of around 50,000 hectares of rare floodplain forests known as “tugay”. The reserve is home to numerous Central Asian of plants, animals, insects and fish, most of which are listed as endangered species.



Although 22 per cent of Tajikistan’s total territory is under protection, ecologists are alarmed at how little is being done to preserve its flora and fauna.



Scientists earn no more than 10 US dollars a month for environmental research, and Kokul Kassirov, director of Tajik National Park, the body which oversees the country's various reserves, believes low pay is responsible for the acute shortage of professionals capable of both studying and protecting unique ecosystems.



“We have virtually no scientifists left, and no research is being done any more,” he said. “Yet science is even more important than protection for national parks.”



More park rangers are need to combat illegal deforestation, poaching, grazing and other human activity in areas close to national parks.



Kassirov suggests that protected areas should be surrounded by broad buffer zones up to five kilometers deep where all economic activity would be prohibited. At the moment, local authorities are continuing to allocate land plots to people right next to park boundaries.



Svetlana Blagoveschenskaya, an environmental expert working on a European Union projects in the region, points out that flood plains in Tigrovaya Balka have not been subject to natural flooding for many years, due to the construction of the Nurek hydroelectric power station and reservoir further up the Vakhsh river.



“It has upset the biological balance in the water basins, giving fish infectious diseases and causing other negative impacts. Until the Nurek hydroelectric station was constructed, natural floods washed away the salts that accumulate over the course of a year,” said Blagoveschenskaya.



She warned that if fresh water does not reach Tigrovaya Balka within five years, “these tugay forests will disappear and be replaced by a salt desert”.



Nurali Rahimov, deputy director of Tajik National Park, says protected areas may survive if they are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites, and if the appropriate infrastructure is put in place for tourists such as mountaineers.



Kassirov hopes that a new law defining areas subject to special protection, which is drafted by experts working in the Badakhshan park, will be adopted quickly, and also a separate code of laws on forests, will help improve matters. The two pieces of legislation are due to be submitted to the Tajik government shortly.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)