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BISHKEK (TCA) — A pledging event on 8 November 2018 is expected to demonstrate the international community’s solidarity with efforts to overcome the legacy of uranium mining in Central Asia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reported on its website. Continue reading
ISSYK-KUL, Kyrgyzstan (TCA) — The Aarhus Centres and Public Environmental Information Centres from 15 countries concluded on September 20 in Issyk-Kul a two-day meeting on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals, the OSCE reported. Continue reading
ASHGABAT (TCA) — Presidents of five former Soviet republics in Central Asia met in Turkmenistan on August 24 to discuss the ways to save the Aral Sea, which for decades has been facing severe environmental issues. Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov hosted Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Sooronbai Jeenbekov of Kyrgyzstan, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, and Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan in the Avaza tourist zone near the city of Turkmenbashi on the Caspian coast. The Kazakh presidential press service cited Nazarbayev as telling the summit that the talks "will give an additional boost to the process of regional cooperation in using water resources." The five countries are founding members of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFSAS) that was established in 1993. During the August 24 summit, the presidents chaired sessions of the Interstate Commission for the IFSAS Development, the Interstate Coordination Commission for Water Resources, and the IFSAS' directorate, RFE/RL reported. In January last year, just weeks after he was inaugurated as Uzbekistan's new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced that his country would spend $2.6 billion over five years to develop the area around the Aral Sea. Once the world's fourth largest landlocked natural water reservoir, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its size since the 1960s — in part because the two major rivers feeding the sea, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, were diverted for Soviet irrigation projects. The shrinking of the Aral Sea is considered one of the planet's worst environmental disasters, and has led to significant environmental challenges in the region shared by Uzbekistan's autonomous Karakalpakstan region and Kazakhstan.
ASTANA (TCA) — Some 130 representatives from Kazakhstan’s Parliament, central and local government authorities, academia and civil society, as well as experts from both Kazakhstan and Russia, participated in an OSCE-supported international conference on transboundary cooperation in the Zhaiyk (Ural) river basin on 23 July in Uralsk, Western Kazakhstan, the OSCE Programme Office in Astana reported. Continue reading
TASHKENT (TCA) — An Information Resource Centre for Public Environmental Awareness and Culture and Improving People’s Ecological Knowledge was opened by the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan, with the support of the Group of Ecological Movement Deputies within the Legislative House of Uzbekistan’s parliament, the Oliy Majlis, and the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan, on 17 July in Tashkent. Continue reading
ASTANA (TCA) — “Climate change is a 'threat multiplier' as it can result in poverty, food insecurity, illegal migration, social instability and bitter conflicts,” the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Yerzhan Ashikbayev, said last week at the open debate of the United Nations Security Council dedicated to Understanding and Addressing Climate-related Security Risks, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry reported. Continue reading
