Kyrgyzstan: Increasingly Forested but Fruit and Nut Trees Endangered Still

A new map of Kyrgyzstan reveals that 7 percent of the country is woodland, slightly more than previously thought. However, experts are warning that 90 percent of Central Asia's fruit and nut trees have been lost during the past 50 years.

According to the map produced by the Kyrgyz-Swiss Forestry Support Program, 1.39 million hectares of Kyrgyzstan is forested. The map will be unveiled on May 14.

Flora and Fauna International (FFI), a conservation non-profit organization, is cautioning that 44 tree species in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan are facing extinction. Many of these trees are the wild ancestors of domesticated fruit and nut trees, including walnut, cherry and apricot.

Some 3 percent of the Kyrgyz state budget is earmarked for environmental protection. The lack of funding is widely acknowledged to "hamper" conservation efforts, the CA-news.org news website reported on May 13.

Regionally, just 3.9 percent of Tajikistan is forested. Kazakhstan's tree coverage amounts of 7 percent of its territory, and Turkmenistan is 8.8 percent woodland. Uzbekistan is the most densely forested with trees covering 10.1 percent of the country.