Blurred by smoke and putrid steam, eagles and flocks of ravens hover overhead and swoop down to feast on colonies of rats. On the ground, a solitary pig roots through household debris, its snout buried in discarded plastic and rotting cardboard.
Despite Mongolia’s nearly limitless supplies of coal, Ulaanbaatar recently approved plans to set up the country’s first commercial wind farm. The decision is fueling a public debate that aims to strike the right balance between Mongolia’s near-term and long-term economic development interests.
This year, according to the whitewater-rafting guide, the water was too high, it was too dangerous. The group of beginners he was guiding down one of Kyrgyzstan’s most accessible rivers couldn’t handle the rapids ahead. Downstream, reservoirs were overflowing, causing authorities to lament the loss of precious water in summertime when it isn’t needed to make electricity.
President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration is trying to implement a bold plan to turn Georgia’s highest mountain peaks into a world-class recreational playground. The project is proceeding even though a study to evaluate its environmental sustainability has yet to be completed.
In early September at a small outpost 110 kilometers north of the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, four environmental activists armed with hunting rifles opened fire on gold mining equipment owned by two foreign companies.
Armenian leaders are ecstatic that Russia is getting involved in the construction of a new nuclear power plant at Metsamor. Environmentalists and technical experts are far less enthused, saying that a new Metsamor unit poses considerable risks.
Barren mountains and pasture scoured by ceaseless wind: the land west of Eregli is about as close as Turkey gets to desert.
But it is here, at the southern edge of the central Anatolian plateau, in the shadow of a peak named after deer that were hunted to extinction over 50 years ago, that Rahim Demirbas has been planting his forest since 1998.
A dramatic increase in respiratory diseases over the past several years means that Armenia is now struggling to breathe, physicians and public health specialists say. While government representatives downplay the problem, environmentalists point to desertification as the cause.
David Woodward, BP's top executive in the Caucasus who is overseeing the BTC project, sought to reassure the Georgian leadership that the oil giant was committed to protecting the Borjomi region, site of a national park and mineral water springs. Woodward reportedly characterized his talks with the Georgian president as successful without disclosing details.
Shirmuhammad Yusupov of Uzbekistan's Agriculture Ministry says these poisons are spread by the wind and are causing widespread health problems in the local population.
"Several kinds of toxic salts are spreading from the Aral Sea across the Central Asian region and outside it, and is harming people," he says.
