"The drought is a disaster for the Karakalpak economy," says Rashid Toreshov, Karakalpakstan's deputy Water Minister. A harried man whose desk sits under a large, imposing portrait of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, Toreshov says the effects will extend far beyond farming: "Most of our industries are based on agriculture."
Snowfall has reached 15-20 centimeters on flat steppe areas and 40-70 centimeters in mountainous areas. As of 25 January, the latest data to be released released, there have been 605,000 livestock deaths as a result of the dzud. That figure is thought to be an underestimation, because not all areas of the country can be reached due to the heavy snowfalls and ice.
There are approximately 50 sites in Kyrgyzstan containing about 60,000 cubic meters of waste products that were buried during the Soviet era, mostly from the mining industry. About half of these sites contain waste from nuclear production--an industry that most Kyrgyz citizens were not aware had existed on their territory because it was kept secret by the Soviet authorities.
"The system when the NGOs had a free access to Internet at the expense of commercial users was unique and very exciting," writes Andrei Zatoka, director of the Dashkhovuz Ecological Guardians. "Therefore the attack of Turkmen Telecom brought serious damage for NGO development."
It has been several years already since Vostokredmet has mined and processed uranium. Many skilled workers have left the enterprise, and the salaries of those who have remained are meager. Most are forced to scramble to subsist, while wondering about the dangers of radioactive waste.
Central Asia's agricultural economies are largely dependent on irrigation. The region's five countries -- Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan must share scarce water resources. But of these, only two countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, control the sources.
When she left Tashkent at the end of her tour, Ferrero-Waldner knew it would not be possible to convene the conference this year. The presidents of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan said they prefer to handle the problem on a bilateral basis and rejected the multilateral approach proposed by the OSCE. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, however, favor the conference.
The countries presented their appeals during the 8th Commission for Sustainable Development in New York, which took place from April 24-May 5. The meeting attempted to assess progress toward implementing the 1992 Rio Convention on the Environment, of which all five Central Asian states are signatories.
In the Soviet era, water allocations for Central Asia were set in Moscow (at the Ministry for Land Reclamation and Water Resources, or Minvodkhoz). State planners' aim was to maximize cotton yields.
OKIOC has so far spent over $100 million to overhaul drilling procedures and equipment. In addition OKIOC has conducted an intensive public relations campaign in an attempt to assuage concerns among local residents that oil extraction could pose a threat to the environment.
