Environment and Security: Transforming risks into cooperation - Central Asia - Ferghana / Osh / Khujand area

Environment and Security / 15

Ferghana / Osh / Khujand

Results to date suggest that we can identify three main groups of is- sues as relevant to environmental and security issues in the region: access to and quality of natural resources (primarily water and land, but also forest and more generally biodiversity resources); •

•

existing or potential pollution from industrial facili- ties, hazardous and radioactive waste sites; and cross-cutting issues suchasnatural disasters, climate change, pubic health, environmental governance, public participation and access to information.

•

�������������������������� ����������������������

�����

���

�������� ���������

� � � �� � � � � � � � � � � � ����������

� � � � �

������� ���������

����������

����������

� � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �

���������

����������

����������

�������� ���������

�� � � � � � � �

��������

����������

������

����������

��������

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �� � �

��������

��������

����������

�������

��������

�������

�����

�������

� � � � � � � � � �

�������� � � � � � � � � � � � � �

��������

� � � � � � � � �

������

������� ���� ��������

���

��������

��������� ���������

���

��������

���������

��������� ���������

����������

������

������

��������

��� ��� ���

����������

����������

������

������

� � � � � � � � � � � � �

������

������

����� ����� ����� ����� �����

����������

� � � � �� � � � � � � �� � � � �

����������

� � � � � � �

���������

� �� � �� � � � � � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

�

��

���

���

������

�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

������������������������������������������������������������������������������

The Ferghana valley

Ethnic divisions were not the primary means of demarca- tion. The 1917 revolution and the subsequent formation of the USSR led to considerable changes in Central Asia. In 1924 new administrative borders were introduced dividing the region, creating “national” republics that contained large populations of non-titular nationalities: Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, Tajiks in Uzbekistan and so forth. When these populations existed in large enough numbers outside their own “national” republics, they won some degree of autonomy. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the largely administrative dividing lines became international borders. The Ferghana valley forms the backbone of agriculture in Central Asia. Some 45% of the irrigation areas of the Syr-Darya basin are located in the valley.

The Ferghana valley is an intermountain depression in Central Asia, between the mountain systems of the Tien-Shan in the north and the Gissar-Alai in the south. The valley is approximately 300 km long and up to 70 km wide, forming an area of 22,000 sq km. Its position makes it a separate geographic zone. Although the valley forms a single, continuous geographic unit, it is politically very divided. At present it encom- passes three provinces of Kyrgyzstan – Osh and Jalal- Abad, and the recently created Batken – three provinces of Uzbekistan – Andijan, Ferghana and Namangan in the centre – and the Sogd (formerly Leninabad) Province in Tajikistan, at the south-western end of the Valley. When the Russian Empire absorbed the valley in 1874, it remained a single administrative unit, its territory staying much as it had been under the Kokand Khanate.

Source: Goudie, 1996.