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

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strengthen environmental reporting. The Fifth Central Asian Festival of Environmental Journalismwill be held in Almaty in 2005. Much as the 2004 festival in Tashkent, it will be a good opportunity to highlight environment and security issues in the Ferghana valley. ENVSEC also plans to cooperate with local journalists on production once particular issues are ripe for increased public and media attention. Finally, this assessment only constitutes a baseline whereas more long-termmonitoring of developments in the environ- ment and security field is needed for both international and the local audiences. ENVSEC will cooperate with existing conflict prevention and monitoring programmes to strength- en their environment and resource-oriented components for the benefit of forward-looking analysis, coupled with regular monitoring of environmental quality. Through the develop- ment of environmental indicators for an early warning system for social conflict, ENVSECwill improve the crisis prevention tools utilized in the Ferghana Valley. Involving the response side of the Governments at an early stage will develop the capabilities for coping with increased social tension, thereby reducing the risk of conflict situations. This will also provide input into ENVSEC projects in all the other clusters.

zation or even cross-organizational venture. The concrete activities described above are only a subset of those that may and eventually will be carried out in the longer-term. For example one aspect of strengthening regional govern- ance involves engaging the countries in more common work to implement key environmental conventions with a transboundary component. In this we expect greater coop- eration between ENVSEC and the conventions’ secretariats. It is vitally important that there should be tangible strategic cooperation with regional programmes and institutions such as the Regional Environmental Action Plan, the Regional En- vironmental Centre for Central Asia, the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, and its subordinate commissions. One outcome that ENVSEC will hardly be able to deliver is to bring investment in real, physical infrastructure such as canals, dams, filters or sealing for tailing ponds. Here we hope that by confirming and highlighting new priorities and reconfirming old ones, we can help to interest larger institutions with the necessary capabilities and resources in making long-term capital investments. All in all, we welcome any ideas that may strengthen EN- VSEC’s conclusions, approach and portfolio of actions – with the long-term aim of bringing greater security and a cleaner environment to the people of the Ferghana valley.

Clearly, the range of needs and issues outlined in this as- sessment far exceeds the capacities of any single organi-

With care, three or four thousand men may be maintained by the revenues of Fergana.

Quotations in blue are taken and shortened from the “Memoirs of Babur” or Babur-nama , the work of the great-great-great- grandson of Timur (Tamerlane), Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (1483-1530). Babur-nama is said to “rank with the Confessions of St. Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon and Newton”. Among other tales, it tells the story of the prince’s struggle to assert and defend his claim to the throne of Samarkand

and the region of the Fergana valley. There is much on the political and military struggles at the end of 1490s, but also observations on the physical and human geography, the flora and fauna, no- mads in their pastures and urban environments enriched by the architecture, music and Persian and Turkic literature. Translation by Daniel C. Waugh. http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/babur