Environment and Security

First page Table of contents Previous page 23 Next page Last page

Environment and Security / 23

Ferghana / Osh / Khujand

pendence. In 1993, 1998, 2001 and 2004-2005 Kyrgyzstan was blamed for releasing too much water from the Toktogul dam during winter and not enough during summer. Farmers in Uzbekistan and south Kazakhstan faced irrigation water shortages in summer. Frozen waterways and canals, unable to handle the larger volume of water in winter, either caused flooding of towns such as Kyzyl-Orda in Kazakhstan and of arable land or wastefully diverted water into the Arnaysay depression, creating a system of lakes covering 2,000 sq km and raising the level of groundwater 20 . If we look at the water versus energy equation, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have managed to hammer out agreements with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to swap fossil fuels for water. However the terms of trade in water-for-fuel swaps are prob- lematic prompting recurrent crises over payment for water or fuel. The question of paying for management and main-

tenance of the parts of the system that benefit more than one republic has also become a major political issue.

Several interstate bodies have been set up since 1992 to deal with the issue of water management at a regional level, including the Interstate Commission for Water Cooperation with its Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya Water Basin Authorities. However disputes about water allocations show that inter- state bodies still cannot solve critical issues, often lacking the necessary political backing of the highest spheres of the relevant governments (see Gely and Muller, 2002). For example although the Aral Sea Basin Programme is administered by a council of deputy prime ministers, and the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea is governed rotatingly by the presidents of the five Central Asian coun- tries – a solution that should guarantee a high level of po-

��

�

��

�

��

�

��

�

��

�

� �

�

� �

��

�

��

�

� � � �

�

��

�

��

� � �

��

�

��

�

� �

��

�

��

�

��

�

��

�

��

Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator