Environment and Security

The fowling and hunting of Akhsi are very good indeed; white deer abound in the waste on the Akhsi side of the Saihun; in the jungle on the Andjian side, abundant and well-fed bucks and does, pheasant and hare are had.

Environment and Security 24 /

litical commitment – in practice the issue of water as well as overall environmental management is left largely up to bilateral relations between individual states. In Central Asia the ASBP and IFAS should provide a basis for joint policies and actions. At a national level the various ministries should be able to integrate the actions of the interstate bodies into national policies, strategies and programmes. But the real ability of ministries to fulfil the task is often overestimated. At a provincial level the involvement of local government, the private sector, and civil society organizations and in- stitutions is needed to translate policies and programmes into action and provide feedback. Civil society is often an important vector for parties directly concerned by water issues to express their views. The actual decision-making process often ignores this aspect of participation, despite attempts by some interstate organizations such as IFAS or ISDC to create public advisory bodies drawing on NGOs. International organisations such as the World Bank are in- creasingly engaged in facilitating high-level discussions and negotiations among the Central Asian states on the issue of the water-energy nexus. If the current process of establish- ing a “water-energy consortium” is successful, the water and energy concerns of the states may finally be integrated into a single, long-term regional policy and operational framework. But the limited prospects for adequate outside investment in a deal of this nature may hinder negotiations. Water is a basic production resource for agriculture. Com- petition for scarce water resources has been recognised as a potential source of international conflict. Individual nations and the international system as a whole have nev- ertheless learnt to manage this threat. Previous research (Klötzli, 1994) identified three main Central Asian regions where incidents over water use occur regularly: the Amu- Darya delta , the Zeravshan valley , and the Ferghana valley . Research into the prospect of “water wars” shows that a war has never been fought for water. Only a handful of minor water “skirmishes” can be identified for the past century, while over the same period 145 water-related treaties were signed. However, it should be noted that “there is ample evidence that the lack of clean fresh- water has led to occasionally intense political instability and that, on a small scale, acute violence can result.” The Ferghana valley Water wars

However in the case of the Zeravshan and Ferghana valleys, despite the very local character of conflicts, the presence of international borders and/or the implication of communities belonging to another ethnic group have loaded the conflict with a transborder and/or ethnic dimension. As discussed above, the tensions related to management of water from the Toktogul reservoir have strained rela- tions between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to the point that Kyrgyz troops were deployed in summer 2000 and 2001 (drought years) to protect the reservoir and water release operations. On the other hand the constant involvement of interstate bodies, multilateral organizations, international financial organizations and key regional play- ers is a guarantee that enough pressure and resources are brought to bear on the problem to find a peaceful solution acceptable to the Central Asian states. There is now growing overall consensus that water scarcity as such will not cause wars between nations. But there is also a growing conviction that water scarcity exacerbates the underlying conditions that fuel livelihood conflicts, particularly while countries are going through the crucial transition period between dependence on agriculture and a modern society, based on urban economic growth. These findings apply to Central Asia where, as we have seen, states have been able to find pragmatic solutions to water-related disputes. There is greater cause for concern at a sub-state level. On the basis of the results of earlier studies, ENVSEC obser- vations during 2004 field visits and consultations in Osh, the water question in the Ferghana area hinges on three main categories of issue: water availability and access to water; water quality; rising groundwater and waterlogging . Research (Savoskul et al. 2003) points out that the area af- fected by salinization and waterlogging has increased over the last decade from roughly 25% to 50% of all irrigated land. At present 31% of irrigated land has a water table within 2 metres of the surface and 28% of irrigated land suffers from moderate to high salinity levels, resulting in a 20%-30% drop in crop yield. Soil contamination linked to irrigated agriculture (contamination by pesticides, nitrates and strontium) is an issue in the whole central part of the Fer- ghana valley where the highest soil salinity is observed. The problems of secondary salinization and agriculture- related pollution are not new, being clearly linked to the spread of irrigation systems and the construction of large dams along the Syr-Darya (and Amu-Darya) in 1965-85. During this period the Soviet “government devoted more

Source: Wolf, 1998