THE PARTH TO SAVING THE COUNTRY'S CLACIERS LIES IN FOREST RESTORATION, NOT IN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES
Recently, a water conference was held in Tajikistan.
According to local media, representatives came, sat, talked, and left. The issue of access to fresh or drinking water remained unresolved. Water reserves in Tajikistan did not increase; on the contrary, they continued to decrease.
In Dagestan, which, like Tajikistan, is a mountainous region, if a neighbor curses another, they say: "May your village's spring dry up." According to Rasul Gamzatov, the author of the book "My Dagestan," this is the worst curse in Dagestan.
Who cursed Tajikistan so badly that in the last three decades, thousands of springs in our mountains have dried up? More than a thousand glaciers in Tajikistan, which were reserves of drinking water, have disappeared. Water reserves in Tajikistan have decreased by nearly 30 percent.
Hundreds of rivers used to flow in Tajikistan, and now 50 percent of them, those longer than 10 kilometers, have turned into streams. I don’t remember the exact date, but an expedition of Imperial Russia recorded about 1.6 million hectares of forests in Tajikistan. Now, only about 600,000 hectares of these forests remain.
Forests in mountains and foothills serve as water reserves. Thousands of springs originate from these water sources. Rivers stem from these springs.
Remember why the Aral Sea dried up? To prevent the drying of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the UN created a committee called the "Save the Aral" committee. Hundreds of research centers operate in this basin. Billions of dollars from this committee have been spent, yet the Aral was not saved. During those years, Uzbekistan built dozens of artificial reservoirs using water resources from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to irrigate millions of hectares of land. And while they succeeded in that, the drying of the Aral could not be prevented.
With the drying of the Aral, the climate in Central Asia changed. For the past forty years, dust storms, or as the people of Tajikistan call them, "khokborish," have become a common occurrence in Tajikistan. These dust storms arise from the dried-up Aral region, and people refer to them as Afghan winds. In the early years, these winds didn't reach Dushanbe and would dissipate in the Khatlon region. But gradually, year by year, as the Aral dried up more, these winds passed Dushanbe and reached the mountains.
This dust settles on Tajikistan's glaciers. And this layer of dust acts like a blanket, keeping the glaciers warm, leading to their rapid melting. Another reason for the reduction in the water from Tajikistan's glaciers is the drying of the Aral and the Afghan winds, which no committee or water conference can stop.
As some experts and scholars say, these conferences and meetings are nothing more than a way to shuffle UN funds around in the water sector.
Currently, drinking water and people's access to it is one of the most important issues in the world. All geopolitical matters globally are linked to the availability of drinking water. All wars and conflicts between countries are related to water. For example, the tensions between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, from the Soviet era to the present, are primarily due to water.
According to scientists at the Brazilian Institute, where over 500 prominent global researchers work on water resources and their future, in the next 50 years, water resources on Earth will become the number one issue. Many countries will disintegrate over water resources. Many major cities worldwide will become wastelands due to a lack of water and people.
Let’s return to Tajikistan and leave aside these grim predictions. In the past, during the Soviet era, Tajikistan was second in the world in terms of water resources after Russia. Even now, Tajikistan is still highly regarded in this area. Tajikistan is rich in water, but unfortunately, we use only five percent of this God-given resource. Only 30 percent of Tajikistan's population has full access to drinking water. The remaining 70 percent live on water brought from other places.
There are hundreds of villages in Tajikistan that collect rainwater in winter and spring and use it until the next winter and spring. The government of Tajikistan is currently unable to provide water access to the population.
According to world scientists, if Tajikistan does not prevent desertification in the next 50 years, it will turn into a desert. To prevent this desertification, Tajikistan needs to restore 1.6 million hectares of forests in the mountains and foothills. In other words, trees need to be planted in the mountains and foothills.
To prevent dust storms, the entire dried-up area of the Aral must be turned into a forest, which is not only Tajikistan’s responsibility but also that of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The Aral Rescue Committee should spend all its available funds not on holding conferences and meetings, but on reforesting the former bed of the Aral.
Hikmat Darvesh, journalist