Land Stewardship in Practice: An Example from the Eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan (2012) (original) (raw)

This study describes pastoralism practiced in the Karakul village, Northeast of Tajikistan, and discusses its sustainability. Tajikistan introduced a market economy at independence in 1991, and pastoralism is now practiced on a family-unit basis. The families in Karakul graze livestock in their summer pastureland (jailoo) and move their livestock to winter pastureland around the village (kyshtoo). They make groups for pasturage with several families in jailoo and also in kyshtoo. Each group pastures their livestock every day, using a system called novad. In addition to jailoo and kyshtoo, they also practice pastoralism on two additional kinds of pastureland: küzdöö (spring pastureland) and bäärlöö (autumn pastureland). Still, now, the Karakul villagers use their pastureland as the commons: the Karakul village has not established private possession of pastureland even after a law enabled the division of common pastureland among individual families. Using the pastureland as the common...

Enhanced rangeland governance is a priority for the governments of the post-Soviet Central Asian states of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. Major transitional challenges confront the newly independent states of Central Asia. These challenges include the withdrawal of subsidies previously provided by the centralised Soviet government; moves towards privatisation and the conversion of administrative boundaries to international boundaries. In this context transboundary approaches to rangeland management are essential. This paper highlights the challenges for effective pasture management in the Pamir, Pamir-Alai ecosystem; the inadequacies of pasture-related legal instruments and the absence of institutions for the implementation of these instruments. Transboundary management is hampered by the lack of agreements between the two countries and the differences between national level laws and institutions. Meaningful transboundary agreements and the harmonization of national level laws ...

A. Gunya. Yagnob Valley – Nature, history, and chances of a mountain community development in Tajikistan. – Moscow. 2002. KMK. The Yagnob Valley represents in its upper part an example of an isolated peripheral area very typical for the highlands of Asia and especially for Tajikistan, where each mountain valley has its own unique ethnic and cultural style of life and land use structure, highly adapted to natural conditions. The natural isolation of the Yagnob Valley was conducive to the preservation in its upper part of an unique ethnic group – the Yagnobis whose language is very similar to the Ancient Sogdian language attributed to the East-Iranian language group. A strict dependence of land use type on natural conditions and natural processes, as well as the peripheral positions and low accessibility, limited the development and application of new economic methods. The study is undertaken with respect to the model of the existential space of the Yagnobi community affecting land use, risks, and possibilities for survival. Within the limits of the existing structure of the natural resources and the use thereof, there are four very important types of risks that threaten to destroy the existing relationship between the natural environment and the local economy: agroclimatic risk, risk of slope processes, anthropogenic degradation, the social and political risk. Figures 32. Tables 7. Photos 15.

Decades of research on mountains have brought a general recognition that mountain ecosystems are extremely fragile and are host to some of the most marginalized people in the world today. Increased understanding of the complexly inter-related factors and processes determining the vulnerability of mountain ecosystems and peoples has highlighted the role of land as a critical link in the fragile balance between man and nature in mountains. This paper presents the results of an integrated and participatory assessment of the scope and causes of land degradation in the Pamir and Alai Mountains in Central Asia and a strategic framework for mainstreaming sustainable land management in the region, which was developed based on multi-level and multi-stakeholder consultations. It illustrates how mountain research can be integrated in development projects so as to help generate tangible improvements in human livelihoods and security and preserve fragile mountain ecosystems.

This article contains the authors' research on the resettlement policy of the Soviet government in the Uzbek SSR for the development of nature reserves and gray lands. It included the propaganda work of the Soviet government to relocate the local population to the newly developed lands (in the example of Mirzachul), the impact of labor migration on the living standards of the population, the development of cotton monoculture, as well as the forced relocation of the population. issues such as socioeconomic status.

Based on studies conducted in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, land use in transition was assessed with regard to historical background, implications for livelihoods, the current state of natural resources, and opportunities for sustainable land management. The overall aim of this research was to improve the basis for decision-making in sustainable land management. Methodologically, a need for new approaches and methods well adapted to the changing agricultural sector in the Central Asian context was identified, and studies conducted were analysed for lessons to be learned. Thematically, it can be concluded that political and socio-economic transition created a highly challenging situation for farmers, initially forcing many of them into land-use practices that led to land degradation. However, studies in Tajikistan clearly revealed the existence of opportunities for improving land management, which include (i) fruit, cereal and fodder plots, (ii) large-area conservation systems implement...