Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — The Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia (CAREC) under the World Bank-funded Resilient Landscapes Restoration Program (RESILAND CA+) organized the first regional meeting to harmonize policies and approaches to restoring and protecting transboundary landscapes across Central Asia.

According to EM-DAT International Disaster Database, since 1990, in Central Asia, more than 10 million people have suffered from land degradation-related disasters which caused damages worth around US$2.5 billion. A key example of tragic impacts on livelihoods and health of communities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and across the region are massive sand and salt storms originating from the land areas once covered by the Aral Sea.

The World Bank's flagship $256 million RESILAND CA+ supports projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and advisory services in Turkmenistan to restore the region's degraded landscapes by investing in resilience of ecosystems, infrastructure, and people against the impacts of land degradation.

The meeting in Tashkent gathered for the first time government officials responsible for nature preservation, protected areas, emergencies, agriculture, and forestry from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The participants discussed the preparation of national and regional policies on transboundary landscapes restoration. They also discussed establishing a High-level Central Asian Dialogue Platform to address impacts of transboundary landscape degradation through harmonized regional policies.

It was noted that coordinated approaches at the regional level, supported under the RESILAND CA+, include forest fire alert systems in transboundary areas, nature-based solutions, including erosion control and tree planting to increase resilience, and nature-based tourism in protected areas and unique natural sites shared between countries.

Additionally, RESILAND CA+ will support the development of a MoU for the designation of a transboundary “Peace Park” among countries, following the guidelines of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Peace Forest Initiative (2020). It will be created on the borders of Central Asia countries to restore, protect, and connect key ecosystems and strengthen local communities’ financial sustainability through investing in the development of tourism and production of non-timber forest products.

“Border areas, which face serious challenges like land degradation and poverty affecting local communities, need the cooperation of all countries of Central Asia based on shared mechanisms for sustainable land management. This includes improving dialogue on regional policies and sharing knowledge to protect and restore transboundary landscapes. The World Bank is pleased to support efforts in this area through activities funded under the RESILAND CA+,” noted Tatiana Proskuryakova, the World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia.

“Investing in forest and landscape restoration is critical to address the complex nexus of local livelihoods, land degradation and deforestation, climate change, environmental security, biodiversity conservation, and economic growth in Central Asia. It will help recover the ecological functionality of the landscape while meeting a variety of human needs, including its ability to contain erosion and floods, its food and firewood production capacity, and the protection of downstream water supplies, among others,” said Zafar Makhmudov, CAREC Executive Director.