A week has already passed since we finished celebrating Eco-week 2011. Our programme took part in several events of the week, which was wholly prepared by the State Committee for Nature Protection of the Republic of Uzbekistan in association with the UNDP unit on Environment and Energy.

I think that the aim of the World Environment Day to attract attention of the people to the issues of the Environment was achieved. There were a lot of talks about the Environment week, both good and not so good, blaming us for just talking and not doing anything. And that’s ok, they are free to talk in any way. That’s what we wanted…

Let me explain everything step by step…

The Environment week began with the opening ceremony which was beautiful and solemn in the Interkontinental hotel… There we exhibited information about our Programme, like other UNDP projects and programmes. We prepared stands about our projects and their photos. Everything was great, a lot of people came to our stand and saw what we are doing…

Next day our main event took place – the symposium on adaptation of local communities to changing climate conditions. We prepared for this event for a very long time. Very long. And finally it happened. It should be said that the whole meeting was lively enough, in permanent discussions…

The symposium was opened by Aleksandr Grigoryants who is the Head of the State Biological Control of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Bakhtiyar Kadirov, Deputy Director of Hydrometeorological service of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Jaco Cilliers, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Uzbekistan.

After the words of welcome, an opening presentation was prepared and performed by Lyudmila Skripnikova, the representative of the Hydromet of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The presentation was interesting and factful and caused many questions of the audience. Here is this presentation (in Russian) for you reference:

download presentation of Lyudmila Skripnikova

After the presentation the audience asked a lot of questions. We should specially mention the excellent work of Lyudmila Skripnikova and all other representatives of the Hydro Meteo Service. Exactly owing to them the participants of the symposium could get professional answers to their questions during the work in groups and together. I would like to mention their names:

• Kadirov B.Sh.
• Skripnikova L.E.
• Taryannikova R.V.
• Dergacheva I.
• Talskih V.N.

After the presentation on climate issues in Uzbekistan all participants were divided into groups as it was intended: the group on energy, biodiversity and land use. The work in groups also was very productive. We propose presentations (in Russian) to your attention which were made as introductory part in each group:

download presentation of E.K.Botman "Pistachio as alternative method of land use " for the group Land and water

download presentation of B.Kamilov "Intensive methods of fish breeding as a way to reduce burden for biodiversity under conditionsof shortages in water and land" (unfortunately without pictures as even after compression presentation was still too heavy)

download presentation of P.F.Pozachenyuk "Impact of climate change on energy consumption"


After finishing work in groups, all people again gathered together and the results of the discussions were presented. Presentations (in Russian) are proposed to your attention below:

download presentation-result of group "Land and water"

download presentation-result of group "Energy"

download presentation-result of group "Biodiversity"

The presentations were not the end. We would like the discussions to continue as the given time wasn’t enough for anybody. You can share your opinions here, on the site or on our GEF SGP page on Facebook. We will be glad if you become friends with our page on Facebook for timely reminding you about the progress of discussion and other news of the GEF SGP. All you need is just to click on “Like” button on our page on Facebook.

After all discussions the participants could continue talking and discussing at the festive dinner.

Next day the GEF SGP took part in the trip of the delegation to the Forish district in Jizzakh province where all projects of the GEF SGP in this province were presented. It should be said that the activity of the GEF SGP in this province is very vast and continues to develop. There was a famous project on pistachio, the project on ecotourism development and education (even its database of wildlife is really something), a new project on saving fish stocks in Aydar-Arnasay system of lakes, planned project on saxaul and biogas for cars. Ideas are constantly being created and developed.
All events were covered in mass media.
I hope that all these efforts have changed something in mind. If not, all we have done was useless.