One of the topics for discussion during our trip to Kashakdarya was the subject of land protective belts. We can speak for a long time about forest belts and a lot of material has been written about it.

as it should be

“…They stabilize the soil surface, reduce the wind strength, increase moisture, protect from aridity, move the water from the soil surface to its depth… All these things were noticed by our ancestors hundreds of years ago. And they knew what to do so that it would feed us, but unfortunately our contemporaries know very few about it and what is worse, they do not want to bother caring about it.” (the article “The land providing us is asking for protection”, “Rural life” newspaper, #83 (23697) as of 15.11.2011)

I remember that during my childhood the forest belts were almost everywhere. Currently, in most cases they are cut down for timber.

According to professor Irnazarov, from Karshi engineering and economical institute, availability of forest belts is extremely important for agriculture of Kashkadarya region. I think, it is important for all regions in Uzbekistan where irrigating and dry-farming agriculture is implemented, because conditions in the regions are approximately similar.

All regions are placed in the arid zone and it is important to save moisture in the soil in any way. Exactly saving of soil moisture is one of the key moments. Water is an important resource, and agriculture of our Republic is based on it. Hot conditions of our country are the main reason for high evaporation and threat of permanent water stress for agricultural crops. Existence of any level of wind during hot weather makes this problem worse. In that time the evaporation from the surface of crops happens especially rapidly even if there is a permanent amount of water in the soil” (Manual on modern methods of irrigation and melioration, methods of agricultural management in the arid zones, which consume a minimum amount of water resources, page 12, UNDP-GEF project “Achieving Ecosystem Stability on degraded land in Karakalpakstan and the Kyzylkum Desert”, UNDP, Tashkent, 2011). These are causes of small amount of yield, loss of potential product, loss of profit and what is more, loss of natural capital in the form of exhausted soil.

For example, in Kashkadarya, hot wind from the neighbouring desert Korakum is blowing permanently, drying the land of the region. In other words, the questions of this note “Do we need forest belts” is more likely rhetorical. Of course, we need them. However, as forest belts do not bring any direct profit for farmers and only help to keep moisture in the soil, prevent wind erosion and help to store a yield, but do not bring direct money revenues to farmers, then nobody would like to plant these forest belts.

The GEF SGP would like to revive this wonderful technology in Uzbekistan in a big scale. For this reason, we need to arouse interest of farmers and local administration. Therefore, we apply to you with a request to help us. We would be very thankful if you express your opinion on how we can arouse the interest farmers to planting forest belts. Any opinion is valuable for us. In our part, we probably will propagate this technique and work in this direction throughout our country.

You are free to share your opinion and probably you could help nature and people of your country.