You are in: Home > International Environmental Protection, Antarctic - What's new > Advisory Assistance for Environmental Protection > National park programme Turkmenistan
Last changed: 11/02/11
The Federal Ministry for the Environment’s Advisory Assistance project is currently supporting the creation of a system of national parks in Turkmenistan. The project is being led by the Michael Succow Foundation in cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment of Turkmenistan. The first step is to collect relevant landscape ecological data, followed by the formulation of those requirements which the Turkmen national parks programme will have to meet. Using the example of two existing areas of natural protection from Soviet times (Sapodneviks) the project partners will then create a concept for the establishment of national parks in Turkmenistan. At the same time, so that the programme may meet with the approval of the public, workshops giving details about the project will be offered as early as the conception phase.
The project supports the aims of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). One focal point of the 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in Bonn from 19-30 May 2008, will be negotiations on the establishment of a worldwide network of protected areas.
In the context of the Advisory Assistance project the Succow Foundation will carry out the following concrete project steps:
enlarge (JPG / 532 KB)The central Asian state of Turkmenistan is characterised by geographic contrasts. 80 percent of the country is covered by desert and semi-desert. Several mountain ranges reach at points a height of more than 3,000 metres, and the coast of Turkmenistan extends for some 1,800 km along the Caspian Sea. The climate is dominated by cold winters and very hot, dry summers. Turkmenistan is correspondingly rich in natural and biological diversity.
The river floodplains are home to tugai forests, typical for central Asian deserts, which are cold in winter. The main arboreal tugai species put forth very deep roots, which can reach down to the groundwater and thus survive in times of extreme dryness. The mountain ecosystems of Turkmenistan are characterised above all by a wide variety of ephemeral flowering plants. The Turkmen juniper, among other species, forms open woodlands. In some regions it is occasionally still possible to spot leopards. The geography and particular climatic conditions of the region mean that problems such as desertification may arise due to over-intensive agricultural activity on the steppes and the vagaries of climate change. Additionally, the clearance of open woodland areas for firewood and grazing land is leading to intensified soil erosion in the mountainous regions.
The protection of ecosystems in nature preserve areas under the auspices of the state is a contribution to the minimisation of the consequences of climate change. This is because forest ecosystems in the steppes and the mountains have an important role to play in holding back the spread of desertification and land degradation. A further aspect is the attractiveness of national parks. According to the Succow Foundation, ”the new government of Turkmenistan would like to open its country to the international community. National parks are one way of encouraging international tourism in a way which is directly allied to regional development. With its commitment to a national park programme, the government is trying to kick start this process.”
As early as 1999, in its national report on the condition of the environment, the Turkmen government introduced measures to improve the environmental situation, including those aimed at stemming the tide of illegal hunting, and a ban on land clearance in Tugai forests. An extension of the system of nature reserves, which currently cover some 4 percent of the land area of the country, is also envisaged: Turkmenistan has committed itself to increasing this proportion to 6 percent by 2009. The Advisory Assistance project is making a contribution to the fulfilment of this aim and to the long-term establishment of nature reserve areas. The project is also intended to give further impetus to the still relatively new area of environmental protection legislation in Turkmenistan.
enlarge (JPG / 851 KB)On 18 June 2006 Turkmenistan became a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The CBD calls on party states to support, financially and by other means, and to develop technical and scientific cooperation with, above all, developing countries, in order to fulfil the aims of the Convention. By means of its Advisory Assistance project, Germany, as a signatory to the Convention, is taking this responsibility seriously.
The management of this Advisory Assistance project is under the aegis of the International Environmental Protection section, I 1.2L, assisted by specialists from the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz – BfN)
All photos in this article were taken by W. Wucherer, Michael Succow Stiftung