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Tajikistan
[| Environmenatal Issues in Tajikistan]

Tajikistan is a country in Central Asia whose terrain is mountainous. Uzbekistan is a country that borders it. In 1991 Tajikistan became an independent nation. From 1992 till 1997 they had a civil war. Since the civil war foreign nations have helped Tajikistan’s economy to grow. Tajikistan has several environmental issues. Foreign nations have helped in trying to fix some of these issues.

Types of Environmental Issues
Some of the types of environmental issues in Tajikistan are erosion, forest degradation, air and water pollution, and agricultural chemicals and salts in the soil and ground water. The major environmental issues in Tajikistan are concentrations of agricultural chemicals and salts in the soil and groundwater, pockets of high air pollution caused by industry and motor vehicles, water pollution from agricultural runoff and disposal of untreated industrial waste and sewage, poor management of water resources, and soil erosion.

Soil erosion affects an estimated 70 percent of irrigated cropland. Overgrazing also contributes to soil erosion. Air pollution is a particular problem during times of the year when atmospheric conditions hold industrial and vehicle emissions close to the surface in urban areas. In summer, dust and sand from the deserts of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan cause air pollution across the entire southwestern lowland region. Forest degradation also is a serious problem as trees are cut to expand pasture land on collective farms.

Only about 7.5 percent of the land is used for crops. 6.6 percent of that land is arable land, which is land that can be ploughed and used to grow crops. The other .9 percent is always used for crops. More than 80 percent of the land for crops needs irrigation. Most of Tajikistan is not used for crops and is not forest. About 87.5% of Tajikistan are areas that structurally can’t be used for farmland such as mountains, valleys, glaciers, and desert.

There is pollution from different types of operations. There are areas of radioactive waste from a Soviet-era uranium mining operation. There are some areas of toxic waste from operations such as gold, antimony, and mercury. Pollution travels from different areas of Tajikistan by water. Pollution ends up in the Aral Sea from the Amu Darya River which got it from rivers that went through pollution laden areas. The State Unitary Enterprise “Tajik Aluminum Company” is the only company that produces aluminum in Central Asia. It is the biggest polluter of two countries close by, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It has several effects including: negative effects on the health of people, it contaminates soil and water resources, it reduced crop yields, and effected livestock production.

A large Soviet-era uranium mining operation left poorly constructed repositories of radioactive waste in northwestern Tajikistan. Other operations in Tajikistan extracted and processed gold, antimony, tungsten, mercury, and molybdenum, each of which is known to leave toxic waste. The Kofarnihon, Zarafshon, and Vakhsh rivers pass through heavily polluting industrial regions of the country, carrying pollutants into the Amu Darya and thence to the Aral Sea. The expansion of aluminium processing at Tursunzade, proposed in 2005, would increase industrial pollution in the Dushanbe region. Tajikistan's withdrawal of water for irrigation from the Syr Darya and tributaries of the Amu Darya also influences the quantity of water downstream. Therefore, Tajikistan’s water management policies are a regional concern. The resolution of these problems has been delayed by the overall poverty of the country and the civil war of 1992–97. Although the civil war reduced industrial and agricultural activity substantially, it also interrupted environmental monitoring and maintenance activities put in place by the Soviet Union's Committee on Nature Protection, leaving Tajikistan with a severely reduced infrastructure for both economic and environmental activity. In an economic performance assessment of Tajikistan water was said to be a major issue. Tajikistan’s data of water is compared to other nations that are similar to Tajikistan.(awkward sentence) When Tajikistan was studied and rated compared to other nations it got rates in three areas that were below its peer group average. The three areas were quality, quantity, and reducing water stress.

There are several urgent agricultural and forestry environmental issues. Some of the agricultural issues are poor water management practices, soil erosion caused by overgrazing, tree cutting, and raising grain crops on marginal lands. Also there is soil salinity on irrigated lands because of the poor management and drainage infrastructure. The salination has decreased production. There is too much deforestation which results in soil erosion. In Tajikistan bread is what gives for many people about 50% of their daily calories. Tajikistan gets much of its wheat from Kazakhstan. There is a regional wheat resiliency project that is testing different methods in Tajikistan to try to help farmers get past challenges, such as weather, soil, and water, to production. Tajikistan is surrounded by land, has little rain, and most of its land usable for agriculture needs irrigation. For these reasons Tajikistan must be wise with its use of water.

Feed the Future is a group that created water users associations of farmers so that they would as a group figure out how they would get water to their crops. These associations have helped farmers with watering their crops and has made it so they get more production and thus more income. Tajikistan has big rivers which flow through their green valleys but it is still hard for the people to get enough water daily. There was a study done by the United Nations last year that showed that most people in Tajikistan don’t have access to safe, clean water. Most of the people get their water from rivers and ditches which are usually polluted from animals, agricultural runoff, and even human sewage. There aren’t many places to get water in their villages; getting water is an essential chore for the people. Only about 5% of the population in rural Tajikistan get safe water. There is also little access to adequate sewage facilities. Since there aren’t many sewage facilities that are adequate there have been repeated outbreaks of typhoid and other waterborne diseases.

Past Issues
During the beginning of the 1990s there was a decrease in production of agriculture. In the mid-1990s there were outbreaks of infection which could be a result of both poor sanitary services and a large amount of refugees

From 2000-2004 there was a significant increase in production of agriculture

Actions trying to fix Environmental Issues
Since June 2001 Tajikistan has been a part of events that try to follow the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental protection. In 1993 there was a Forest Code made to help protect the forest, conserve the environment, and to promote material from the forest. In 2004 a Land Use Concept was approved by Tajikistan’s government that focused on improving its land use, preventing erosion, and expanding rainfed lands. In 2002 Tajikistan added a cotton development program that was to improve irrigation infrastructure, crop rotation, and pest management. From 1999 to 2006 Tajikistan reforested 20,600 hectares of land. On July 30, 2014 in Tajikistan there was a grant agreement to pay for the Tajikistan Agriculture Commercialization Project signed by both the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Tajikistan, Abdusalom Kurbonov, and the World Bank Country Manager for Tajikistan, Marsha Olive. The project will be funded by a grant of $22 million from the International Development Association. This project will give more ways for farmers to produce more crops and have access to both domestic and export markets. This project is important because it helps with the industry of agriculture which is 23% of GDP and 48% of the people in Tajikistan are employed in agriculture. Several things that the project will do are: increase the commercialization of farm and agribusiness products, build the government’s capacity for policy and regulatory reforms and support research and analysis, and modernize the curricula of educational institutions for commercial agribusiness. The IDA and IFC together expect to get private investment of about $72 million.