MARCH 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s government slapped a $735m fine on the consortium developing the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field for environmental damage from burning off gas during repairs to a leak. The $50b Kashagan project sprung a gas leak in October, barely a month after production started.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an echo of the Soviet Union’s efforts to control nature, Turkmenistan’s president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to stop the Amu Darya river freezing over.
According to reports last month, the Turkmen minister for water resources has compiled a report for Mr Berdymukhamedov on how best to stop the mighty Amu Darya, which runs from the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan before fading into the desert just short of the Aral Sea, freezing.
The plan has not been revealed.
The Amu Darya river is particularly important to Turkmenistan as it not only supplies 90% of the country’s drinking water but it also irrigates many of its cotton fields.
Reports of a plan to bend Nature to Man’s will smacks of the Soviet Union. It diverted much water from the Amu Dayra and its sister river the Syr Darya river to irrigate the cotton fields. Its plan was to transform the region into a bread and cotton basket.
It managed this, to an extent, but, in the process, also dried out the Aral Sea.
Now the Amu Darya and Syru Darya rivers are a source of regional tension. They provide downstream Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with drinking water and irrigation and upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with power.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ecology department in the Mangistau regional government issued Ozenmunaigas, a subsidiary of Kazakh state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas, a fine of $1.8b for environmental damage. Ozenmunaigas refuted the claim. Environmental fines are sometimes used to pressure companies.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Aral Sea, which straddles Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, has not lost as much water as scientists had previously feared, media reported quoting US scientists working at NASA. NASA’s Satellite photos showed that although 90% of the Aral Sea’s surface water has disappeared, much has concentrated in deeper pockets in the northern part of the sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
SEPT. 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is successfully rejuvenating the northern section of the dried up Aral Sea, media quoted the governor of the southwest Kazakhstan region of Kyzylorda, Krymbek Kusherbayev, as saying. He added that the Aral Sea’s water is now only 17km from the town of Aral. It had retreated 74km away.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
JULY 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — An unmanned Russian rocket crashed on take-off at the Baikonur launch site, south Kazakhstan. The rocket smashed into the empty steppe sending an orange cloud of toxic fumes into the air. Rain later dispersed the clouds but the crash raised concerns both about the safety and future of the Baikonur programme and about potential damage to the local environment.
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(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)
JUNE 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government is considering changing the name of its ministry for environmental protection to the ministry of environment and water resources, media reported. This is important as it underlines how vital water is for Kazakhstan and the wider Central Asia region.
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The UN has decreed the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan a World Heritage Site, media reported, giving the Tajik tourist industry a boost but also potentially making development in the area more difficult. The Tajik National Park, which covers 18% of the country and most of the Pamir Mountains, is Tajikistan’s first World Heritage Site.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev called for the UN to investigate the potential environmental impact of proposed dams in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Water is a sensitive subject in Central Asia and can aggravate inter-country relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
JUNE 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps looking to both its green credentials, the Kazakh authorities said they want to introduce bicycle-taxis from 2014, media reported. The first German-designed bicycle-taxis will trial in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, before appearing in Astana and Almaty.
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(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
