JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will spend roughly $3.2b a year until 2050 on developing alternative green energy sources and reducing its dependence on coal-fired power stations, energy minister Nurlan Kapparov told media. Coal-fired power stations produce roughly 80% of Kazakhstan’s power.
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sturgeon, fish native to the Caspian Sea that produce roe which is better known as caviar, are under threat.
According to Kazakhstan’s deputy Prosecutor-General, Andrei Kravchenko, there will be no sturgeon in the Caspian Sea with four years.
In the last three years, the number of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea has fallen from 3 million to 1.3 million, the Tengrinews website quoted him as saying.
“At a similar rate,” he said. “Sturgeon will be on the brink of extinction in four to five years.”
He blamed energy companies, poachers and official corruption for the drop in numbers.
Caviar is valuable for the Caspian region. Prices in Europe for the delicacy hit thousands of euro for a kilogram.
A few days before Mr Kravchenko’s statement, deputy foreign ministers of the Caspian Sea littoral countries met in Tehran for one of their regular meetings on protecting fish stocks. It’s a talking-shop. The next meeting is scheduled for Baku in September.
Perhaps Mr Kravchenko’s comments were aimed at the deputy foreign ministers.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Poaching will kill off sturgeon in the Caspian Sea within four years, media quoted the Kazakh deputy Prosecutor-General, Andrei Kravchenko, as saying. Sturgeon roe is more commonly known as caviar and is a lucrative commodity.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
MARCH 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nearly 500,000 public sector employees in Turkmenistan picked up shovels and headed out to the desert to plant trees as part of their annual anti-desertification strategy. Turkmenistan has been pursuing an anti- desertification programme since the late-1990s.
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(News report from Issue No. 127, published on March 15 2013)
NOV. 29 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Villagers in south Kyrgyzstan have attacked and set fire to a camp used by geologists working for a Russian gold mining company, Reuters reported, dealing another blow to foreign investor confidence. Local people have previously attacked foreign mining operations, blaming them for environmental damage.
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(News report from Issue No. 115, published on Nov. 30 2012)
APRIL 6 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Heavy snow has cut off villages and destroyed vital pasture in rural parts of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, already Central Asia’s poorest countries, triggering a potential humanitarian crisis.
Local news agencies in Tajikistan quoted officials describing the winter as the heaviest for 50 years. In Kyrgyzstan, officials said that in one area in the south of the country a third of the livestock has already died.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are mountainous and heavy winters can trigger major logistical problems for rural communities which have only fairly basic standards of living.
They are also already both net receivers of aid, which, as ever, comes with a political undertone.
Russian president Dmitri Medvedev has ordered aid to be flown to Tajikistan and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that in January and February Tajikistan received aid worth $6m, mainly from Russia, Egypt and Iran.
Moscow has also strengthened relations with Kyrgyzstan last year since Almazbek Atambayev won a presidential election. Deputies in the Kyrgyz parliament have called for urgent help, a call sure to be answered by Russia and other neighbours such as Kazakhstan and possibly China.
The situation is made worse because the price of fodder to feed cattle has risen in the past few months and the government faces a shortage of airplanes and helicopters.
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(News report from Issue No. 082, published on April 6 2012)
JULY 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Central Asian countries need to improve cooperation along the Amu Darya, the region’s longest river, to avoid future conflicts over water supply, the United Nations Environmental Programme said in a new report. Overuse and climate change have diminished the river which mainly irrigates Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 48, published on July 12 2011)
JUNE 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Central Asia is facing a drought that will not only hit cotton and food production but also heighten tension across the region, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said. UNDP said that Water levels are a third lower than average in important reservoirs in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 46, published on June 28 2011)
MAY 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh environmentalist said 12-15 dead seals have washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea over the last week, media reported. In the past 10 years environmentalists have blamed offshore energy developments and overfishing for hundreds of seal deaths. The Kazakh government, though, has blamed viruses.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)
DEC. 15 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks revealed how in September 2008 a gas leak forced BP to evacuate 211 workers from one of its biggest oil drilling platforms in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea. The cable said BP tried to limit public information of the gas leak which shut down part of production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
