Как проявляется опустынивание в Кыргызстане и при чем тут пастбища?

How Does Desertification Manifest in Kyrgyzstan, and What Do Pastures Have to Do with It?

These questions became the main topic of a live broadcast on Radio Sputnik Kyrgyzstan featuring experts from the PF “CAMP Alatoo”. Maksat Miynazarov, Project Coordinator for the Foundation's Sustainable Land Management Program, spoke about the outcomes of participating in the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which took place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Among 11 participating countries, Kyrgyzstan presented its practical experience in combating land degradation.

In response to the host's question about the relevance of this issue to a country where mountains cover 90% of the territory, specific statistics were cited.

"Desertification manifests through land degradation. According to UNCCD research, about 9.5% of land in Kyrgyzstan is degraded. This means that such soil cannot support the survival and normal growth of plants. The hardest hit are village-adjacent pastures located near settlements. One of the primary drivers of this process is the annual increase in livestock population," the expert explained.

Maksat Miynazarov shared that PF “CAMP Alatoo” makes a substantial contribution to solving the degradation problem. Specialists develop and test various tools that local communities—who have been the primary resource users since 2009—successfully apply in practice. These include methodologies for assessing pasture vegetation cover, monitoring pasturelands, and developing digital information systems that streamline observation and data collection on livestock numbers, pasture infrastructure, and other key indicators.

"We shared our tools with the participants of the UNCCD Conference of the Parties and presented our experience at a round table organized jointly with the People and Nature Foundation (Russia). That is the primary benefit of such events—experts from different countries gather on a single platform to exchange practical information and engage in meaningful discussion," shared Maksat Miynazarov.

Summarizing the broadcast, the participants emphasized that overcoming land degradation and preserving pastures as a viable ecosystem requires responsible stewardship from farmers and herders themselves. After all, if a site is sown with high-quality seeds and livestock is immediately allowed to graze on the young sprouts, the recovery process will be undone and take significantly longer.

Listen to the full version of the radio broadcast here.