Water conference calls for regional cooperation

A two-day international conference held in Tajikistan’s eastern city of Khorugh, ended on Monday, with experts calling for more regional cooperation to resolve the huge issue of water resources in the region. "Water is a key economic resource and we need to set the politics aside and make rational decisions," John Baxter, a water management expert with the US Agency for International Development, told IRIN in the city, capital of the eastern Badakhshoni Kuhi Province. The five post-Soviet Central Asian states of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan wrestle with sharing limited water resources and the regional environmental degradation caused by the shrinking of the Aral Sea. This is one of the world’s major environmental disasters caused by extensive draining of the Amudar'ya and Syrdar'ya rivers - the two major Central Asian waterways discharging into feed Aral Sea while providing millions with fresh water. Moreover, in recent decades extensive use of pesticides has polluted the river waters, thereby damaging the Aral Sea's ecosystem. The glaciers and rivers in the Pamir mountains of Badakhshoni Kuhi remain a major source of fresh water in Central Asia, with 55 percent of all such resources originating here. However, managing these waters remains a major challenge, with experts demanding more cooperation between the Central Asian republics and their neighbours, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China. With over 2 billion of the world’s population lacking access to clean drinking water, the UN has declared 2003 the year of fresh water. With Tajikistan taking a lead in the initiative, the country will also host an international forum on the issue in August. According to Baxter, increased investment is needed in agriculture and the preservation of water resources. He noted that agricultural land in Tajikistan was shrinking, because many of the water pumps were failing as underground water levels dropped. Most of the irrigation and drinking water supply infrastructure in the mountainous country was built decades ago by the Soviet Union, and now needed rehabilitating. Only seven percent of Tajik territory is arable, and the country produces only 40 percent of its food needs. Experts emphasised the need for natural conservation as resources are utilised. "We need to adopt common strategies to create windows of solution to common problems such as water pollution and depletion of ground water resources," Muhammad Safiullah, a conservation expert with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IRIN. WWF is developing a natural conservation programme for the Pamirs. Meanwhile, aid workers in Khorugh maintained that many people lacked clean drinking water in Badakhshoni Kuhi. Banoz Aslamsheva, a public health expert with the Agha Khan Foundation, told IRIN that only 20,000 of an estimated 28,000 people living in the city had access to clean drinking water. "Here the water supply system was built in 1970s, and there have been no major repairs since," she said.