BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 14. President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has approved by decree an action plan to combat land degradation in the country, Trend reports citing "Gazeta.uz".
According to the decree of the President, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of Uzbekistan has received new tasks to improve the quality of soils and pastures.
Meanwhile, 1,902,300 hectares of saline lands in Uzbekistan should be reduced to 1,809,000 hectares from 2022 through 2025.
At the same time, the area of degraded pastures should be reduced from 2,517,100 hectares to 755,100 hectares in 2025.
The creation of protective forest plantations on agricultural land on an area of 26,200 hectares should be carried out in stages over four years. It is also planned to cover an additional 981,400 hectares with forest plantations during this time.
The problem of degraded pastures and lands is increasing with increasing warming and the shortage of available water in Uzbekistan. Widespread land degradation at the time of measurements in 2016 caused losses equivalent to 4 percent of GDP.