TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, September 15. Uzbekistan expressed its readiness to develop a National Water Conservation Program as part of the Development Strategy being implemented in Uzbekistan, Trend reports.
The statement was made by President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev at a meeting of the Council of Heads of the Founder States of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea in Tajikistan’s Dushanbe on September 15. The president noted that the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea is, first of all, a unique experience of the multilateral cooperation of the Central Asian countries in solving one of the most acute problems on a global scale.
"I would like to note that large-scale work is currently being carried out in Uzbekistan to improve the environmental and social situation in the Aral Sea region. Based on the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on the declaration of the Aral Sea region as a zone of environmental innovations and technologies, an Action Plan and a Program of measures for sustainable socio-economic development, employment, and improving the standard of living of the population are being implemented," the president elaborated.
The President of Uzbekistan called upon other Central Asian countries to strengthen cooperation in the field of water conservation by identifying it as one of the priorities of the fund's activities.
In the last few years, forest plantations have been carried out on the dried-up bottom of the Aral Sea on an area of 1.7 million hectares. It is planned to create protective green lanes on another 400,000 hectares in the next two years. Natural parks, nature reserves, and state reserves were created on an area of more than 3.5 million hectares to mitigate the consequences of the Aral Sea disaster as well as preserve biodiversity in the region. As of today, the total area of protected natural territories in the Aral Sea region amounts to 4.6 million hectares.
In addition, Uzbekistan is implementing full-scale measures to improve the efficiency of water use in the country. Over the past 7 years, water-saving technologies have been implemented on an area of more than 1 million hectares, which is about a quarter of all irrigated land in the country.