April 7, 2021, Tashkent – The State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Forestry together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the United Nations Agricultural Organization (FAO), organized a regular meeting of the Coordinating Committee of the project “Sustainable Forest Management in the mountain and valley regions of Uzbekistan” with the participation of representatives of various ministries and departments, as well as forestry, representatives of the private sector, forestry research institutes and scientific and industrial organizations. The meeting was organized within the framework of the FAO project “Sustainable Forest Management in mountain and valley regions of Uzbekistan”.

 

 

     “During this meeting, support, advice and ensuring the effective and successful implementation of the project will be provided. Its task is not only to act as an advisory body, but also to provide the necessary guidance to the project staff and to support their efforts to ensure timely implementation of all planned and undertaken activities and to promote cooperation between all partners, ” says Olim Khakimov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Forestry Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

     This meeting heard reports from representatives of 4 forest farms, the coordinator of this project, as well as approved the work plans and budget for 2021 of the project. The project “Sustainable Forest management in the mountain and valley regions of Uzbekistan” is implemented by the FAO and is funded by the Global Environment Facility. 

     The Project Coordination Committee is the main governing and decision-making body, whose functions are to review and approve the annual work plan and budget, monitor the progress of the project and the results achieved, those presented in the semi-annual progress reports, facilitating collaboration between the project and other relevant projects and programmes, monitoring effective coordination among project partners, ensuring the sustainability of the main project results, and approving the proposed revision of the project results structure in accordance with the recommendations of the interim review.

     Implemented since 2018 by the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Forestry (hereinafter referred to as Goskomles) together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the Republic of Uzbekistan The GEF / FAO project “Sustainable Forest Management in the mountain and valley regions of Uzbekistan” in 2020 contributed to the institutional and legislative development of the forestry sector aimed at improving sustainable forest management in Uzbekistan.

     In particular, with the participation of international and national experts of the FAO, it was developed and approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. PK-4850 dated October 6, 2020 “Concept for the development of the forestry sector until 2030”. This document includes elements of sustainable forest management, broad involvement of the local population, the basics of gender policy, the provision of preferences and benefits, support for entrepreneurship, the revision of legislative acts regulating forest relations, including the development of the Forest Code.

     During the reporting period, the National Conference on the Discussion of the Gender Strategy (TOS) and the Gender Action Plan (GPA) of the State Committee of the European Union, developed by FAO, was held jointly with ministries and departments. Together with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Scientific and Practical Conference “Topical issues of protection, production, processing of medicinal and spicy plants and increasing the export potential of the industry” was organized with the participation of more than 100 scientists of the republic engaged in the development of the medicinal plant industry. During the field missions, information and thematic capacity-building workshops were held in the pilot project areas of Namangan, Syrdarya and Kashkadarya regions. Seminars were held on pastures, on gender development, and field visits were carried out on the preliminary analysis of the state of the demonstration plots.

     To ensure the sustainability of the project activities, the project has installed 20 tons of capacity and 5 km of irrigation track in two regions in Dehkanabad and Papi forestry to provide irrigation water to hard-to-reach areas of the forest nursery and the organization of planting of forest crops on foothill areas with an area of more than 2 thousand hectares.

     The project on the basis of the State Unitary Enterprise “Urmonloykha” organized a modern GIS laboratory and Data Center equipped with the most modern equipment using satellite mapping methods to create electronic maps of forest areas.

     This year, within the framework of the GEF/FAO project “Sustainable forest management in the mountain and valley regions of Uzbekistan ” large-scale campaigns were conducted for planting trees and shrubs. With the involvement of the local population, the work was carried out on 4 pilot areas of the project-these are the territories of the Kitab, Dehkanabad, Papal and Syrdarya forest farms. There were more than 120 hectares of protected forest strips, more than 10 hectares of fuel wood plantations, 428 hectares of forest. In addition, about 20 thousand seedlings of ornamental and forest trees were planted in the territories of settlements of mahallas and streets.

     The local population was provided with 50 thousand seedlings of fruit and ornamental trees for landscaping their homesteads. More than 5 thousand people took part in the large-scale action.

     The meeting gave a high assessment of the project activities, touched upon the issues of coordination of activities in 2021, new plans for the introduction of modern methods of forest management, the development of Gender approaches in the management apparatus of forestry.

 

 

 

Guzal Fayziyeva

Public Relations Specialist

FAO representative offices in Uzbekistan

guzal.fayzieva@fao.org

Phone: +998 97 4448709

www.fao.org ^[1]