Silk Road Caravan Sees Uzbekistan's Fight Against Drought

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Seen in summer, Samarkand appears assembled from shades of azure: tiled domes, the June sky, the turquoise uniforms of the Silk Road Caravan's participants. In Central Asia, that shade has long meant more than aesthetics. Here it stands for water, a resource in critically short supply: deserts and steppe cover more than 80 percent of the region's territory, and more than 26 million people feel the effects of drought. Silk Road Caravan reports.

It was through Samarkand, for centuries a hub of trade routes and the exchange of ideas, that the Caravan entered Central Asia — a region where drying soils, water scarcity and land degradation are reshaping both nature and ways of life year after year.

Two figures capture the scale of the problem. First, at least one fifth of the region's land has already degraded. Second, roughly four fifths of the entire territory is used for transhumant livestock herding. In other words, everything here depends on the health of the pastures — food on the table, the incomes of rural families, and the ability of entire communities to withstand climate shocks.

In June, the city hosted the Eighth Assembly of the Global Environment Facility. The match between venue and agenda proved apt: discussions about funding the fight against drought took place close to the pastures, pistachio orchards, riverine forests and laboratories where that fight is being waged in practice.

Welcoming the Caravan at the official ceremony, Aziz Abdukhakimov, Adviser to the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan on environmental issues and Chairman of the National Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, spoke of continuity: the expedition, he said, revives the spirit of friendship, mutual assistance and shared responsibility for the land that once united the peoples along the Silk Road.

Money for dry land: what the Assembly decided

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) placed three themes at the centre of the Samarkand discussions: how to finance drought resilience, what is happening to rangelands, and how livestock herders are to make a living. The answers to these questions will largely determine the environmental trajectory of all Central Asia.

The main news for Uzbekistan was the launch of a three-year project, Carbon Farming for Climate Resilience and Sustainable Land Management in Uzbekistan. The initiative is financed by the Russian Federation and implemented by the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD. The idea is to test carbon farming practices that restore soil health and move the country closer to land degradation neutrality. Baseline data will be collected across 5,000 hectares, and a thousand smallholdings — farmers, herders and foresters — will be involved in the work.

There is no time to lose: drought affects more than 152 million hectares in Central Asia, and more than half of the region's population lives within its reach.

There were direct investment decisions as well. Ahead of the Assembly, approval was announced for US$5.4 million for the regional project Mountain Ecosystems of Central Asia, with the World Bank as partner, along with the launch of the Water and Land Resources Nexus in Central Asia programme with a budget of US$26 million. The overall framework is larger still: the GEF-8 cycle allocates US$618 million to combating land degradation, a 30 percent increase over GEF-7.

Within the country, these global priorities have already been translated into concrete programmes. The national initiative Yashil Makon envisages planting 200 million trees and shrubs annually. "Our task is to increase the share of green areas in Uzbekistan to 30 percent by 2030. Today it stands at 15 percent. We understand that achieving this alone would be harder, which is why we are bringing international organisations into this work," said Erkin Mukhitdinov, head of the Agency for the Expansion of Green Areas and the Forest Fund and Combating Desertification.

Amankutan: letting the land catch its breath

The first field stop was the Amankutan pastures in Samarkand region. Restoration here rests on three elements: seasonal rotation of grazing, careful selection of plant species, and strict control over who takes livestock onto the land and when.

The Bakhri site, part of the Urgut forestry enterprise, covers roughly 1,600 hectares. Forest accounts for about 700 of them; the rest is pastureland. The diagnosis is typical for the region: too much livestock, thinning grass, and soil gradually losing its ability to hold moisture.

The treatment takes time. In the driest areas, almond trees and fodder grasses that need minimal water are being planted. Some of the land is closed off for three to four years; livestock will return only once the vegetation has recovered. High-altitude areas are used strictly by season. Forestry staff keep order, aided by gates and cameras: stray livestock must not undo the work already done.

Moisture is collected the old way: low earthen banks and terraces intercept rain and meltwater and hold it at the roots of young plantings. Species are chosen site by site — almond, acacia, elm and other hardy trees with deep root systems.

How land restoration converts into income is best seen in the mobile apiaries. Hives are moved to follow the flowering season: the bees pollinate grasses and shrubs, speeding the recovery of vegetation, while honey sales add to the forestry enterprise's budget.

Harouna Abarchi, a herder from Niger, head of the livestock breeders' association A2N and coordinator of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in West and Central Africa, saw a reflection of his native Sahel in the Uzbek hills. The point, he believes, is not blind copying but adapting what has proved effective. "What I have seen here — selecting plants for specific places and planting them where they are truly needed — is experience we can share back home, using plants adapted to our conditions," Abarchi said.

Saraykurgan: pistachio as a pension fund

In Saraykurgan, in Nurabad district, the bet is on a tree that first demands patience and then pays its dues for decades. Pistachio plantations are assigned the worst land — exhausted, with broken vegetation cover, trampled by uncontrolled grazing.

The plans are ambitious: by 2036, pistachio is to cover 50,000 hectares in the district. Several thousand hectares have already been planted, drawing on decades of local experience with the crop. The expansion is proceeding with state support, drip irrigation and the labour of local residents.

The choice of crop is deliberate: pistachio tolerates poor soil and temperature extremes and bears fruit for decades. The social mechanics have been thought through as well. While the trees mature, residents are paid to prepare planting pits, tend saplings and maintain the plantations. Once the trees begin to bear, plots of five hectares will be leased to low-income families. The arithmetic runs as follows: an eight-year-old tree yields around four kilograms of nuts per season — about a tonne per hectare — and by age 12 the yield rises to 10 kilograms per tree. Projected income per plot is around US$50,000, against maintenance costs of roughly US$10,000.

Dividing 50,000 hectares into five-hectare plots would provide a foundation for some 10,000 families. Wasteland becomes a working asset, pressure on neighbouring pastures falls, and villages gain a source of income for generations to come.

Zarafshan: where there is a river, there is forest

From the open hills, the route descended to the cool of the Zarafshan riverbanks.

Zarafshan National Nature Park holds a rarity: one of the last tugai forests in Uzbekistan. Tugai — the riverine forests of the arid zone — rank among the most valuable ecosystems of Central Asia's drylands. Their work is invisible but irreplaceable: roots bind the banks, canopies dampen wind erosion and cool the air, and thickets shelter animals and birds, including the Bukhara deer.

The boundary between forest and steppe can be felt on the skin. A step beyond the tree line brings heat, dust and bare ground. A step back brings shade, birdsong and the dense green of the river corridor.

Conservation work does not stop at the park's borders. Staff hold lessons in nearby schools, invite artists who work with natural materials and sell their pieces on park grounds, and develop ecotourism in the surrounding villages. The logic is simple: the forest will survive if the people living around it have a personal reason to protect it.

Arnasay: coming to terms with salt

Jizzakh region showed the Caravan resilience of a different kind — the Halophyte Garden in Arnasay district.

Halophytes are plants undeterred by salt in the soil or by water scarcity. For Uzbekistan they are strategically important: salinisation — along with erosion and declining productivity — is among the main forms of land degradation in Central Asia and affects a significant share of the country's irrigated land. The causes are several: the very nature of farming in an arid climate, the migration of groundwater and minerals, poor drainage, and the legacy of large-scale irrigation, including the long-standing reliance on water-hungry cotton.

Launched in spring 2026, the garden operates as a living laboratory, selecting and propagating salt-tolerant species for conditions in which ordinary crops cannot survive. Uzbek scientists have already described more than 100 native species suited to saline and arid landscapes, and a partnership with the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the People's Republic of China has added dozens more varieties to the trials.

Green University: training people for a dry century

The final point of the Uzbek route was the Central Asian University of Environmental and Climate Change Studies in Tashkent — Green University. After a week in the field, the conclusion suggested itself: money alone will not restore the land; it takes people who know how to do it.

"Without a new generation of specialists able to translate environmental challenges into the language of financial strategies, even the most carefully designed policy frameworks risk remaining on paper," said the university's rector, Professor Bakhtiyor Pulatov.

Here, environmental work is seen as one of Central Asia's key professions of the future, and study programmes are tied to real-world tasks — from drought and biodiversity to climate finance.

Onward to the steppe

From Uzbekistan, the Caravan moved overland into Kazakhstan, where azure met it again — on the national flag and in the boundless steppe sky. Over the course of the journey, the expedition's signature colour took on new meaning. In Central Asia it became a symbol of water, resilience and the fragile ties that bind people, pastures and the landscapes of the drylands.