Return to Eden

 
When people say that the Earth looked like a Paradise in the past, this applies to Kyrgyzstan first of all. Even today, many foreigners, especially those from the Middle East, speaking of the extraordinary beauty of this country, add if there was a beauty contest, Kyrgyzstan would take first place out of all five Central Asian countries.
But Kyrgyzstan today is not such a beautiful corner of the Earth as it was just 150-200 years ago, when the area of its forests was twenty times larger than at present, when almost half of the country was covered by them, and not a miserable 2.5 percent, as now. Walnut forests of the south of the country occupy an area of 30,000 hectares, but once half the south of the country or 25 percent of the entire territory of Kyrgyzstan were covered by them.
These unique forests represent the legitimate pride of our people and country, because they are the only remaining relic nutwood forests in the world - the remains of the paradise forests of the past. Experts well know that it is into these forests and in our country, or not far from our region originated not only walnuts trees, but also apple, grapes, cherry, plums, almonds, pistachios, capers and many other kinds of fruits and berries plants.
Up to now, about 30 percent of the flowers that are found on the territory of the Sary-Chelek Reserve are endemics - mean not grow anywhere else.

Unfortunately, over the past 100-150 years, the plant and animal life of the country has been severely damaged. This was due to the turbulent events of the late XIX and early XX century, when not only nature, but human life lost all meaning, and such phenomena as civil war, mass famine, devastation, collectivization sharply increased the destructive influence of man on nature. It was during this period that the forests of Kyrgyzstan suffered the greatest damage, for example, more than five thousand hectares of walnut and tugai forests were artificially burned in Bazar-Korgon and Nooken districts of southern Kyrgyzstan, in order to clear the areas for sowing cotton.

During the WWII, Kyrgyzstan was finally defined as a supplier of meat, wool and milk in the USSR, while from our country it was required to increase this production at any cost, which led to intensive grazing not only in pastures but also in forest areas.

The concept of the development of nomadic cattle breeding was erroneous from the very beginning, even if the million-strong herds of sheep and goats grazed on our pastures. In the 70s of the last century, the sheep population reached 13 million, but these herds grazed in the most remote and hard-to-reach corners of the country, ignoring any standards and norms, while summer pastures actually fell to those foothill areas where the famous beauty forests.

All this led to the fact that our forests and pastures were in the current critical state: we lost most of our treasure, which was created by nature for us for millions of years
Therefore, it will be right to abandon completely  the free grazing of cattle onto pastures and forests or to do so within the strict framework of international norms and standards in order to prevent further degradation of soils. Although even today, 80 percent of pasture land is at the last stage of degradation and needs a complete ban on grazing.

How should our capital and other cities develop?

According to the ex-chief architect of Bishkek N.Kene;ev, we can lose the capital if we continue its spontaneous construction and growing. Initially, the city was planned for a maximum of 700 thousand inhabitants, and all central communications, roads, pipes were designed for such a population.
Today, twice as many people live in Bishkek and the city continues to grow rapidly, approaching the 2 million mark. I remember the head of Bishkek, at the time of  Bakiyev, who planned to expand the capital so that city line will be started from Manas airport - he was so keen on building high-rise buildings and personal involvement into urban business.
Fortunately, this mayor is no longer in our country and his plans were not destined to come true.
Nevertheless, Bishkek continues its uncontrolled growth and gives the impression that our top city and republican officials simply do not know how to make money  with other  way except to take away parks, squares, country recreation areas from townspeople and build more and more new ugly houses, high-rise buildings. And sell this immovable property  to our citizens and to foreigners - just for make money, who pay more.
And by this scheme of Bishkek, other major towns of the country - Osh, Jalal-Abad, Tokmok, Naryn, Karakol and so on - also  are increasing.


European model of urban development

We must develop along the path of Switzerland, Austria and other European countries. Both these states are approximately equal in population to Kyrgyzstan, and Switzerland very much resembles our country with its mountainous terrain.
So in Switzerland there are no big cities - not a single millionaire city. The largest city in this country is Zurich, in which there are 390 thousand people, this is even less than in the city of Osh. In Berne, only 130 thousand live, Basel - 170 thousand. Lausanne - 130 thousand, Lucerne - 81 thousand, Geneva - 190 thousand. Lugano - 64 thousand Montreux-29 thousand. Davos-11 thousand.
The government of these countries tightly regulates the size of each city, not allowing spontaneous building processes, so that residents of the country in all parts of the country feel good. And, of course, paramount attention is paid to the state of parks, squares and other areas of collective recreation, forest plantations around cities, and in general the solution of environmental problems throughout the country.

Forests and parks, ecology, flora and fauna

If we take a closer look at the direction of the development of European countries, this can be expressed as a desire for the primordial harmony of man with his surrounding nature, the restoration of the beauty that surrounded man and organic part of which we have been since the beginning.

50 years ago, the rivers of England were similar to our towns rivers, there were almost no fish in it, and those that were dangerous for eating.
Today, purification systems throughout the UK work so well that in all hundreds and thousands of rivers and streams of this country there are safely survive different kinds of fishes that are suitable for consumption and absolutely safe, even if they were caught in the industrial zone.

But it was not always so. Until now, the British - passionate fishermen - catch the river fish mostly for sporting interest, releasing it, back into the water, making exceptions only if they catch an eel, trout or salmon that has entered the river for spawning.

This habit has remained since the times when the rivers of England were so polluted that the fish caught in it were unsafe.
But at the present time, the rivers of this country are the cleanest and safest, and it even went so far that experts announce in advance to fishermen that the fish caught in towns river not only trout, but also pike, carp, carp, catfish, roach, perch , brushes and other types are safe and usable for food.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the last 70 years has been  an intensive process underway to restore and revitalize the famous forests of these countries, and green world groves so intensively and consistently attacking cities, merging with city parks and squares even more, occupy high-rise buildings, bridges, roofs of many buildings - everywhere we seen growing  urban forests. If we are proud of the fact that squirrels live in our city parks, then deer have long been registered in European parks, birds such as falcons and owls find their niches.

Kyrgyzstan should also make a sharp turn in its long-term development strategy, first of all setting clear goals for the restoration of our unique forests, groves, parks and squares, and improving pastures. In the end, Kyrgyzstan gradually returned to its original state - to the nature, ecology and fauna that reigned here 200 years ago, when the country was covered with half forest and that our cities were green and surrounded by dense and healthy forests and parks and that the pasture soil was healthy, which not only prevents us from floods, landslides and mudflows but also helps to purify water.

 And the fact that the new mayor of Bishkek, Albek Ibraimov, created a new organization under the city service - the management of parks and squares of the capital, allocated 30 million soms to this structure - a very good sign. We hope that the mayors of other cities will also follow the example of Bishkek's head and that the head of the capital will cancel the decision of the city authorities to cut down 8,000 trees to the capital before the end of this year.

After all, it is the trees of Kyrgyzstan that provide us with clean air and save us from terrible diseases, as well as the fact that trees, forests, forest plantations, healthy pastures are the main custodians of clean water supplies not only for us but for our entire region. But now we know that the relict forests of Kyrgyzstan are the remnants of those paradise forests of the past of our planet and only after full restoration of them we will be able to create from our country the most beautiful and attractive place to live.

Let pure water will flowed not only in our mountain rivers, but also in urban rivers and creeks, canals and even irrigation ditches, and fishes are living everywhere in them. Let the forests of Kyrgyzstan acquire primordial power and beauty and change the climate of the whole region and all rare species of animals that lived in our mountains and forests, pastures, returned there and we will see again our country as the native land for snow leopard, bear, wild boars, argali, maral and other species that are become extremely rare today. 

Let the tiger come back to our paradise forests as to its historic homeland: scientists believe that the native land of the tiger is the nut-tree forests of Kyrgyzstan, where it was originated - millions of years ago -  from the ancestor of the snow leopard - the ancient kind of large cats  which  had appeared  to be the biggest one, adapted for living in forests that abound with moose, boars, roe deer and other large herbivores.

That is the mind task of the public foundation and movemenet  "Our Right" which created for protects our green friends in Bishkek and other towns of Kyrgyzstan.
While the townspeople do not change their attitude to trees, as for our rescuers in the country, it's hard to expect changes for the better. This simply contradicts the very nature and logic of the birth and prosperity of life on our planet.