Preserving the Ecosystems of Mountainous Pastures in the Kyrgyz Republic Thematic areas: Agriculture, Natural Resources Management, Pasture Management Reform Country: Kyrgyzstan Pastures have very high economic and social value in the Kyrgyz Republic. Uncontrolled pasture using practices made a negative effect on the conditions of the pastures in the past 20 years. The traditional practices of the ancestors, who applied a seasonal approach in grazing the pastures, have been forgotten. Village pastures began to be used intensively, and pastures that are located in remote areas, are not used at all. Pasture infrastructure has been partially or completely destroyed. Almost 80% of the pastures were at the stage of degradation. Following the approval of the new law of the Kyrgyz Republic on Pastures in 2009, which opened up opportunities for more decentralized management of pastures through introduction of pasture committees at the local level, a quite new and innovative solution for addressing the pasture degradation issues was introduced and tested in frames of the UNDP implemented, Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project on “Demonstrating Sustainable Pasture Management in the Suusamyr valley” - information system “Electronic Pasture Committee”. It is an electronic information system, containing a data on the borders, geo-botanical condition, economic value and livestock grazing capacity of pastures. The solution aims at improving the management of pastures in a more participatory and sustainable way to preserve the ecosystems of mountainous pastures, to reduce soil erosion and improve food security of the local population. The project was implemented during 2008-2013 and having tested and proved the solution’s efficiency, is now being replicated by the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative in other districts. The information system helps to make decisions on pasture management in real-time. It helps to keep track of pasture areas, amount of pasture users and livestock, livestock vaccination, payment for livestock grazing and maintain the database of pasture tickets. In addition, the system allows regularly monitoring the degradation of pastures and taking timely action for the sustainable pasture management. To introduce the Electronic Pasture Committee in five rural areas of At-Bashy district of Naryn oblast and two rural areas of Batken and Osh oblasts, a group of pasture experts conducted an inventory, economic and geo-botanical assessment of the pasture territories of the target local self-government units and developed cattle grazing plans. Such a data system allowed to define the boundaries of the pastures, the types of plants, their productivity, yield, gross forage supply, and presence of ungrazed plants, ruderal and toxic vegetation. The system is very simple and accessible for computer users with basic skills: first, data are entered in the computer on rangeland’ square, number of livestock, grazing periods. After that the program automatically identifies under and over exploitation of rangelands. Land was divided into separate parts after the inventory of 304 thousand hectares of land, its capacity and yield is identified. The system includes functions on counting of livestock’s number, vaccination control, it allows to make a search of pasture tickets, routes of livestock migration, number of grazing livestock, grazing area, calculations and accrual amount of payment, recordkeeping of payments as well. This information system significantly simplified the work of the Joint pasture users’ Association “Suusamyr”. The system had been introduced in 11 districts of Chuy, Talas and Jalal - Abad oblasts within the UNDP/GEF project in the Suusamyr valley. As a response to the big interest coming from other districts of the country, UNDP—UNEP PEI project supported the replication of the system in seven rural self governments of Naryn, Batken and Osh oblasts. The solution has facilitated to achieve the followings:
Improved pasture committees management and increased transparency due to availability of the information on the key aspects of the sustainable pasture management such as load on the pasture areas, cattle grazing plan and vaccinations. Informed decision-making towards better planning the economic benefits as a result of economic assessment of the pasture value. Such assessment in the five ayil okmoty of Naryn oblast concluded that a proper management of the pastures can generate income equal to USD 13 mln. Pasture Committee (PC) in Suusamyr ayil okmotu has become an exemplary Pasture Committee with a fully operational information system to manage the pastures of the ayil okmotu in a sustainable way. The PC has become a learning center for all interested PCs from other regions and has been demonstrating their best practices as well as providing on-the-job trainings. The training module “Video lesson – Electronic Jaiyt Committee” had been developed aiming at capacity building of pilot Pasture Committees’ members and 9 Pasture Committee members from Naryn, Osh and Batken oblasts increased their knowledge and skills on applying the information system.
The information system has been effectively contributing to the solution of the most important problems related to the pasture management and today it supports population of Suusamyr Valley, Naryn oblast and other districts to manage their pastures resources and to deliver a regular monitoring of pastures, as well as to monitor land degradation, the composition of plant, types and seasons of pastures, its productivity, yield, gross forage supply, presence of non - eaten, ruderal and toxical vegetation. In 2014, after successful approbation of the solution the rights to the Electronic Pasture Committee were transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Melioration of the Kyrgyz Republic. The Government has committed to integrate the information system into the national pasture management plans by 2017.
The experience can be used in other developing countries with the similar conditions and so far two neighboring countries like Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have already expressed their interest in it. Budget: The first project expenditure is approximately 75 000USD (including the e-software development, experts’ fee and upgrading the software). As we have the e-software, the replication would include inventory of the pasture resources, national experts’ fees to collect the data necessary for the e-pasture information system. PEI project spent about 50 000USD for the replication in Naryn oblast (five local governments), Osh (one local government) and Batken (one local government). Partners: GEF, local governments Contact details: Kyrgyzstan Address: 160 Chuy Ave., Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Mr.Daniar Ibragimov Programme and Policy Analyst/PEI focal point Environment/Energy and Disaster Risk Management Programme UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic Email: Daniar.ibragimov@undp.org Phone number: +996-312-611211 ext. 122 (w.) +996-772 550-450