information

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection publishes information on the state of the environment in the quarterly magazine “Ecological Culture and Environmental Protection” (“Nature Bulletin”). State of the environment reports are not regular. An online demonstration version using some of UNECE environmental indicators was prepared in 2015 with the support of the EU FLERMONECA project, the Swiss Government and CAREC. Departments of the Ministry also produces environmental monitoring data: daily for air quality and monthly for water quality.

The Hydrometeorological Service produces and publishes weather and hydrological reports and forecasts.

Department of Municipal Services under the Ministry of Construction and Architecture is responsible for the data about municipal waste.

The State Committee for Statistics annually publishes compilations of environment-related indicators, primarily for inter-agency use. Respective statistics are also included into annual statistical yearbooks.

The Desert Institute maintains databases on protected areas, flora and fauna, and reports to the Convention on Biodiversity (the reports are publicly available on the Convention’s website).

Scientific-Information Centre of the Interstate Commission for Sustainable Development of Central Asia has done a lot of work on the preparation of regional environmental assessment in cooperation with UNEP.

The Aarhus Centre in Ashgabat is active in disseminating environmental knowledge and information among the general public.

Environmental indicators

The State Committee for Statistics collects statistical data from respondents in the field of environmental protection and publishes statistical indicators. Local indicators are used, some of which are compatible with the UNECE-recommended set of indicators, but the statistics are available only within the country. At the time of this publication, none of NECE environmental indicators were yet available online.

Lessons and recommendations

While environmental information in Turkmenistan is generally available, it is mainly shared for internal governmental use. Turkmenistan fulfils international reporting obligations on climate and biodiversity and participates in regional information exchange, however reporting on waste and chemicals is lagging behind mainly due to the lack of data and to institutional changes. The use of international environmental information is limited, and further exposure and training is needed to better understand and use global information sources and improve their quality and completeness with up-to-date data. At the same time, state institutions are actively involved in environmental awareness-raising, and one of the channels for doing so is publication of popular information on the Internet.

Recommendations

Provide support to IT modernization of environmental authorities and to integrating environmental data flows and datasets

Further support national state-of-the-environment reporting and official environmental media, including the production of relevant environmental and SDG indicators

Build capacities of the Ashgabat-based ICSD secretariat for national and regional environmental assessment and reporting based on common regional indicators

Re-establish reporting under the Basel Convention (hazardous waste) and promote exchange of experience about waste and recycling statistics

Provide training for modern international indicators and methodologies of assessing marine and terrestrial biodiversity (Red List index, key biodiversity areas, marine litter)

Support the production and broad dissemination of directories of environment information, e.g., through cooperation with the national Aarhus centre

Promote the collection of data on the human-environment nexus disaggregated by sex, age and vulnerable groups to inform environmental policies

Consistently analyse and utilise data on human-environment nexus in order to improve understanding of these important linkages. Environmental sustainability can only be achieved through the consideration of both ‘people and planet’