The State Committee, which became the heir of the State Committee on Nature Protection, is one year old. The attention of the State Committee is mainly focused on household waste: how to collect them, transport them, disposal of them, recycle and dispose of them. This was told in the reports that began the meeting at the State Committee on Ecology and environmental protection. In April 2017, the Comprehensive Program on a fundamental improvement in the management of household waste for 2017–2021 was adopted. Environmentalists in the center and in the field are engaged in special equipment, garbage collection points and landfills. Equipped 97 polygons. The figures, what proportion of the population in district centers and rural settlements covered by sanitation services, were also called: 5 percent two years ago, and now - 38 percent.
In nine large cities of the country, clusters are being created for processing solid household waste at the expense of credit funds of the National Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs. Allocated the sum equivalent to the 40 million dollars.
In the West, experts for sampling come freely to any enterprise. This is not considered as a verification. This is called sampling. And this is done so that neither fish, cattle, nor people are poisoned. Such a system was created at first in Uzbekistan. While the order is "not rewritten." Now environmentalists are calling the public: “Complain!” Fishermen complained - they left for the scene. They did not complain – ecologists have no grounds.
Even with the very limited rights of the State Ecology Committee, Uzbekistan has monitored 16,000 sources of environmental pollution during the year. Revealed about seven hundred sources that have exceeded the limits of pollution.
Polluters have been paid compensation payments and fines totaling 1.5 billion soums. Claims have been filed against 2,245 objects. Three hundred resolutions of khokims on illegal land acquisition along the banks of rivers in water protection zones were annulled. In connection with violations of the laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the protection of flora and fauna, 5,548 offenders were detained, from whom fines were recovered, damage in the amount of about two billion soums was compensated.
At press conferences devoted to struggle with illegal cutting down of trees: “From individuals 577 complaints were received about illegal felling of trees. In total, over two thousand offenses were revealed for which the sums of damage inflicted on the plant world in the amount of over 1 billion soums were recovered. ”
Cutting down trees in the mountains of Uzbekistan causes mass discontent among the population. “When will the State Committee start keeping registers of the issued permits and post them on the official website? This is provided for in the "Regulations on the use of plant world objects and the passage of licensing procedures in the use of plant world objects" (approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 290 in 2014). "
The answer was that the deficiencies in the work of the information and analytical center of the State Committee are being corrected. "After three months, we will begin to post permissions on the site." - “Will they be posted on the“ approval ”site for tree felling?” For four years, the environmental authority has been trying to convince everyone that it does not allow, but only approves. “Hokimiyats are allowed through the“ single window ”. At the press conference, we heard the same version, apologizing inaction.
According to the citizens’ opinion , this is a departure from the answer and from responsibility, which the journalists said at the press conference on behalf of the citizens. In the annex to Decree No. 290 (2014), the Cabinet of Ministers explained what a permissive document is: this decision is in the form of a permit, an agreement. The information contained in the registers of the issued permits is open for legal entities and individuals to familiarize themselves with it.
Another alarming question: “What are the criteria for staffing? Do they have the necessary education, to understand their mission as environmentalists? ”
They talked about personnel in regard with the cutting of trees in the Botanical Garden of Tashkent. Twice the mass media raised the alarm due to illegal logging - in the winter and autumn of 2017. Twice the journalists, together with the staff of the State Committee, went to the Botanical Garden.
The administration of the Garden in both cases did not submitted permits for cutting and did not responded for cutting down dozens of trees. Environmentalists had to persuade to get off the asphalt and felt the stumps. To environmentalists, in order to pay attention to other violations, the journalists quoted the article of the Law “On the protection and use of flora: “On the territory of botanical gardens, activities that are inconsistent with the goals of their formation and threatening the preservation of the plant world are prohibited. And also to no avail. Young employees do not have enough competence, even the protocol at the scene was not made up. About the cadres the question arose again when we were talking about the “Jeyran” eco center. Located in the Bukhara region. He has two territories separated by a highway.
The first territory was cordoned off in 1977, when the eco-center “Jeyran” was created. The second, allocated to the eco center later, is not fenced. Video cameras that allowed to control the not fenced territory, are broken. Poaching is booming, land is being grabbed. Against the background of forgetting the tasks that the eco center has solved for four decades, a cinder block fence with a main entrance for tourists is being built, while there is no one to accept and conduct an excursion for them.
The answer was that experts will be attracted even from the States. It is not clear whether the Uzbek zoologists will be sent to work at the Eco center of Botany with appropriate education and scientific potential.