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The experts in Tajikistan hope that the inclusion of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve on the UNESCO World Heritage List will allow the preservation of this last place in the world where tugay forests still exist.
The first nature reserve in Tajikistan Tigrovaya Balka was established on November 4, 1938. In September 2023, the Tugay forests of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve were included on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
According to experts, the reserve is the only place in the world where tugay forests have been preserved.
Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve is located in the Vakhsh River valley. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were tugay forests here that resembled a real jungle of turanga (poplar), oleaster, various shrubs, tall grasses, lianas, and meadows.
In the 1930s, due to the land development in the Vakhsh Valley, the area of natural ecosystems was significantly reduced.
Then, the authorities decided to establish the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve here to preserve the natural ecosystems specific to the southern deserts and floodplains of Central Asia, to protect rare animals, and to conduct diverse scientific research.
During the following years, the territory of the reserve was expanded to its present area.
According to a researcher at the E.N. Pavlovsky Institute of Zoology and Parasitology of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan Faridun Rakhimov, currently, the total area of the reserve is about 50 thousand hectares. It covers extensive tugay ecosystems along the Vakhsh River, sections of the sandy Kashka-Kum desert, the Buritau peak, as well as the lowlands of the southern spurs of the Aruktau range – the Hodja-Kaziyon Mountains.
The reserve directly borders the farms of Jayhun, Qubodiyon, Dusti, and Shahritus districts of Tajikistan. Water bodies occupy 21.4% of the total area of the reserve.
According to the head of the Department of Terrestrial Vertebrates at the E.N. Pavlovsky Institute of Zoology and Parasitology Rustam Muratov, the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve is the last large reserve on the planet that is home to the unique tugay flora and fauna.
Its only analogue is the Zaravshan Nature Reserve in Uzbekistan, which area is only about 4,000 hectares.
“According to the latest data, the extensive tugay forests that earlier existed in Afghanistan and Iran have been almost destroyed, and there are agricultural lands in their place now,” says Rustam Muratov.
On September 20, 2023, during the 45th meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the natural site of Tajikistan – tugay forests of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve – was included in the World Heritage List.
Rustam Muratov is one of the authors of the proposal to include the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve on the List. According to him, this became possible due to the successful two-year cooperation of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Committee for Environmental Protection under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Fund for the Protection of Natural Heritage with the support of the UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office.
According to experts, the status of a World Heritage Site combined with the reserve’s environmental significance makes it possible to achieve many positive goals both for the environment and for state support of the reserve.
“Tigrovaya Balka” Without Tigers
In the first years of the reserve creation, Caspian tigers still lived here. However, there are no tigers in the reserve now. For the last time, the Caspian tigers were seen in 1947 in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in 1953 in Turkmenistan, and in 1956 in Tajikistan. In 1970, the Caspian tigers were officially assessed as extinct species.
Genetically, the Caspian tiger was very similar to the Siberian (Amur) tiger, which is native to the Russian Far East.
According to experts, the main reason for the tigers’ extinction was the disruption of their habitat and hunting. However, despite the disappearance of the Caspian tiger, the name of the reserve was not changed [‘Tigrovaya Balka’ – ‘Tiger Valley’ in Russian – Tr.].
The tugay forests where the tigers lived were intensively used for agriculture and turned into cotton fields. According to data, in the 1930s, tugay forests occupied an area of more than 90 thousand hectares, but twenty years later they were reduced by more than three times, outside Tigrovaya Balka’s territory.
According to the Associate Professor of the Department of Ecology of the Biology Faculty at the Tajik National University Abdullo Davlatov, in the 1960s, the first director of the Tigrovaya Balka Reserve General Alexandrov told him that in March 1949 he took a photo of the Caspian tiger’s track, and after that, the tiger was not seen in this territory.
Rustam Muratov says that in August 1970, he saw the tracks of a tiger in Tigrovaya Balka.
“In August 1970, in Tigrovaya Balka, I saw the tracks of a tiger with my own eyes. That day, we participated in a field trip of the local history club to Tigrovaya Balka, a ranger joined us and told us about the tracks of a big cat. He also preserved that track from possible damage.
Then, the experts from Moscow confirmed that was indeed the footprint of a Caspian tiger.”
“According to their research, the tigers entered Tajikistan from the neutral territory of the border with Afghanistan,” says Rustam Muratov.
Rare Animals of the Reserve
According to Rustam Muratov, rare animals in the reserve include the Bactrian deer (population exceeds 300), goitered gazelle, striped hyena, and leopard (included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species). Fish: small Amu-Darya shovelnose sturgeon, Amu-Darya sturgeon, pike asp, Aral and Bulatmai barbel, etc.
Reptiles: Central Asian steppe tortoise, several species of geckos, toad-headed agamas, Eremias, desert sand boa, little Indian viper, Turan blunt-nosed viper, etc.
Mammals: Etruscan shrew, weasel, marbled polecat, jungle cat, Indian crested porcupine, long-clawed ground squirrel, etc. Birds: white stork, Eurasian stone-curlew, MacQueen’s bustard, black-bellied sandgrouse, Egyptian vulture, Eurasian griffon vulture, etc.
Faridun Rakhimov claims that in Tigrovaya Balka, birds hold first place in terms of diversity of species composition among all vertebrate animals of the reserve. The ornithologic fauna is the richest and most diverse in tugay forests and floodplain lakes.
“You can find the black-and-gold, or Tajik, subspecies of the pheasants in the tugay forests. According to the estimates by ornithologists, the reserve is home to 1200-1500 animals of this species. This place is a kind of genetic reserve of this species of pheasant for distribution throughout the Vakhsh Valley and the southern regions of the republic in general. In total, more than 240 bird species nest, winter, and migrate in the reserve.
The “Red Data Book of Tajikistan” and the same documents of neighbouring countries include 55 species of rare and endangered bird species found in the reserve. These are pygmy and great cormorants, purple, grey, and white herons, ospreys, gulls, terns, grebes, several species of waders, and others,” he noted.
Rustam Muratov is confident that the reserve is home to more than 60 species of rare and endangered vertebrates from Tajikistan and Central Asia.
The treasure of the reserve is the Bactrian (tugay) deer. This is the most beautiful subspecies of red deer. It is not for nothing that in Central Asia it is called “hongul”, which means “royal flower”.
The flora of the reserve is also unique. Associate Professor of the Department of Ecology of the Biology Faculty at the Tajik National University Abdullo Davlatov, who has been studying the flora of Tigrovaya Balka since 1965, noted that there are 764 species of flowering plants and 6 species of ferns, belonging to 352 genera and 69 families.
Four species of plants grow only on the territory of Tigrovaya Balka and are not found anywhere else.
According to him, 163 species (21.16%) are valuable forage plants; 52 species (6.75%) are nonfood crops (for the production of dyes, fibers, building materials, etc.).
125 species (16.23%) are medicinal plants; 10 species (1.29%) are ornamental plants. There are more than 70 species (9.0%) of honey and nectar plants in the flora of the reserve. More than 40 species (5.19%) are sand-binding plants. The flora of the reserve also includes 19 species (2.46%) of poisonous plants.
Lakes of the Reserve
There are more than a dozen lakes on the territory of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve. The length of the lakes can reach from 2 to 6 kilometres, more often 3-4 kilometres, while their width does not exceed 100-200 metres. The maximum depth in some areas of lakes can reach up to 6.5–8 metres. These are Daryo-Kul and a group of lakes: Tukhloe, Kirpichnoe, Korchovoe, Bolshoye, and Maloe Gulikovskoye. The water in them is brackish. The irrigation canals of the Dusti district flow here. 5-7 kilometres downstream there is a second group of lakes: Podkovye, Bazovskoye, and several more nameless swampy lakes.
The lakes of Tigrovaya Balka are the wintering areas for more than 85 species of semiaquatic and fish-eating birds. They fly here from Northern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Western Siberia.
In Tigrovaya Balka, there is a hunting lodge “Royal Dacha” built in the Polvon-Tugay area in the early 1960s. The Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah once came here to hunt. In honor of his visit, this hunting lodge was built, and the name “Royal Dacha” was chosen.
Floods, Pesticides, and Poachers Threaten the Reserve
According to experts, during its existence, the reserve faced many challenges. It was transferred from one state department to another, the lands were alienated and returned, plowed up, forests were cut down and restored, it was settled with refugees, military formations were based here, etc. However, the reserve survived and to this day, continues to preserve unique tugay ecosystems.
“A whole system of measures is needed to protect this wonderful natural reserve. First, it is necessary to maintain the water balance, the speed of irrigation, and the flooding of the floodplain. If the floodplain is not flooded for 2-3 years or more, the groundwater level under these soils drops to 3-5 metres, which leads to severe drying and salinisation of the upper (1-2 metres) layers of the soil, and the tugay dries out significantly,” says Abdullo Davlatov.
According to him, the main threats to the existence of the reserve are the massive development of lands adjacent to its borders, the lack of buffer zones, poaching, forest fires, illegal grazing, lowering the water level in the Vakhsh River, and illegal logging.
An extremely dangerous problem continues to be the unregulated discharge of wastewater from farms, as well as the entry of various pesticides into the reservoirs of the reserve.
“Using the example of the Tigrovaya Balka Reserve, it is necessary to show how important it is to revive the activities of other reserves, wildlife preservations, and national parks. Normalisation of the work of all specially protected areas of Tajikistan is not only the preservation of valuable natural systems but also a serious improvement of the environment,” said Abdullo Davlatov.
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Parents of children with disabilities from remote villages in Khatlon Province are concerned about their children’s education conditions, but authorities say all are covered
It is very difficult for children with disabilities to get to school due to poor roads in remote, mountainous regions. The lack of specialized classes and teachers is also a big problem. And getting to schools, especially for those who have to use wheelchairs, is even physically difficult.
Olambi Naimova, 10, lives in the Muminabad district in southern Tajikistan. She and her family live in the mountainous village of Tuto. Olambi’s legs have been paralyzed since childhood, and the way from the village to school is one kilometer and it is a very rough road full of mud and stones. She cannot get to school alone, she is helped by older students and sometimes by her mother.
“I want good conditions, especially for my daughter Olambi. Our village is in the mountains, the road is steep and it is difficult for healthy children to walk on it. It is with great difficulty that I take my daughter to school in a wheelchair. It snows in winter and rains in spring, it is slippery, muddy, and very difficult to take my child to school,” Olambi’s mother Mizhgona Pirhonzoda added with concern.
She said that it is not always possible to take Olambi to school on time because of the difficult road from their village to the school.
“Before, the school had no special paths or ramp for wheelchair children, but this problem has been solved, they have already built this thing. The only problem is the bad road to the school itself,” she says.
10-year-old Olambi can’t go to school every day because of leg problems, she is worried about not attending classes regularly. But she dreams of becoming a surgeon in the future.
Teachers say she has a better chance than other children with disabilities living in rural areas because her parents and other relatives encourage her desire to learn.
Raikhona is the conventional name of a 35-year-old woman from the Vakhsh Valley. After divorcing her husband, she is alone raising her son, who has not seen since birth. He is 9 years old and has good learning abilities, but finds it difficult to attend school with other children.
According to Rayhona, her son has good hearing, if he hears something on TV, he learns quickly, but unfortunately he does not go to the village school because there are no conditions for education of the blind.
“My son has to learn in a special alphabet with Braille. I want my son to study, but there is no special class for the blind in our village,” says Rayhona.
Such children need special textbooks, she said, and there are no teachers to teach them either.
“In order for him to study, we have to take the child to the city of Bokhtar. It’s very far away and we don’t have such an opportunity,” Raihona added.
In the entire Vakhsh Valley, there is only one class in Bokhtar City School No. 5, which provides special classes for children with disabilities. But the number of students in that class is only 10.
Many parents want to send their children to this school, but because of the long distance it is impossible, representatives of Bokhtar City School No. 5 told CABAR.asia.
“So that parents do not hide their children from society”
Khatlon Oblast has 2,293 school-age children with disabilities, according to official information.
Sarfaroz Yakubov, deputy head of the Khatlon Oblast Education Department, told CABAR.asia that 317 of those children are home-schooled, while the rest study in schools.
“These are children from 7 to 17 years old. For those who are home-schooled, teachers from educational institutions travel to their homes to teach them. Home schooling is monitored to ensure that it is done well. The rest of the children with disabilities study in schools, and for them, modern or new type schools have installed pathways and ramps,” Yakubov added.
However, Rozia Boboeva, an invadid resident of Bokhtar, went through home education herself as a child and says it did not have good results. She believes that home education has many difficulties for children with disabilities.
“I have that experience myself, I went through it. I am blind and have faced many difficulties while studying. I know very well that in our society and in educational institutions of the region children with disabilities are accepted very reluctantly. I want such children not to be left out of education and parents not to hide them from society,” Boboeva added.
Rozia Boboeva spent three years ensuring that children with disabilities could attend school together with their healthy peers. This helps them better adapt to society.
Sabohat Hakimzoda, head of the Association of Parents of Children with Disabilities, said they are aware of the difficulties in educating children in different regions of Tajikistan. Problems for this group of students are still seen in remote, hard-to-reach regions of Tajikistan.
“Only in Dushanbe, new schools in new schools have ramps and adaptations for children with disabilities, but in other regions there are almost no such facilities. In particular, there should be ramps, special passageways, separate room toilets, but, unfortunately, all this is missing,” Hakimzoda said.
Tajikistan has more than 159,000 people with disabilities, 32,000 of whom are children, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection.
Parents of these children say that despite their disabilities, they try to ensure that their children can get an education. According to them, they are used to this difficult situation and rely only on their own strength and the help of relatives.
Tajik experts believe that the authorities, by requiring mandatory registration of IMEI codes, are trying to replenish the budget and strengthen control over citizens
In Tajikistan, a government decree on mandatory registration of IMEI codes of all cell phones and other mobile telecommunication devices was adopted back in 2020. On the website www.imei.tj created by the Communications and Customs Services under the Government of Tajikistan, it is noted that until April 30, 2023, entering IMEI codes of mobile devices into the State System was free of charge in automatic mode by connecting to the networks of mobile operators.
The report specifies that from May 1, 2023, the entry of IMEI codes is still “free of charge” through a single portal of the system operator www.imei.tj
The announcement also states that the government’s mobile telecommunication identification system has benefits such as:
– preventing the illegal importation of mobile devices;
– organizing a national database of IMEI codes of mobile telecommunication devices;
– protecting the right of owners by disabling lost or stolen mobile devices.
The introduction of the IMEI code registration system raises questions from users. A Tajik journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, said she first heard in a phone store that she had to pay for registration. The phone salesman there explained that to register an IMEI code, the gadget had to be “customs cleared” – that is, to pay customs duties and taxes on its own.
“I tried to find out in that store why the seller was selling “non-customized phones”. I was stupidly sent away, they said: if you don’t want it, don’t take it,” says the interviewee of CABAR.asia.
After that, the journalist went around at least ten different outlets, but nowhere had “un-cleared phones”.
“Then I decided to buy a phone and test how the system works. I never managed to register the IMEI code. Because customs still hasn’t determined the average cost of the phone model I bought. And the imei.tj website keeps showing an error,” said the interviewee.
After a request to the imei.tj call center for an IMEI code, the journalist received a text message stating that she had to enter the IMEI code of her device into the State System of Identification of Mobile Means of Electric Communication.
“Enter the IMEI code of your device into the State System within 30 days using the Unified Portal www.imei.tj. Otherwise, electric communication services will be terminated,” the message read.
However, despite the threats, the connection was not disconnected after 30 days.
The journalist also received a message from Dcity, Dushanbe City Bank, telling her to pay 1,436 somoni (about US $130) for customs clearance services.
These services included VAT – 117 USD, brokerage services – 50 TJS (about 5 USD) and customs duty – 10 USD.
At the same time, the cost of the purchased phone was only 1,250 somoni (about 120 dollars), which caused particular bewilderment to the interviewee.
“I then studied all the documentation – nowhere does it say that the buyer in Tajikistan has to pay taxes and customs duties,” she said.
According to her, earlier the imei.tj call center said that if a phone is registered in the customs database, registration of the IMEI code should be free of charge.
She claims that customs should not leave this issue at the discretion of sellers and buyers.
“Customs officers should prevent smuggling, not hang it on the buyer,” she said.
As reported by other Tajik citizens, they also received messages about the need to register codes.
According to the Customs Service, over 64,000 mobile devices were imported into Tajikistan in 2022, with the annual demand for cell phones estimated at about 500,000. This figure indicates that a large number of imported goods of this type are actually smuggled into Tajikistan.
The customs duty on the import of cell phones, tablets and other electronic means of communication is 15-20% of the value of the goods.
According to the rules, the importer must register the goods at customs, otherwise it is considered smuggled and residents should refrain from buying them. But today residents cannot find registered phones at cell phone outlets. The sellers ask them to register themselves by paying a fixed amount.
Khairiddini Hussain, one of the cell phone sellers at the Sadbarg Mall in Dushanbe, told CABAR.asia that his goods have passed the registration system. However, the prices of phones in his store are higher than in others.
Customs: either the seller or the buyer must register the code
Khurshed Karimzoda, head of the Customs Service of Tajikistan, said that registration of IMEI codes of phones and other mobile communication devices is mandatory.
“This action is carried out either by the importer or the buyer,” he stressed at an August 11 press conference.
According to him, when buying, the consumer should inquire whether the product is registered or not.
“From here, the cost of communication equipment is determined,” Karimzoda said.
According to Karimzoda, importers of communication devices are not obliged to enter IMEI codes into the State Identification System for Mobile Electronic Communication Devices until the moment of sale.
“When the code is registered, the user’s SIM card must be installed in the device. It does not matter who does it. The reason is that without this action, the user will not be able to use the purchased equipment. That is why the importer of the equipment does not have to register it when importing it,” Khurshed Karimzoda added.
Tajikistan’s customs authorities have detected 10 cases of illegal transfer of cell phones in the first six months of this year, on the basis of which administrative offenses were initiated.
The government is trying to fill the state budget by registering IMEI codes, Tajik lawyer Shokirjon Khakimov said.
In his opinion, when making such decisions, the factor of low solvency of the majority of the country’s citizens should be taken into account.
The Tajik lawyer believes that this step is primarily political in nature.
“The requirement of mandatory registration of all mobile devices is aimed at strengthening control over citizens,” Khakimov emphasized.
He believes that contradictions and conflicts of interest need to be resolved first by improving and amending the relevant regulatory documents.
In his opinion, imperfect legislation and the lack of subordinate clarifying acts give officials and businessmen the opportunity to “misinterpret” the issue.
“As a result, conditions are created for the growth of corrupt relations and other undesirable phenomena,” he told CABAR.asia.