Environment and Security: Transforming risks into cooperation

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Environment and Security

The Caspian region has been inhabited since prehistoric times, the sea providing an ac- cessible source of food for coastal commu- nities. The sea has also represented an im- portant waterway for trade, sea routes being more efficient than the long overland routes. The Caspian Sea has hence represented an important north-south and east-west com- munication platform, allowing the exchange of goods and the movement of people. In the days of the USSR the Caspian region underwent considerable social and eco- nomic change. Compulsory free, universal education and the provision of universal health care were among the Soviet Union’s major social achievements. But the devel- opment of large-scale agriculture and the meat industry was accompanied by a radi- cal change in the traditional way of life of the nomadic populations of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, pushed into adopting a sed- entary life style. In the Soviet Union’s centrally planned econ- omy, Azerbaijan was an important centre for industrial oil production, while Kazakhstan developed its mining and processing indus- try. Oil production expanded although most of its output went to the military–industrial complex, well established in the Kazakh SSR, with the nuclear test sites at Semipal- atinsk and Kapustin Yar, and the Baikonur space centre (Akiner, 2004: 8). Recent transitions The Caspian region

Turkmenistan experienced similar develop- ments. Nomadic populations were forced into sedentary settlements and the republic became one of the USSR’s most important cotton-producing centres. Industrialization included the development of the oil-gas and chemical industry in the Caspian region. Turkmen gas in 1990 represented almost 11% of total Soviet gas production (Djalili and Kellner, 2003: 186). The process of change has continued or even accelerated over the last 15 years. In 1991 the newly formed eastern Caspian states of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan found themselves, along with the central Asian and southern Caucasus republics, separated from the USSR. At first they faced many challenges: finding their place in the international community as sovereign na- tions, establishing political systems, secur- ing their borders, and establishing their own position in the global market without any support from the centrally-managed redis- tributive mechanism of the Soviet economy. Many activities and jobs that previously en- joyed central promotion and support, such as the uranium-production complex in Ak- tau, and the mineral extraction plants in Ga- rabogaz and Khazar, shrank significantly or disappeared. The previous system of sup- plying the coastal cities with food and other goods was reduced to a trickle.