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Environment and Security 44 /
strengthen environmental reporting. The Fifth Central Asian
Festival of Environmental Journalismwill be held in Almaty in
2005. Much as the 2004 festival in Tashkent, it will be a good
opportunity to highlight environment and security issues in
the Ferghana valley. ENVSEC also plans to cooperate with
local journalists on production once particular issues are
ripe for increased public and media attention.
Finally, this assessment only constitutes a baseline whereas
more long-termmonitoring of developments in the environ-
ment and security field is needed for both international and
the local audiences. ENVSEC will cooperate with existing
conflict prevention and monitoring programmes to strength-
en their environment and resource-oriented components for
the benefit of forward-looking analysis, coupled with regular
monitoring of environmental quality. Through the develop-
ment of environmental indicators for an early warning system
for social conflict, ENVSECwill improve the crisis prevention
tools utilized in the Ferghana Valley. Involving the response
side of the Governments at an early stage will develop the
capabilities for coping with increased social tension, thereby
reducing the risk of conflict situations. This will also provide
input into ENVSEC projects in all the other clusters.
Clearly, the range of needs and issues outlined in this as-
sessment far exceeds the capacities of any single organi-
zation or even cross-organizational venture. The concrete
activities described above are only a subset of those that
may and eventually will be carried out in the longer-term.
For example one aspect of strengthening regional govern-
ance involves engaging the countries in more common
work to implement key environmental conventions with a
transboundary component. In this we expect greater coop-
eration between ENVSEC and the conventions’ secretariats.
It is vitally important that there should be tangible strategic
cooperation with regional programmes and institutions such
as the Regional Environmental Action Plan, the Regional En-
vironmental Centre for Central Asia, the International Fund
for Saving the Aral Sea, and its subordinate commissions.
One outcome that ENVSEC will hardly be able to deliver
is to bring investment in real, physical infrastructure such
as canals, dams, filters or sealing for tailing ponds. Here
we hope that by confirming and highlighting new priorities
and reconfirming old ones, we can help to interest larger
institutions with the necessary capabilities and resources
in making long-term capital investments.
All in all, we welcome any ideas that may strengthen EN-
VSEC’s conclusions, approach and portfolio of actions
– with the long-term aim of bringing greater security and a
cleaner environment to the people of the Ferghana valley.
With care, three or four thousand men may be
maintained by the revenues of Fergana.
Quotations in blue are taken and shortened from the “Memoirs
of Babur” or Babur-nama, the work of the great-great-great-
grandson of Timur (Tamerlane), Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur
(1483-1530). Babur-nama is said to “rank with the Confessions
of St. Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon
and Newton”. Among other tales, it tells the story of the prince’s
struggle to assert and defend his claim to the throne of Samarkand
and the region of the Fergana valley. There is much on the political
and military struggles at the end of 1490s, but also observations
on the physical and human geography, the flora and fauna, no-
mads in their pastures and urban environments enriched by the
architecture, music and Persian and Turkic literature. Translation
by Daniel C. Waugh.