Press Releases 2001

State of the Environment in Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Urban environmental quality in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, is improving but the reason for this is not the introduction of new technologies or enhancement of environmental control, but the general decline in city's industry, associated with political and economic crisis.

The city's State of the Environment report, officially released on 7 September and now available online at http://www.ceroi.net/reports/dushanbe/, describes the city's environmental protection challenges and the successes of the city administration and local environmental authorities to restore and enhance the urban environment.

Formerly, air quality values in Dushanbe were one of the worst among other industrial cities. Although the decrease in production volume in a number of industries leads to the reduction of emissions into the atmosphere, the quality of purification of harmful gaseous emissions also goes down. Air pollution from vehicles is rising. Due to out-of-date wastewater purification equipment and old technologies pollution of water resources is
continuing. The state of the soils and land resources, watercourses and green plantations is falling. Newly introduced green plantations are monotonous and unpromising.

Overpopulation of the city, because of the arrival of villagers, leads to the illegal waste disposal and accumulation of garbage in irrigation ditches and on building sites. Quite often, dirty waters from heavy rainfall and households are directly discharged into surface watercourses. Water quality and state of the water resources is the issue of concern of townspeople. Stirring up private trade and lack of the sanitary inspections leads to the
high risk of pesthole formation.

The city administration has recently achieved some positive results in the field of environmental protection and conservation. Illegal tree cutting is virtually stopped; all city parks, squares and green areas are under care; many architectural monuments and historical buildings are restored; practically all unendorsed waste disposal sites are eliminated; regular environmental inspections to check air pollution from vehicles, as well as the condition of water supply and sewerage systems are being undertaken.

The report was produced by the Research Laboratory on Nature Protection of the Ministry of Nature Protection of Tajikistan, in co-operation with the United Nations Environment Programme's office at GRID-Arendal in Norway, as part of the CEROI (Cities Environment Reports on the Internet) initiative for Central and Eastern European cities (http://www.ceroi.net/).

For more information, please contact:

Neimatullo Safarov, Director
Research Laboratory for Nature Protection
Ministry of Nature Protection
47 Shevchenko St.
Dushanbe 734025
Tajikistan
meteo@tjinter.com
http://www.ceroi.net/reports/dushanbe/

Press Releases 2000

On-line State of the Environment Report for Tbilisi, Georgia (18 August 2000)

The capital of Georgia is in need of developing a city environmental action plan to address urgent problems, concludes a report prepared by GRID-Tbilisi. The report highlights challenging issues such as increases in transport-related air and noise pollution, as well as in the spread of infectious diseases due to contaminated drinking water.