Central Asia

Drawing on a cross-section of 43 case studies prepared specially for this book, WaterWealth explains the challenges to improving water governance and management across Asia and the Pacific region. It illustrates many examples of new approaches and practices already being applied by basin managers to secure water for all. The solutions it presents are local ones—homegrown measures that build on international experience rather than transplants from elsewhere.

Many of the world’s fruit and nut trees are seriously threatened with extinction, according to the newly released Red List of Trees of Central Asia. The list is published by Fauna and Flora International (FFI) in collaboration with BGCI as part of the Global Trees Campaign. The report identifies 44 tree species in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan as globally threatened with extinction, such as Pyrus korshinskyi, pictured left, a pear species identified as Critically Endangered.

This directory provides details of measures taken to date to establish a system of protected areas in the region, which includes Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and parts of Pakistan, India, Burma, China and the former USSR. Each national system is reviewed and accompanied by a list and a map of protected areas. Over 100 individual properties are described in more detail.