71% of the planet Earth is seas and oceans, 29% is land, and only 11% of it produces 90% of the food products needed by mankind.

In the international forum organized in the capital dedicated to "World Earth Day" on the topic of "Combating land degradation in Central Asia: problems and solutions", the preservation and improvement of agricultural land productivity, combating degradation, erosion, salinization, waterlogging, the issues of prevention of desertification processes were discussed as problems that should be solved on a global scale.

This event was organized in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ). Experts and scientists from the Central Asian countries, Russia, Germany, Turkey, the Republic of Korea and other countries participated in the forum

According to the information contained in the "Global Environmental Development" report prepared by the UN Environment Program (UNEP), about 2 billion hectares of land on the globe are currently degraded to varying degrees.

It was noted at the event that by 2026, increasing the amount of humus in the soil on 1 million hectares of arable land, reducing the amount of saline land by 100 thousand hectares, restoring 1.7 million hectares of degraded pastures, 26 thousand hectares of agricultural land, as future strategic tasks in our country. Construction of hedgerows has been established on forest lands. Reforestation works on 232.8 thousand hectares of degraded areas and in cooperation with international organizations "green covers" consisting of salt and drought-resistant plants such as saxovul, cherkes, sugarcane on 1.7 million hectares of the dry bottom of the Aral Sea ” construction projects are being implemented.

About 15 projects with a total value of about 50 million dollars are being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture in cooperation with international financial institutions to combat land degradation, introduce new modern innovative technologies in the field, and externalize rational and effective use of natural resources based on science.

According to the information presented by the experts of the Forestry Agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Republic of Uzbekistan at the international conference, it is the main responsibility of all of us to preserve the land, especially the land of the forest fund, and leave it to the future generations without increasing it. duty. Today, preservation, restoration and increase of existing forest land, prevention of erosion, salinization, swamping, desertification and degradation remains one of the biggest problems of the world.

Improper use of land in desert areas disrupts the soil structure and leads to sediment migration. In addition, the rapid occurrence of sand and dust storms in the following years is the result of improper land use. By conserving the land, we can improve the ecological environment and prevent desertification. In particular, during 2019-2022, afforestation works were carried out on an area of 1 million 624 thousand hectares in the dry bottom of the Aral Sea. With this, the desertified lands were afforested and turned into productive pastures.

The second major event carried out by foresters was the implementation of the nationwide project "Green Space". As part of this project, about 125 million trees were planted throughout the country this spring. With this, open vacant land areas will be transformed into green areas. Work on this matter will be continued in the future. In addition, waste lands of the forest fund, which have become unsuitable for current use, are being developed according to the plan. In 2022, around 7,000 hectares of land were developed and made suitable for use. In the developed areas, trees and shrubs suitable for soil and climatic conditions were planted and afforested. Forest farms have an important task of creating a stock of seedlings for effective organization of land conservation. For this purpose, the production of seedlings is increasing from year to year.

In 2020, 87 million seedlings were grown, and in 2022, more than 113 million seedlings and saplings were grown. In the future, work is underway to double the volume of seedling production. Currently, the area of forests in our republic is 3.3 million hectares, i.e. 7.2%, and by 2030, it is planned to double their area to 15%. As well as green areas in cities and residential areas