OREANDA-NEWS. October 22, 2009. The international conference on specially protected natural territories of Turkmenistan was conducted in the Turkmen capital. The Turkmen leading environmental specialists, international experts and representatives of the UN Development Programme and OSCE took part in the environmental forum organized by the Ministry of Nature Protection of Turkmenistan with the assistance of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds RSPB (Great Britain). Norbert Schaffer, Head of European Programmes and International Biodiversity Policy at The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) had specially arrived in the Turkmen capital to participate in the forum.

The aims of this meeting was to sum up the first stage of the Programme Key Ornithological Territories in Turkmenistan (KOTT/IBA) to identify and describe the important bird areas and specify the further ways to conduct long-term monitoring and effectively manage these areas.

Having defined protection of the environment, conservation of natural and biological diversity as a priority of the national policy Turkmenistan actively collaborates with the leading international organisations in this field. The complex approach to environmental problems can be exemplified by the large-scale programme The Key Ornithological Territories implemented in the countries of the region with the assistance of the International Council for Bird Preservation (BirdLife International).

Under the agreement signed between the Ministry of Nature Protection of Turkmenistan and the RSPB the action plan including the inventory of the important bird areas, the expedition survey and study of the species composition and population of birds had been developed. The most important results of the environmental activities included the identification of 50 international bird areas (IBA) that must be protected by the state. Many of these territories have been nominated as universally significant. These activities included the description of bird species, their populations and important habitats. The Bay of Turkmenbashi situated on the territory of the Hazar State Reserve is the first reserve in Central Asia to receive the official status of an important bird area.

The international experts made presentations on the results of the KOTT Programme in the Central Asia. The draft strategy developed for the next two years and offering the ways to protect these territories through other international projects was presented to the participants for discussion.

The participants noted that the well-coordinated network of the specially protected territories, monitoring and management of the important bird areas promoted developing ecotourism at the national and international levels and provided an opportunity to learn more about their native land for thousands of Turkmen citizens and to discover one of the beautiful regions of the planet to numerous visitors to the country.