On the sidelines of the Samarkand International Climate Forum, the Uzbek Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection, and Climate Change and the World Bank launched the Uzbekistan Resilient Landscapes Restoration Project (RESILAND).
The World Bank will provide $153 million in financing to support project activities.
The project aims to expand sustainable landscape management, restore degraded forested lands across Uzbekistan, and strengthen regional cooperation on transboundary landscape restoration. The project activities will be implemented in six provinces across the country, including Samarkand, Surkhandarya, Syrdarya, Jizzakh, Namangan, and Kashkadarya provinces.
“The project we launch today jointly with the World Bank will help the government achieve the goals under the Concept for Developing Uzbekistan’s Forest System until 2030. These include expanding the area of forests across the country to 6.1 million hectares by the end of this decade,” noted Aziz Abdukhakimov, Minister of Ecology, Environmental Protection, and Climate Change of Uzbekistan. “Through tree-based landscape restoration interventions in areas with degraded lands, the project will contribute to increased resilience of landscapes, food systems, people, and infrastructure; creation of natural resource management-based jobs and small and medium enterprises; and investments in nature-based tourism and protected areas.”
The forest-covered land area in Uzbekistan amounts to 4.4 million hectares, or 10.6% of the total land area.
