In Uzbekistan, plants have been planted on 1.7 million hectares of the dry bottom of the Aral Sea

The northern region has been and remains the focus of the country's leadership. Improving the environmental situation and creating favorable conditions for the population of the Aral Sea region are among the priorities of state policy. Until recently, it was difficult to imagine that forest plantations would appear where the sea once splashed.

Uzbekistan and neighboring Kazakhstan account for about six million hectares of the dried bottom of the Aral Sea. On our side, this is 3.2 million hectares, of which 2.5 million are allocated for forest plantations. For several years now, saxaul and other sand-retaining plants have been planted here using a special technology, without the use of which in a desert area where only 90 millimeters of precipitation falls per year, the plants cannot survive. For example, as part of the implementation of the State program in the Aral Sea region in 2017-2021, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the State Forestry Committee created forest plantations on 461 thousand hectares of the dried seabed. Most of them were carried out by sowing seeds, including using air sowing and mechanized methods. Saxaul was planted manually on 61 thousand hectares. In 2019-2020, forest plantations appeared on another 700 thousand hectares, and on 663 thousand of them also by sowing seeds. In 2020-2021, plantings occupied another 350 thousand hectares.