Communities Facing Environmental Hazards in Central Asia Today

The populations of the five republics of Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, face many environmental challenges today. In this talk Charles Buxton, who has lived in Kyrgyzstan since 2002, will discuss climate change and the risks to local communities from natural hazards such as melting glaciers, avalanches, floods and drought. In particular, he will focus geographically on the republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and within this more narrowly on North Tajikistan and South Kyrgyzstan where their boundaries meet in the Fergana Valley. The Fergana Valley is a densely populated, fertile agricultural region situated between the mountain systems of the Tien Shan in the north and the Alay and Fergana ranges in the south. As a civil society specialist, Charles will highlight the connection between ecological issues, on the one hand, and political, social and economic issues, on the other, laying out some of the two governments' priorities in this field and how they are responding to the international environmental agenda.

Charles Buxton was born in London and gained a degree in Russian from the University of Oxford in 1972, followed by an MA in Sociology of Literature from the University of Essex in 1974. He was active in the trade union and anti-racist movement in the 1970s and 1980s, with a two-year break in 1978-80 when he worked as a translator / editor for Novosti News Agency in Moscow. Between 1981-95, he set up and coordinated two progressive non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Tower Hamlets, supported by the local labour movement and Greater London Council. Since the mid-1990s he has worked in international development and civil society development in the former Soviet Union (FSU), and has been based in Central Asia for over twenty years.

Charles has written two books devoted to the experience of development work in Central Asia: 'The Struggle for Civil Society in Central Asia: Crisis and Transformation' was published by Kumarian in 2011; 'Russia and Development: Capitalism, Civil Society and the State' was published by Zed in 2014. His third book 'Ragged Trousered NGOs: Development Work under Neo-liberalism', published by Routledge in 2019, brings together his UK and FSU-based experiences and analysis.

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