Turkmenbashi has decreed that farmers are allowed to graze their sheep on nature preserves.
“In Soviet times too many nature reserves were created, and now we have no reason to fence them off from the people. Animals can be put out to pasture on these territories – there will be much more benefit from this,” Niazov is reported to have said at a recent government meeting.
The government swears up and down that this won’t be at all harmful to the preserves. But then again, they also thought an ice palace in the mountains and artificial lake in the desert were swell ideas.
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Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.