Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Wednesday put forward initiatives to strengthen regional environmental cooperation, Qazinform News Agency reports. In particular, he proposed jointly developing the Red Book of Central Asia to preserve the region's biodiversity.
"The Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Tashkent could serve as the coordinator of this effort. The region's Red Book is intended to become not just a list of endangered species, but an effective platform for our collaboration in this field," Mirziyoyev said.
The President of Uzbekistan also suggested that the country's Center for Combating Desertification, Drought Prevention, and Early Warning of Sand and Dust Storms, which is based at the Central Asian Green University, be granted regional status. According to him, consolidating scientific potential at the center would provide conditions to create an effective land degradation monitoring system.
To accelerate the region's technological transition, Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed to establish the Central Asian 'Green Trade Corridor'. "Introducing preferential customs regimes and mutual recognition of product certificates will allow us to modernize production faster and make our goods competitive," he emphasized.
Additionally, the Uzbek leader proposed creating an investment portfolio for climate projects in Central Asia and developing a unified regional atlas of environmental change, enabling tracking ecological processes across the region's countries in a single format.
As Qazinform reported earlier, the Astana Declaration on Ecological Solidarity in Central Asia is set to be adopted at RES 2026.