Uzbekistan: Rehabilitation of Desert Rangelands Affected by Salinity, to Improve Food Security, Combat Desertification and Maintain the Natural Resource Base - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 261

Farmers, pastoralists and householders, especially women groups were trained
and involved in the activities related to saline water and crop management practices,
efficient forage bio-saline production, post-harvest by product marketing and results
dissemination. Involvement of the farming and agro-pastoral communities in par-
ticipatory decision-making, research approach, on-farm testing and verification, as
well as faster dissemination of sustainable technologies to mange soil salinity, water
table depth, irrigation and drainage water quality will lead to the understanding of
salt movement as results of management practices.
The results of this study showed that spatial and temporal changes of natural
rangelands vegetation in the arid area affected by salinity in order to initiate different
revegetation strategies. Information about soil ion content, electrical conductivity,
performance of indicator species, biomass clearly indicates which plant species are
most likely to contribute to the reclamation process of saline soils. Plant species
diversity and distribution is determined by local soil specificity, i.e. it's physical and
chemical composition, micro-relief and soil moisture. The climate itself as has been
noted by Shuyskaya et al. ( 2008 ) plays a secondary role.
We also found that halophytes as underutilized plant resources grow well in
association with a variety of arid/semiarid rangeland species and often provide
severe competition to perennial species, both in natural and improved pastures. In-
tegrated Biosaline Agriculture Program for sustainable use of marginal mineralized
water and salt affected soils for food-feed crops and forage legumes developed will
assist to improve food security, alleviate poverty and enhance ecosystem health in
smallholder crop-livestock systems. Such diversification of agro-ecosystems and
development of new agricultural capacities could increase income source of rural
poor and farmers which so far are often dependent on two major crops (e.g. cotton
and wheat). Furthermore, the activities proposed here will also contribute to large
scale biomass production, which will build up the soil organic matter. It will thus
also contribute to make the poor farmers more resilient against climate change.
The evaluation, domestication and large scale utilization of native and introduced
halophytes and salt tolerant plant resources in sole or mixed farming system would
have a significant impact on salinity control and remediation as well as on the
economic development of arid/saline lands commonly observed in the whole Aral
Sea Basin. Although, the cultivation of trees requires a waiting period, the use of
multipurpose species, as investigated in this study, promises the farmers a return
from those areas of their land where crops are no longer profitable. The expansion
and commercialization of non-timber forest products has the potential to increase
the cash income of rural Uzbek households.
An aspect that remains unstudied is the degree to which this type of afforestation
effort can contribute, on a larger spatial scale, to carbon sequestration; however,
methane emissions from unfertilized poplar plantations as well as natural Tugai
vegetation are below the detection limit (Scheer et al. 2008). If carbon trading
benefits can be added to the benefits from non-timber forest products, this would
create a “win-win” situation from both an ecological and economic point of view
(Gintzburger et al. 2005a , b , c ;Khamzinaetal. 2006 ).