There are reasons why I am looking for funding to be able to research these topics.
I have one more pet project, which I will describe first. It is about the forestation of the Kyzylkum desert, which occupies 2/3 of Uzbekistan. Its territory is 300,000 sq km (the total territory of Uzbekistan is 447 sq km). The desert has rich ground water reserves that lie deep underneath. And only trees are able to bring them up gently. I studied the Kenyan experience of forestation and want to promote it for Uzbekistan.
The benefits of forestation are many:
1. Trees will bring the ground waters to the surface and turn this vast area into fertile land. 1/3 of Uzbekistan has endemic (local) trees and bushes that grow fast and multiply through seeds, shoots and roots. They thrive on dry and saline soil and have large root systems that are capable of pumping water for their survival. Fertile land resources will help the country to develop economically and to sustain its growing population.
2. All endemic trees of Uzbekistan are honey bearing trees and will help bees to survive. The cultivated gardens are not good enough for bees because they are treated with insecticides and chemical fertilizers. Wild trees do not bear fruit and will be an excellent protection and source of uncontaminated pollen for bees. Despite the general belief that bees live off flowers of small plants, they depend on trees much more. Of course, the problem of the bees is complex and there are many views, which still need more research and evidence. However, the growth of forests will definitely be good for the bees.
3. Forestation of the 300,000 sq km can strongly mitigate gas house gas CO2 emissions and stop dust storms entirely and make this vast area suitable for solar power plants. According to the Centre for Economic Research of Uzbekistan, the solar energy potential in Uzbekistan is equivalent to 51 billion tonnes of oil. It means that Uzbekistan will not only satisfy its own need for electricity but will be able to export electric energy abroad.
How to:
Every autumn a lot of tree planting materials are swept in the streets of Uzbekistan: seeds, leaves, twigs. More than 15 different varieties of trees and bushes: maple, hawthorn, honeysuckle, acacia, tugay plants, sagebrush, plane tree, oak, mulberry, chestnut, elm, maclura. Instead of burning or composting or throwing them into dumps, these planting materials will be turned into seedballs.
Every late spring there is at least 300 mm of precipitation in those deserts plus some precipitation at the end of the autumn.
There is a basic technology for the production of seedballs, which is used in Kenya and other parts of the world and which is not a secret.
Seedballs weigh 2 g. They are like raffaello candies with seeds in the centre covered with protective nutritious coal dust and dirt.
Seedballs will be dropped from the air.
Seedballs, which don’t grow in the first year, will grow the next year. The Kyzylkum desert is mostly covered with some vegetation and some of the seedballs of trees will be protected by the desert plants.
Although it takes many years for the forests to grow, it will only take a few seasons, or a couple of year to spread the seedballs across the area 500 km by 500 km. The nature itself will do the rest.
I have the necessary calculations and possible sources of finance. In fact, all of my projects will be researched and subsequently formulated as action programmes.
1 Seedball weighs 2 g *150 000 000 PCS = 300 tonnes
There are community based social enterprises that could produce seedballs and sell them for $0.02 (Kenyan seedball price)
I have been thinking about this idea for a while and its presentation is becoming more and more urgent especially due to the escalated Russian nuclear plant building project in Uzbekistan, which is extremely dangerous. They have chosen a location on a small very saline lake Tuzkan on the edge of a desert in the Jizzakh province, where temperature in summer gets as high as 60-70 degrees Celsius. During hot summers the lake shrinks as it doesn’t have a sustainable stable replenishment source. And although such temperatures are not reported officially, they truly exist. Our climate is sharply continental. We have extremely hot summers. And the country is double landlocked, which means it doesn’t have big water that would soften its dry air under the sun rays.
My other project briefs:
1) It is necessary to develop a solid analytical base to convince the governments and social partners of the economic value of human and individual rights and that when the law effectively protects individual rights it protects the generator of wealth in the society, be it a taxpayer, an entrepreneur, a businessman, a worker, a public servant, a consumer, etc. The famous Maslow pyramid and other classifications of needs are easily transformed into rights and can underpin needs-based and rights-based economic relations with a more active individual in the middle of it as a source of the needs and the rights for shaping up the supply and demand of services and goods.
There are many international human, labour and social rights standards. I can base my research on transition economies/countries, which I know best, former FSU, or Russia and Central Asia to be exact. The discourse on human rights has been politicised and there is a general feeling of distrust that they are used for political pressure while the agenda of the Western states and their ‘agent’ international organizations is to weaken and eliminate the ruling powers and get access to natural resources of the countries.
On the other hand, the real market economy and prosperity look unattainable and democracy has become a derogatory word. This leads to nostalgia for the old soviet times among people and to theories of cultural relativism of human rights among the ideologists of the ruling regimes.
Part of the problem is that the majority of these countries have certain natural resources, which distracts the leadership of the countries from the need for reforms and investment in people for short, medium and long-term prosperity.
I believe that there is a certain ‘break-even point’ of individual (and collective) rights whereby the human potential is unleashed and factored into wealth. I realize that oligarchic interests constitute the basis of political economy of these countries. However, the area of consensus clarifies when we speak about the economic value and ‘break even point’ of individual rights protection, below which the economy stagnates. It is a case for human rights-based economy.
2) The regional integration as an economic necessity and labour migration as a vehicle of such integration and cooperation. The countries in question, especially the destination countries (Kazakhstan for the region of Central Asia, but we can include RF as well) have serious demographic issues, which, among others, weaken the social security systems of the destination countries as the ratio of the working population to those who rely on public funds (pensioners, young mothers, disabled persons) is low. Taken separately, all of the Central Asia countries have fairly small populations not sufficient for the development of sustainable competitive economies. Migrant workers have competitive advantage at the expense of their rights. Thus, granting rights to migrant workers and all workers in the informal economy, means turning them into consumers, tax-payers, and gradually into other wealthgenerator roles.
This will strengthen the social security system, improve the worker/pensioner ratio and this will also help provide social security to all workers based on access to social insurance schemes. After all, social security is part of labour standards.
Some time ago I was really impressed by Hernando de Soto’s work ‘The Mystery of Capital’. The main concept of the book, when applied to migrant and other informal sector workers, leads to the idea that labour can be a capital, if the ILS (international labour standards) are regarded as a legal patent protecting an inalienable right to own one’s own labour and to derive wealth for oneself. In other words, labour is not a commodity (by the ILO definition), or it is a special commodity, the price of which includes the cost of FPRW and ILS. Otherwise this commodity will “stand up and overthrow” the existing order or in any case cause social distress detrimental to the economy.
Currently, we see that this transnational workforce, which is outside of the legal frameworks available to the nationals of the destination country, is eroding the legal frameworks of the receiving countries. Large groups of the economically active population whose rights have never been harmonised with international standards or even with the rights of the national workers have become marginalised. For instance, corruption that has been ‘practised a million times’ on migrant workers and their families has become mainstream, and Russia and Kazakhstan are experiencing rampant corruption and lawlessness more than ever before.
Equalizing the cost of employment for migrant and domestic workers, for formal and informal economy workers, providing access to social security through social insurance schemes and taxes will lift them off the informal economy and bring more balance to the labour market.
Due to visa-less border regime and income gaps between the neighbouring countries and existence of the relatively larger number of production cycles in the destination countries there is clearly a regional and not national labour market with well-established supply and demand for labour, which leads to the situation whereby labour is compelled to cross the borders. Therefore, there should be social security framework whereby the workers accumulate their pension and/or other benefits on the territory and in the economy of the destination country where the production cycle takes place and where workers return on a regular and consistent basis over many years.
The concept of the value of the consumer is extremely low. The government and oligarchs do not realise that they need workers to produce goods and they need consumers (the same workers) to buy goods. They are too engrossed in selling natural resources abroad.
3) The history of industrial relations is a history of the change of the status of workers through exercising their right and strengthening their capacity to organize. Before 1890’s the situation of American workers was the same as the situation of migrant workers from C.A. in RF and RK: they worked 12-14 hours for low wages and without occupational safety and health, child labour was normal, etc.
The governments of origin and destination countries always compromise and put other interests on top of the workers’ rights, their bargaining in fact reminds of the bargaining over labour force, which does not have a voice in this bargaining and such decisions or policies are never rights-based.
Thus, it is necessary to conduct a systemic study of the potential effect of migrant labour cooperatives in the origin and destination countries. This will help consolidate/develop the knowledge base for trade unions and migrant workers’ own associations, to develop recommendations for legal frameworks for their charter documents and manifestos
It will help improve the situation of migrant workers as an inalienable part of the labour resources of the destination country regulated by the same labour legislation as national workers with certain provisions. This will also help balance the labour market.
4) Such countries as Uzbekistan, rich in natural resources, take gas and oil from public consumption and sell them abroad. Millions of people suffer through cold winter periods, many old people and children die of cold, homes and offices barely survive because of power cuts or low power supply. To remedy the situation it is necessary to substantiate the need for community based alternative energy projects, such as solar batteries and wind generators, which could bring in change and gradual reform not only in the energy supply, but also in the economy and governance system, helping people to consolidate their effort and strengthen their capacity.
Green Light Deserts LTD 