Human pasture – a new reading in crisis conditions

By Sergey ABAKSHIN

Ones are eating to keep their lives. The others are starving with the same purpose

Evgeniy Kasheev

As far as social economical crisis growing up, Kazakhstani people begun to pay more attention to human pasture. This definition means not only wild fruits, berries and weed, but everything that can be getting out of shops and without certain crimes. Resources of such pasture in its wide understanding are distributed extremely irregularly all over the country, and it does have to struggle to get.

For the first time human pasture topic was actively raised after the fall of Soviet Union and its administrative-planned economy. Being without job, salary and pensions, people extensively applied everything that could be used as the source of their own survival.

It’s been particularly hard for esculent wild animals back in roaring 90’s. Numbers of saiga antilope, for example, lowered from 2 million until 24 thousand in the period of 1992—1999 – it’s almost 99 per cent. Poor animals were hunted with both smooth-barrel guns and Kalashnikov rifles, packing up it in lorries. In years of economical growth and as the result of putting things to kind of order in nature preserving sphere, population of saiga has increased to 80 thousand. But today there is a direct threat of a new powerful human pressure on population of these animals.

Fish sources suffered from such predatory handling not less than animals on hard surface. Precisely then the population of sturgeon fish were catastrophically damaged in Kazakhstani sector of Caspian region and Ural River. The story with sturgeons appeared to be much worse than with saiga. Established vertically back in 90’s, caviar mafia, specializing on illegal supply of black caviar, only strengthen in 00’s, which is witnessed by decreasing of sturgeon, beluga and starred sturgeon in places of its natural inhabitation.

In some aspects 90’s were good for the nature. For example, in water reserve near Temirtau city, because of stopping of many industrial plants and decrease of toxic damp, fish and cancer appeared again alternatively. But in whole natural landscapes experienceв powerful and long-term pressure from human, who moved to it looking for the food.

Extensive use of pasture in 90’s showed that it is situated all over the country territory extremely irregularly. In that period, wastelands with width of 400-600 km between Caspian territories and the rest of Kazakhstan were sharply formed. The state had no resources to support infrastructure on these unforgiving lands. People, been leaved to them, migrated to town of the West of the republic, and also in Almaty and Astana.

The situation with pasture was no less bad in such places like Ayaguz and small town of Central Kazakhstan. For the same Ayaguz a railroad was city-forming enterprise, and only those communities survived on the central territories, where metal ore mining for external market didn’t stopped.

The situation in Northern and Eastern Kazakh was completely different, because there were spring water sources, forests, and fish, mushrooms and berries with it. Precisely these districts pulled a part of people from those places, where jobless and salary-less had nothing to catch up.

Almaty metropolis had also pressed on close hill regions very seriously. Yet there were little bit better to find a job compared to the rest of Kazakhstan, but there were not enough money for all. If back in 90’s people were engaged with harvesting strawberry, apricots, apples, sea buckthorn, raspberry, mushrooms, than in the period of hunger years everything became useful: barberry, dogrose, hawthorn, pieplant and peavine. And pheasants were hunted even with slingshots.

Back in 90’s, a bursting growth of storefronts, where barbeque was prepared, was definitive in Almaty. And the best firewood for the brazier is saksaul wood, which is growing up in desert and half-desert location. In connection to solvent demand, saksaul trees in that period were predatory chopped on thousands of hectares; because of that, sands of Taukum and Saryesik-Atyrau started to move. An attack of sand in Moyinkum were also started, but there barbeque makers of Taraz and Shymkent were guilty.

Forest plantations along with Shymkent-Aktobe railroad, which were cultivated by decades, were almost completely chopped for a few years. And there were no options to blame common people, because there had essentially no other firewood back in those times; or they had no financial possibilities to buy coal or oil-fuel.

90’s had allowed a new vision on scrapmetal of both base and black metals. Knackers of copper, aluminum, brass, bronze and plumbum from China created such vast demand, that in Balkhash region, for example, almost all military structures containing valuable metals were disassembled. Tekely, city of metallurgy, had also quickly lost all extra bits of base metals. In soviet times some of its habitants afforded to make offences from copper plates or plated a route from house to toilet with aluminum sheets. But then, when they are awaked on one morning and find that all the luxury from crisis period has gone.

In 2009 the question of human pasture is hardened by problems of ownership relations. After enaction of land code in 2003, which allowed private property on lands of agricultural purposes, a Bacchanalia on privatization of any lands begun. There are people in Kazakhstan, who owning 200-700 hectares of land. Places that could be engaged from the point of pasture were too appropriated as a private property.

Even today some conflicts can’t be managed without conflicts; however, common conflict-generating potential will only grow up. People, chased by need, will go extensively to the mountains, forests, on lake shores and to pounds, and new-sprung owners will protect their resources. Let the strongest win in every certain case.

It is also worth to take into account – the base of pasture meet crisis of 00’s being very weakened comparing to what it had back in 90’s. The number of saiga, boars, mountain goats and wild rams are objectively lessened than in 1992. Many kolkhoz gardens, which were growing in that years, are partly chopped down for construction purposes and partly became non-useful because of the age and lack of needful care. The square of forests and bushes has also lessened. Ownerless base metals had been collected long ago. Alongside, the scale of further social-economical crisis, as its longevity so far, stays out of sight. And because of it, it is uncertain, how much pressure from human will be on pasture.