Humans and Trees

It is an over­cast autumn day in western Kyrgyzstan. While it snowed overnight in the breath­tak­ingly high moun­tains, a gentle wind blows through the expan­sive walnut forests below the tree line in the valley of Arslanbob. Wilting leaves gently float to the ground while in the remark­able silence of the forest, you can constantly hear the walnuts drop into the leaves. Throughout the forest, chil­dren, adults, and entire fami­lies are gath­ering the valu­able nuts.

The Dosi­baev family sleep in tents in the forest high above the farm during the harvest period, so they do not have to walk the steep path into the forest every day. “I expect around three kilo­grams per tree this year,” reports farmer Bakirjon Dosi­baev, who is sitting on a carpet laid out on the forest floor. Around him, his family; his wife Oyaz­imhon, daughter-in-law, son Bekbolot, two workers, and grand­chil­dren are gath­ered together for lunch. Cheese, bread, squash and honey have been laid out, and hot tea is being served. The Muslim family speaks Uzbek, like many in the Arslanbob valley, named after a Persian from the 12th century who intro­duced Islam to the Central Asian high moun­tain region, which was later settled by numerous Uzbeks.

“Last year, the yield was consid­er­ably higher, more than 10kg per tree,” Bakirjon remarks, “but that’s the nature of things; it follows its own cycles.” He prefers to think and act in the long term, espe­cially as he has already estab­lished a long-term lease agree­ment with the appro­priate forestry authority for a total of 600 trees. Harvesting is not easy: Not all trees, some of which are already several hundred years old and rise over 20m into the sky, natu­rally shed their nuts. Bekbolot’s son must bravely climb up the trunk to the broad treetop and shake the mighty branches at height so that the valu­able fruits fall and can then be harvested. This job is not without risk, as it has resulted in casu­al­ties in some areas in the past.

WALNUT, HAY AND COWS

The Dosi­baev family pay an annual rent of 3,700 Kyrgyz som (£31.33) to the forestry authority for approx­i­mately three hectares of forest. They use their leased area, which is fenced, as pasture for their cows and to take one cut of hay per year. “Apart from the walnuts, our 10 cows are crucial for our family income,” empha­sises Bakirjon. The cows produce an average of about five litres of milk per day, which is mostly processed into sour-tasting milk balls and sold at local markets. The hay is trans­ported to the farm in the lower-lying village by the legendary Soviet SIL lorry.

But are there too many animals grazing in the walnut forest? “Well, in our case I think we main­tain a good balance between grazing and regen­er­a­tion of the forest floor. However, the popu­la­tion in Arslanbob has grown in recent years, which does exert some pres­sure on usage,” admits Bakirjon. The forest spans an area of 20,000ha, with 3,600ha being pure wild walnut forest – a unique scale world­wide. The forest is owned by the Kyrgyz state and is managed by its state forestry author­i­ties (Leschoz). “We have the task of preserving and further devel­oping our forest,” explains forest director Keneshbek Pinazarov in his office, which exudes a socialist aura. The Kyrgyz flag in the back­ground, the director’s desk, heavy wooden cabinet walls, and a sound­proof double door evoke the Soviet era.

THE ROLE OF FORESTRY AUTHORITIES

Currently, there are approx­i­mately 1,000 lease agree­ments with farmers, as reported by Keneshbek, who has been using a wheel­chair since he bravely confronted timber robbers in a brutal attack a few years ago. There are lease contracts over three terms: Five, 25 or 49 years. “If every­thing goes well after a five-year contract, fami­lies can choose whether they want to continue with a 25-year or 49-year lease,” explains Keneshbek. As head of the local forestry authority, he is respon­sible for a wide range of other util­i­sa­tion options along­side the walnut contracts. These include the harvesting of wild apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, sustain­able logging, fire­wood util­i­sa­tion, beekeeping, and grazing.

Although most farmers comply with the require­ments of the lease contracts, Keneshbek observes soberly that some lack aware­ness regarding sustain­able farming prac­tices. Some­times it’s also pure neces­sity. “We are there­fore endeav­ouring to demon­strate that the forest floor must not be exces­sively depleted, ensuring enough nutri­ents remain for the trees, and partic­u­larly the walnuts, to be adequately nour­ished.” Forestry office employees are fencing off small areas in several loca­tions within the forest to show everyone how quickly young trees can estab­lish them­selves without grazing.

The forestry authority in Arslanbob earns 6m som (£50,810) annu­ally from leases. And in good years, walnut farmers harvest thou­sands of tonnes of walnuts. According to forester Nias Kurman­bajev, in some years the harvest and subse­quent processing (drying, cracking, sorting, and oil pressing) account for up to half of their total annual revenue. “Without the walnut, nothing works here,” empha­sises Nias, standing in front of a tree nursery in the village of Gumhana, where pines, poplars, wild apples, wild cher­ries, and walnuts are culti­vated. He leaves no doubt that the walnut will continue to play a major socio-economic role in the moun­tain region where, surpris­ingly, so far there has been little tourism.

SOCIAL ECONOMIC IMPACT

While walnuts are dili­gently collected in the forests above the settle­ments in autumn, the nuts in their shells are then deliv­ered to fami­lies who specialise in cracking walnuts. In many court­yards, shielded from the street by iron gates and unren­dered walls, and in small work­shops, it is predom­i­nantly women who remove the nuts from their shells or crack them. This is not auto­mated, but by hand, one nut at a time. Many people use a small hammer, with which they gently crack the shell. This is care­fully done, because intact nuts, collo­qui­ally known as “beetles”, achieve the best price upon resale. As wild walnuts, which are also organ­i­cally certi­fied, they are in high demand, espe­cially in Europe. If the beetle is split into two halves, it is called a “butterfly”, simply because the outline resem­bles a moth. These butter­flies also achieve more than broken nuts; all broken nut pieces are clas­si­fied into a lower-priced cate­gory.

The nuts are mostly cracked by hand by women …

… but also in small manu­fac­to­ries.

A portion of this cate­gory is cold pressed into oil on-site, for example in the small mill belonging to the Kadirov family. In their grandfather’s time, a large mill­stone, which still stands in the same place, was moved by horse power, grinding mustard, apricot kernels, and flaxseed. For several years now, the Kadirovs have been prac­tising cold pressing with dried, predom­i­nantly broken walnuts using a small elec­tric mill, financed by the German Society for Inter­na­tional Co-oper­a­tion (GIZ). The family bottles around 2,000 litres of walnut oil, valued by gourmets world­wide, in 150-250ml bottles to sell at high prices in Kyrgyzstan, as well as to Japan and the US.

POST-SOCIALIST VACUUM

Ulti­mately, the produc­tion of walnut oil is an effort to generate new value in the region to main­tain the balance – in short – between humans and the envi­ron­ment. Kadyr­sultan Dooron­baev in the neigh­bouring valley of Kyzyl-Unkur demon­strates how well this can succeed. He and his family not only lease seven hectares of walnut forest, but they also operate their own wild plum drying busi­ness. More than 40 farmers harvest wild plums from the surrounding forests and deliver them to Kadyr­sultan. Freshly picked, this amounts to approx­i­mately 40t annu­ally, which reduces to 12t after drying. The devout Muslim exports his dried plums to neigh­bouring Uzbek­istan, where his product is incred­ibly popular.

Although the complex post-socialist trans­for­ma­tion is still incom­plete, the Kyrgyz state has now managed to some­what sustain­ably regu­late manage­ment of the walnut forests. The era has passed when, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a polit­ical vacuum emerged in which existing author­i­ties lost their power, and ruth­less oppor­tunists like timber raiders took advan­tage of the situ­a­tion by ille­gally cutting walnut wood, highly sought after world­wide, from the forests. While over­grazing in the unique walnut forest ecosystem continues in many areas, the problem has long been recog­nised: The forestry author­i­ties are attempting to address this by termi­nating the leases in such cases once they have reached their expiry date. Addi­tion­ally, cattle breeding focuses on ensuring that the cows of the future are better at converting feed than they are today, thereby indi­rectly drawing fewer nutri­ents from the forest soils.

The most famous Kyrgyz, the world-renowned writer Chingiz Aitmatov, who studied veteri­nary medi­cine and led the exper­i­mental farm of the Kyrgyz Research Insti­tute for Live­stock Breeding in the 1950s, also wrote on this topic. In his early poem “Am Gebirgspass,” he wrote: “Spirits of the moun­tains, be with us on our journey! We sit under the stars, horses flick their ears, sheep breathe against the cold stone …” Anyone wandering through the walnut forests of Arslanbob expe­ri­ences precisely what Aitmatov once wrote, although even the majestic moun­tains of Central Asia are not immune to climate change. This is shown by the melting glac­iers, which lead to water short­ages in the valleys during the summer months. “Spring arrives earlier here as well; summer is increas­ingly hotter, autumn arrives sooner, and winter, though cold, has less snow,” summarises forestry director Keneshbek. Never­the­less, he hopes that future gener­a­tions in Arslanbob will also be able to live off and with the walnuts.