The story of Ruzigul Safarova, the only female head of a regional environmental department. She worked for 35 years protecting nature and was recently fired.
According to the annual ranking of the Yuksalish movement, the percentage of women in leadership positions in Uzbekistan is 33 per cent. Currently, the share of women in the republic’s political parties has reached 47 per cent, in higher education – 48, and in business – 37.
According to the researchers, this is evidence of ‘an increase in the role and status of women in the social and political life’ of the country.
Meanwhile, not everywhere and not always women leaders are supported locally.
For example, these indicators cannot be boasted in the field of ecology.
Having analyzed the website of the Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change, it was found out that there are currently 5 women in senior positions in the Ministry. And in regional departments of ecology, environmental protection and climate change, heads of specially protected natural territories of SPNTs and forestry departments there are no women leaders.
Meanwhile, it has been observed that when women focus on solving environmental problems, poaching decreases, the balance is restored, and the number of animals increases. Because a woman is naturally inclined to protect her family, her children, her home. She does not carry a gun and does not hunt. On the contrary, she cares for and tries to feed baby animals left without a mother, plants flowers both in her house and in the street.
There are many examples around the world of women who are determined to protect nature and are successful in doing so. For example, in neighboring Kazakhstan, Zauresh Alimbetova, who worked as head of the Borsa-Kelmas Nature Reserve, during her leadership, the flora and fauna of the reserve was significantly restored, and the poaching situation dropped dramatically. There are many similar examples in Russia, Canada and in European countries.
In Uzbekistan, there are also women leaders who have achieved excellent results in a responsible and difficult sphere where not every man can take over.
Ruzigul Tukhtaevna Safarova, the only woman leader in the ecology network who has worked for 35 years, is one of such women leaders. For four years, she performed a responsible and, at times, even dangerous job as head of the Surkhandarya Oblast Ecology Department.
‘If a person wants, nothing can stand in his way. Since childhood, my father taught us to ride horses, so I could easily ride a horse. This is very important for an ecologist, because when offences were reported, I checked everything personally. … Once at a meeting the head of the department warned me that it was not a woman’s job. But I insisted on my own and told him that after defending my thesis I wanted to be the head of the Department of Ecology of Surkhandarya province. Years passed. My dream came true. When the head of the Ecology Committee, Khalilullo Sherembetov, signed the order on my appointment as head of the Surkhandarya Region Department, I had an 8-month-old baby in my arms. Since 2001, I have been working as the head of the regional ecology’.
During the 35 years that Ruzigul Safarova devoted to fighting the consequences of environmental disasters, she repeatedly faced both the hatred of environmental criminals and the gratitude of nature lovers.
Safarova was one of the first to propose effective measures to combat dust storms, popularly known as ‘Afghans’. The idea was to plant saxaul saplings in the Kattakum desert massif connecting the Termez, Angora and Jarkurgan districts of Surkhandarya Oblast, which borders Afghanistan.
‘As a result of good work, 200 thousand saplings were planted on 20 thousand hectares of land of Kattakum massif, about 100 tons of saxaul seeds were sown. In addition, forest groves have been created on the border territory of Termez district with the neighboring country of Afghanistan to reduce the impact of sandstorms,’ Ruzigul said, modestly omitting the fact that all these actions were initiated by herself.
Last summer, on the initiative of Ruzigul Safarova, a complete stop was made to the illegal extraction of the medicinal plant ferula [Listed in the Red Book. Protected by law. Editor’s note] in the Bobotog mountain massif.
During large-scale control measures initiated by Safarova, more than 10 criminal cases related to illegal extraction of ferula juice were initiated. More than 11 environmental offenders were arrested. As a result, illegal extraction of ferula juice has now virtually stopped in Surkhandarya province.
Last autumn, she proposed planting saxaul on Afghan territory as well.
‘The Ministry rejected my proposal, then I told the regional khokim about it. He brought the idea to the Afghan leaders, and they agreed. The dust storm, called ‘Afghan wind’ in our country, annually causes great damage to agriculture and harms the health of Surkhandarya residents. It can be minimized only by planting trees in its path on both sides. This would be beneficial to both countries,’ she said.
Ruzigul’s fellow residents and co-workers hold her in high esteem for her courage and concern.
Shahida Oripova, one of the women leaders who occupy an important place in Surkhandarya Oblast’s social and political life, said that with Ruzigul’s arrival as head of the department, many people in the oblast have reconsidered their attitude to nature.
‘From the day she came to work, she started opening people’s eyes, especially leaders, to the environmental situation. In short, she explained the culture of ecology to big and small leaders of the region. It was not easy,’ she says.
As someone who knows Ruzigul Safarova well, Oripova notes, over the years this woman has been able to convey to every person, from 7 to 70 years old, that they are part of the environment, and that if the environment is not healthy, it will cause a crisis in their lives.
‘It became easier for us to work, crime started to decrease dramatically. She has always emphasized that the goal is not to reach a high crime detection rate, but to learn how to prevent it. Even if at the republican level they demanded only one indicator – the number of fines – she always emphasized that our goal was not to increase fines and estimate the indicator, but to prevent the number of offences,’ Oripova said.
According to Shokhida, it was with Safarova’s arrival that both leaders at various levels and ordinary people in the oblast began to realize that there was an organization called Ecology, headed by a passionate defender of nature.
Why was Ruzigul Safarova fired?
Unfortunately, Ruzigul Safarova was recently dismissed from her position. The press service of Surkhandarya Hokimiyat reported that Ruzigul Safarova resigned at her own will.
But Ruzigul Safarova, who worries and cares about the deteriorating ecology, did not do it of her own free will.
According to CABAR.asia sources, on 27 June this year, the heads of each regional agency were summoned to the Environment Ministry to present a six-month report on their work to Ecology, Environment Protection and Climate Change Minister Aziz Abduhakimov.
The Uzbek Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change reported that the heads of six regional environmental departments were dismissed because their contracts had ‘expired’. However, they have all since been rehired. Except for one woman, Ruzigul Safarova, who was forced to leave her job by writing a statement ‘at her own request’.
‘When the labor contract of many heads of regional environmental departments, including mine, expired recently, everyone was hired back, except me. The Minister of Ecology told me to write a statement of my own volition, he didn’t like my harsh statements,’ she said.
She said that she has realized over the years since the creation of the Committee for Nature Protection that nature does not need PR, it needs protection.
‘Unfortunately, ministry officials care little about this. As a person who has worked in ecology all her life and knows ecological problems, I want to say that we need to urgently change our approach to environmental protection,’ she says.
Today, springs in the mountains are drying up, forests are drying up because of a lack of water, and water bodies, planted as part of the nationwide Yashil Makon (Green Space) movement, are drying up because of neglect and poor watering. To solve all these problems, we need to conduct scientific research, pinpoint the problems and take a scientific approach to solving them, she emphasized.
Safarova also noted such important problems in the environmental sphere as the lack of qualified personnel and small salaries of employees in the regions.
‘Another very painful issue is the personnel issue. Now there are almost no environmentalists left in managerial positions who understand the scale of environmental problems. The situation is the same in the ministry. Environmental inspectors work for a pittance. At the same time, even the monthly salary of an ordinary official in the ministry is twice as much as that of the head of the regional Department of Ecology in the region,’ she said.
She also said that now eco-inspectors have been turned into collectors of fines, but it is not clear what this money is spent on.
‘Where is this money? How much of the Fund is spent on environmental conservation? Nobody knows because there is no transparency in this case. Huge funds are spent on festivals, other PR events, while the issues of environmental protection are becoming more and more acute,’ Safarova says.
At work. Photo from personal archive
‘Every year, environmentalists are given the responsibility of planting saplings as part of the Yashil Makon project. Let’s not plant a million trees, let’s plant a few thousand, but on the condition that we take care and look after them for three years. Do you think that in 10 years the wastelands of Uzbekistan will be pleasing to the eye with forest strips?’ she said.
Shokhida Oripova, a public activist in Surkhandarya Oblast, said Safarova hindered some officials with her concern for environmental problems and her courage, sometimes bordering on harshness, when she defended her position.
‘She wouldn’t do tasks she thought were wrong, whether it was the ministry or the authorities… That’s why they didn’t like her. So, they removed her from the system,’ Oripova said.
Surkhandarya residents consider Ruzigul Safarova a strong-willed person who stood her ground even when she faced blatant injustice and betrayal.
Ruzigul said that last year, together with her 20 inspectors, they conducted a raid in the Bobotagh forest area.
‘They opened 13 criminal cases on poachers. That was a sensation. I thought I would at least be thanked for my hard and dangerous work, but to my surprise they opened a criminal case against me as an accessory to a crime. But then it turned out that it was a mistake, and they apologized. The criminal case was closed,’ she said.
Ruzigul said it was a blow to her because it reminded her of another injustice done to her.
In 2010, she was unfairly accused of a number of offences she allegedly committed while chairing the Surkhandara Nature Protection Committee between 2001 and 2010.
‘On 21 December 2010, the Surkhandarya Regional Criminal Court passed a verdict, and I was jailed for 7 years. But on 26 February 2020, the Kashkadarya Regional Court reviewed the case. I proved that I was innocent but was a victim of slander,’ she said.
Ruzigul Safarova was reinstated to her former position on 11 November 2021 because of the absence of a crime in the case. She again became the head of Surkhandarya Regional Department of Ecology.
‘During the years of work given to nature protection I have never once received a commendation from the Ministry, not even the badge ‘Defender of Nature’. Last year even those who have nothing to do with nature protection received it,’ says Safarova.
Many of Safarova’s employees and subordinates are disappointed by her dismissal. They note with regret that during her years in charge, Ruzigul had a cohesive team and ‘a real system … and now everything has started to fall apart’.
Many of them, fearing to be fired, did not want to advertise, but spoke out in defense of the female leader, believing she was removed from her position because of her uncompromising nature.
‘Two years ago, I met Ruzigul for the first time and seeing her determination and passion for conservation, I thought that if our nature was in the hands of people like her, there wouldn’t be half of the current environmental problems,’ said one of her associates.
‘Whether it was assignments from the leadership from the center or the region, she would not carry them out if she thought they were wrong. In short, a kind leader, a kind mother…’
‘In my opinion, a real system has been established in two and a half years, and frankly, I don’t understand such changes when it comes to work. In our opinion, in this situation, the ministry should give specific explanations,’ says one of our colleagues about the situation with the dismissal of Ruzigul Safarova.
Mukarram Karimjonova, an honorable ecologist in Surkhandarya province, believes that first of all, some people did not like the fact that Ruzigul Safarova, the only female leader in the system, who is popular with the people and members of the public, stands up for the truth in any difficult situation, raises problems in the system and says it without fear.
‘They used all kinds of pressures and tricks and finally achieved their goals. The dedicated leader not only refused to change not only her position, but defended the trees she planted, the gardens she created, all the flora and fauna she cares for with all her soul. But they forced her to leave,’ Mukarram Karimjonova said.
Although Ruzigul Safarova has been removed from her post today, she will not abandon her status as a nature defender, she said.
‘There are still many tasks in life to fulfil. Life is not always smooth – it’s like a pattern. Sometimes calm, sometimes violent. Sometimes a hurricane or a storm that breaks can throw a person off their chosen path. The world has witnessed the distortion of truth many times, but in the end it will still win out,’ she says.
https://cabar.asia/en/women-and-the-environment-why-are-their-contributions-underestimated-in-uzbekistan
