Aleksey Gurkin

Journalism training in Kyrgyzstan is entirely based on Russian universities’ programmes and is outdated both in content and technically, said Aleksey Gurkin, chair of journalism and mass communications department at the American University in Central Asia (AUCA).

“In most cases the curriculum that is being used here is largely based on the curriculum being used in Russian universities. In the best scenario it will be the Moscow State University, and in the worst one of those peripheral universities in Russia. The problem is that the Russian style of journalism is very specific. And the people who develop curriculums are those who are followers of this specific model of journalism,” said Gurkin.  “A lot of materials and the way of teaching itself are outdated, because substantial resources are required to update the programmes continuously. And in our case we don’t have even our own learning materials”.  

The main problem with using the Russian curriculum and learning materials is that nobody tries to adapt them to local needs and even understand what is really needed. “We basically take Russian programmes and transplant them here, which is not always the best option. The best practices come from other countries and in this case it is Russia; however they need to be adapted to local needs and this is something that is missing. It plays a negative role in terms of how in tune we are with contemporary developments in the media world,” added Gurkin. 

According to Gurkin, Kyrgyz journalism still contains a lot of details borrowed from the Soviet school of journalism because it mostly copies the Russian way of doing journalism. “It is not appropriate at all. We are lagging behind current tendencies of journalism”. 

In AUCA teachers use an interdisciplinary approach; however they have to struggle with the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education which condemns them for not complying with state standards. As AUCA uses an American style of teaching journalism as opposed to state standards based on a Russian one, there is a reason for conflict. 

“We believe we are preparing students who are more adaptable to a modern media environment and a modern journalism profession”, said Gurkin. 

Lack of technical resources is another problem which affects the journalism teaching process. If, for example, students are interested in broadcast journalism they often have no opportunity to practice gained skills using modern video, editing or sound equipment.  “They often end up applying for jobs in the local TV channels and start to use equipment they have just seen for the first time in their lives,” added Gurkin. 

The lack of younger professionals also is a big issue for journalism departments in Kyrgyzstan. In the Kyrgyz National University, most of the teachers used to be journalists in the Soviet Times, more than 20 years ago. It affects enormously the quality of education, according to Gurkin. 

“When something happens in Kyrgyzstan foreign journalists come here and do things themselves rather than working with local journalists or commissioning to them to produce something. That is not because most of them don’t speak English or that some of them cannot produce material up to standard to be published by the foreign media. It is because they simply have no contacts abroad and are very local-oriented,” said Gurkin. 

Aleksey Gurkin also said how prestigious and popular among potential students the journalism profession is. If you are interested please listen to his short interview below. 

Aleksey Gurkin audio

Science in Kyrgyzstan will soon die, because of a corruptive system, lack of financial support and poor coverage of science, says Dmitry Milko, a scientist and member of the Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan.

The rush for fake degrees, and the corrupt schemes for obtaining them, has made Kyrgyz science be represented by people who do not know a school programme, according to Milko. “If you ask today’s people that have a doctorate in biology a question from elementary school, they will not know the answer because they bought their degree. Everyday I see white envelopes with money giving to people who can give you such a degree. It is a reason why the quantity of people with doctorates has raised more that three times since the collapse of the Soviet Union. One might think that it is because more people start to do science but it is a ridiculous suggestion”.

Coat of arms of the Soviet Union, after it collapsed the number of doctorate degrees increased rapidly.

Most of the scientists in Kyrgyzstan have come to a very elderly age. They used to do science 25-30 years ago, and now they do not read books and magazines, only rest on the laurels, Milko says. “Very old academics create a very bad image of science in Kyrgyzstan. People think we do nothing and can not even move. Science is perceived as something stagnant and regressive and even dying. Most of them only think about their children and grandchildren to obtain degrees thankful to their authority.” Also, today’s scientists often plagiarise the works of scientists made many years ago.

Another problem is the lack of financing of science. The laboratories of the Academy of Science in Kyrgyzstan have no electronic microscope. “We haven’t done scientific expeditions for a long time in our laboratories. Our library is so poor that we can not afford to subscribe to scientific journals. We used to read them with three-year delays. Our technical equipment is outdated. Most of the scientists in the country work only for their ideas, not for money. Here we are all enthusiasts who do whatever they can do working in such conditions”.

The journalists are also not interested in reporting on science, and if they do, it is usually very unprofessional, Milko says. “The journalists have no skills to adapt scientific language; they mostly use press releases and report on events rather than analysing results of research we’ve made. Scientists give approximately five interviews per year. They think science is boring, not interesting and not important for the public. The journalists also neglect provinces and focus only on the capital,” Milko added.

Kyrgyz journalists don’t cover climate change because of Russian propaganda, general disinterest and prohibitive expenses, said Nurzat Abdyrasulova, director of the civic environmental foundation UNISON.

“Last time, the most popular Russian TV channel showed a documentary that claimed that climate change is just speculation and a lie. After such programmes, many journalists in Kyrgyzstan become convinced that they should not pay attention to this problem and report on it,” Abdyrasulova said.

Poor environmental reporting in Kyrgyzstan is due in part by lack of interest. Image credit: neiljs on Flickr

“They also think that climate change is a product of fantasy from scientists. No journalist has deep knowledge about climate change,” she added.

Lack of interest is also suffocating climate change reporting. A seminar for local journalists organised by UNISON in the beginning of April, aiming to help them report on climate change, stimulated little interest.

“It was really hard to get journalists to take part in the three-day training, [even though] it was led by experienced journalists and scientists, was free-of-charge and even paid for provincial journalists [to come],” Abdyrasulova said. “After confirming their participation they didn’t come and we called them many times to remind them about the event, which was very disappointing.”

“Most environmental reporting is perfunctory, with no analysis of the situation at all. The journalists only use press releases… and never do investigation by themselves,” she added.

To support this opinion, Abdyrasulova mentioned that news on the Copenhagen summit didn’t appear in the media. “There was only one small news item about this event and it looked very weird in comparison with the volume of information presented by journalists in other parts of the world. I couldn’t understand such a silence from the local media.”

Another reason why other environmental issues are poorly covered by journalists is that the government’s policy towards the environment is: “Everything is ok with our environment. We have no factories. Manufacturing died after the Soviet Union’s collapse, so there is no pollution now,” in Abdyrasulova’s words.

The journalists also help the government create an illusion by ignoring environmental reporting,” she said. The other reason is that ecology as a subject is not taught properly in the schools or universities.

As an NGO leader, she also has problems communicating with journalists.

“Frankly speaking, I have never tried to build bridges with journalists. It is really hard to make them be interested in our job and publicise the environmental problems to attract attention from the public and government,” said Abdyrasulova. Last time she organised a press conference on the results of the Copenhagen summit, only two journalists came.

“It is very expensive today to attract media attention in Kyrgyzstan. If you want something to be published you should pay. Environment itself is not interesting to journalists, despite the fact that the public wants and should be informed about the quality of their lives and risks around them,” said Abdyrasulova.

For example, people don’t know about the dangers of old pesticides left by Soviet agricultural organisations. “There is evidence that use of this type of pesticide may cause cancer. But people are not aware of this risk and they not only use them themselves, but also sell them to other farmers,” she claimed.

An unstable political situation caused by two revolutions, one of which took place in 2005 and the other one just several weeks ago is one of the reasons why environment is not on the agenda.

The social and economic conditions of the people are the main topics covered by journalists. They are reluctant to cover environmental issues because the people living in extreme poverty cannot think about the environment, said Marat Tokoev, chairman of the Public Association Journalists (PAJ), a union for journalists.

Marat Tokoev

Because of small staff numbers and scanty earnings, journalists concentrate on producing analytical materials, news, and comments on all the topics without any limitations. This usually affects the quality of journalistic output, Tokoev added.

“There are two different types of environmental reporters: One of them doesn’t have a deep knowledge of the environment and the other one does but does not have the necessary journalistic skills for good reporting,” he said.

Kyrgyz journalists have a very narrow conception of what to report on. Most of the material is about pollution of Issyk Kul lake, toxic waste and domestic waste. Few of them write about global warming and land degradation.
“Poor quality of journalistic education became the talk of the town. There are no steps to improve it. Few journalism graduates want to pursue a career as a journalist. Those who came to the real world of journalism are retrained. Why should we discuss the environmental reporting that requires more specific knowledge, when journalists can not elementarily formulate their thoughts?” said Tokoev.

According to Tokoev, this occurred because the journalism schools still train students under the Soviet system, which is more theoretical than practical. Old standards do not stress the need for internships. Another problem is the absence of professional experience among professors who are mostly historians, linguists or people with a more cultural background. They never practice journalism themselves. There are about 20 universities in the country that train future journalists, but only two of them manage to do it in a proper way.

“Kyrgyz authorities think they will not benefit if journalists will report on environmental issues too. It will make people excited and angry that so many problems are not resolved and may affect their lives. The government has no money to mitigate environmental hazards and doesn’t want the people to know about them. That is why there is a big problem for journalists to get access to necessary information. There are hidden efforts not to let materials on environment appear in the media. Mass media is often intimidated not to publish materials on environment,” said Tokoev.

There is no environmental journalism in Kyrgyzstan, said Almaz Ismanov, an independent journalist based in the Kyrgyz town of Osh in the south of the country. According to him, there are only occasional publications about environment, which usually occur within contests or “green” projects funded by international donors.

In Kyrgyzstan, political journalism is a priority. The remaining areas of journalism- including environmental, business reporting and reporting on social issues- are not popular, said Ismanov. The reason is that only political coverage, according to most newspaper editors, makes their newspaper popular amongst the people. Environmental reporting does not promote better sales of newspapers because it is not interesting for the readers. It is only interesting when some ecological disaster happens, he added.

Almaz Ismanov

The second reason is that Kyrgyz society and authorities are certain that there are no serious environmental challenges in the country.

“In Kyrgyzstan, we think we live in a paradise, where environment is not an issue at all. This idea is supported with the promotion of different tourism projects. Nobody really cares about the environment,” Ismanov said.

The lack of access to information and experts on environment, as well as the loose or nonexistant ties between journalists and not-for-profit organisations, are also problems.

There is also the problem of the unwillingness of editors to include the environmental coverage to their editorial agenda. “In my experience, there was a case when I was preparing an article about genetically modified foods and was not able to find the necessary information,” said Ismanov.

To promote better coverage of the environment, there is a need for large-scale information campaigns to attract the attention of journalists and the general public to environmental problems. It is also important to extensively train journalists.

One of the biggest obstacles is funding. “Once I wanted to conduct a serious investigation on uranium waste, but didn’t find the financial support to allow myself to focus on it without doing other jobs. So I only did a few interviews. Unfortunately, media owners today are not ready to sponsor investigative projects on environmental issues.

Environmental issues are closely intertwined with political ones. This means that without the permission of authorities, it is very difficult to cover the problems.

“For example in Naryn and Jalal-Abad regions of the country, Chinese mining companies destroy local ecosystems. But because of the lack of access to information and restrictions on publishing, it is not possible to cover the issue. The situation is the same with nature reserves. Nobody knows about them.”

Environmental journalism in Kyrgystan is being held back by a lack of knowledge amongst the writers themselves, according to a leading Kyrgyz environmentalist.

Indira Zhakipova, co-ordinator of EKOIS (the Kyrgyz network of environmental non-governmental organisations and experts), described local journalists’ knowledge as ‘primitive’ and said that they were failing to build contacts with experts in the field. She added that a lack both of analysis and regular coverage of environmental issues had led to reporting that was both ‘boring’ and poorly informed.

Kyrgyzstan's Issyk Kul lake

Lack of funding is another problem. “Everyone knows about climate change now because people spent a lot of money publicising it, and international donors started to support projects. In Kyrgyzstan we have already had three seminars,” says Zhakipova. But this means international donors are setting the agenda on what should be covered by the press.

There is also a perception that social and political issues are more important. “Writers tend to prejudge what is news. A factory closing, a corruption scandal is news – while we just get used to living with the catastrophe that is our environment, but that has to change,” says Zhakipova. Intriguingly, such change could come by default. The physical danger for journalists writing about social and political issues in Kyrgystan may prompt them to focus more on writing about the environment.

And fashions change too. “I’m sure that environmental reporting will be more popular amongst journalists because it becomes more fashionable to write about. It will be also funded by donors and it is in fact safe to report on,” she said. The impetus is there from non-governmental organisations in Kyrgyzstan. They are putting an enormous amount of energy into attracting journalists’ attention towards environmental issues, but the results are often frustrating. And as Zhakipova points out, there’s no shortage of material for writers to tackle.

“First of all we should start to get people’s attention to sanitation. When I visited our provinces I was amazed how poor sanitary conditions were for people living there. I got the impression that time stopped somewhere in the 1980s, was everything so decrepit there. The main problem is lack of water”, added Zhakipova. Water, though, is just the start.

The pollution of Issyk Kul, a lake which the government plans to exploit for tourism; despoliation by the gold mining industry; climate change; toxic waste; land degradation. These are just a few items on a long list, claims Zhakipova. “The government totally ignores environmental problems, it is too busy with social and political issues, so it has no time or manpower for dealing with the environment.”

On 1 January, Kazakhstan became the first ex-Soviet state to chair the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE. This is the world’s largest regional security organisation, and chairing it is a significant milestone in the country’s post-Communist history.

It is speculated that Kazakhstan will be able to increase the OSCE’s role in Central Asia and provide a forum to overcome regional problems. However Annette Bohr, associate fellow for the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, argued that Kazakhstan has its own agenda. She spoke to Gulnura Toralieva about Kazakhstan’s role as the OSCE chair.

Annette Bohr. Photo credit: Chatham House

The prime minister of Kyrgyzstan has asked for international help to tackle toxic waste as a local ecologist warned that the country faces “a radioactive catastrophe”. But a UN official argued that to get action the country needs to develop joint proposals with other Central Asian governments.

Premier Igor Chudinov, speaking about global climate change at the UN General Assembly in New York, spoke about three challenges facing the country. With 92 hazardous waste dumps holding 475 million tons of radioactive waste and other toxic substances, even the most urgent cleanup measures would cost up to $40 million, money which the debt-laden nation doesn’t have. In addition, Kyrgyzstan is seeking investment money for sustainable development of the country’s infrastructure.

Indira Jakipova, editor of Ekois, the Ecological Information Service for Kyrgyzstan, said that there is a risk of huge radioactive catastrophe in the region, exacerbated by frequent heavy rainfall and landslides caused by climate change. “The consequences of radioactive waste can be fatal for many millions of people. The rehabilitation is a very expensive process. That is why Kyrgyzstan needs support from international financial institutions.”

Mr Chudinov said that “the world community must more actively use foreign debt swapping for sustainable development”. But Jyrgalbek Ukashev, coordinator of the UN project Enhancing Coordination for Disaster Response in the Kyrgyz Republic said that for his plea to be heard, the Kyrgyz Government must build up effective project proposals jointly with other Central Asian states’ governments”.

Central Asia’s governments and civil society did not encourage climate-change discussions ahead of the Copenhagen summit in December, argues Cleo Paskal, associate fellow at the .

Gulnura Toralieva (GT): Why isn’t climate change on the agenda of developing countries and the Central Asian region in particular?

Cleo Paskal (CP): Climate change was presented by the developed world to the developing world. They’ve projected their own problems on to developing countries without really understanding what issues have importance for people in places like Central Asia. If you talk with somebody in Central Asia about climate change it doesn’t really make much sense. But if you talk with them about agriculture or water security then they understand clearly what the problems could be.

GT: Who should care about climate change and its environmental impact? Is it a problem of developed countries or the developing world?

CP: Central Asia has a long experience of environmental change. The Aral Sea is a good example, where man-made messing up of the environment has had severe environmental consequences. Climate change is a component of environmental change. You cannot address climate change alone without addressing other environmental problems. They all interconnect. This is the first thing. Then there is a question about how you handle climate change. It can be handled in two stages. You can mitigate it, to stop it from accelerating, or you can adapt to it. In most cases, people talk about mitigation and adaptation.

In the case of Central Asia, it is clear that not a lot of mitigation can be done. That economy has already been stretched thin. They have large existing industrial challenges left over from Soviet period. More critical issues for Central Asia are things like radioactive tailings and electrical and water systems. Those need to be dealt with. And if you deal with those they will help with adaptation to climate change.

Adaptation was predominantly developed in the developing world. The developing countries have had to adapt to environmental assaults for a long time. The science of adaptation is advanced in the developing world. The developed world has a lot to learn from developing countries when it comes to adaptation and the developing world really needs to start mitigation.

GT: What are the major social, political and economic implications of climate change on developing countries’ security?

CP: The developing countries are not one country. Each country has its own challenges and each region of each country has its own challenges. And that is the problem with environmental change, that it is not one problem it is a million problems. If you are in a coastal area, the problem could be flooding, it could be salt water getting into your fresh water system. If you in a dry area or desert area, it could be even dryer or you could get dust storms. If you are in mountain regions, it could be erosion or glacier melting.

So there may be many different sorts of problems and it will take many different sorts of solutions. And I would encourage people in the developing world who have found local solutions – and there are some good local solutions – to build bridges to other developing-world countries to see what you could learn from each other. Often the solutions found in the developing world are inexpensive, low-tech, and efficient. And those are the sorts of things which will be needed globally but can be developed, implemented and expanded through the developing world quite easily right now.

GT: Kyrgyzstan, the country I’m from, has serious environmental problems such as huge toxic waste dumps caused by radioactive production. As most of the uranium tailing sites are located in densely populated and natural disaster-prone areas of Central Asia’s largest river basins, they represent a major potential risk to the region’s water supply and the health of millions of people.

The problem is exacerbated by landslides caused by frequent rainfall near uranium dumps. If it is a consequence of climate change, what can you suggest we do to mitigate the negative impacts or to prevent the catastrophe?

CP: What you are talking about is a serious issue and gets even worse because Kyrgyzstan is also in an active seismic zone and there is evidence that as glacier melting takes weight off certain areas and puts it on others that can create more seismic movements. Heavy precipitation can also get into fissures and cracks and create a build up of pressure and create more seismicity.

In many different ways, climate change can exacerbate existing problems. The first step is to understand the problem, to do a really good, ground-level survey of what existing waste dumps there are, for example, and what the likely climate change projected for the region will be. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, you have a good survey from the Soviet administration, have good scientists domestically and there are good Russian scientists who were in the country but who have left. I would encourage building bridges with all the scientists who have left to try to make sure you have all the accurate data available. Files may have disappeared; they may have gone to Moscow.

You really need to know what has happened in your country in order to figure out how to move forward in a sustainable and safe way. In science, people tend to work in their own areas. So the people who work in radioactive tailings may or may not have spoken to people working in climate change or in hydrology or whatever.

GT: In one of your publications you said that climate change may affect the stability and security of some regions. It may even have negative impact on the security of the most stable regions. What can you say about the Central Asian region?

CP: It is a funny thing that people talk about Central Asia as if it is one homogenous country with one homogenous environment. As you know, there are many different people and there are many environmental situations. Some countries have a lot of water, some countries have no water. Some countries are close to Afghanistan, some are close to China. It is not one country.

So the challenges will be different. There are commonalities obviously, but when you look at environmental change, the impact is so regional that you must understand what has happened locally.

The other thing about Central Asia is its neighbours. The countries that are neighbouring China will start to get – and already have in fact seen – an increased influence from China. China has severe environmental problems. It hasn’t got enough water or food for its own population. So it will look to Siberia or appropriate countries in Central Asia to secure food and possibly water supplies. When China goes into a country, it is likely to want to ensure a degree of political control. That can affect your security situation.

Environmental change may also affect the security situation at a basic level if there is not enough food and water for the local population. There are potential areas where security can be compromised. We used to think about Central Asia firstly as a part of the Soviet Union but it is really an important component of global balance that is focused in a volatile area with Afghanistan, Russia and China and, to a certain degree, India also.

GT: What can Central Asian countries and Kyrgyzstan in particular address at the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December?

CP: Kyrgyzstan hasn’t got an accurate understanding of its own problems and figuring out what it needs to address those problems and to ensure that those needs are met is important. It is in the interest of the developed world for the developing world to be as stable as possible. And if the developing world can clearly state “This is what we need” then that will be helpful to create global stability.

GT: The Central Asian states have many disagreements on energy and water sharing issues. The Soviet energy system united all five regional states, but doesn’t suit the interests of all these countries. Upstream and downstream countries always have room for being dissatisfied with each other’s policy.

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan said recently that they are going to leave the Soviet-made system. Most of the countries work on developing their own energy systems and finding ways to be independent. But it is expensive and in some ways not possible. What is your view of this problem? What kind of implications does this situation have on regional stability?

CP: It is a serious problem. There are many serious problems. When the Soviet Union fell apart, it left Central Asia with three legacies, with three different problems which made unification or regional stability a little difficult.

One is that the infrastructure was designed for a whole – not just for a regional whole but a pan-Soviet whole. So the physical infrastructure was designed to be able to enforce co-operation even if it really doesn’t make sense.

The legal infrastructure has a similar problem. And the most obvious example is the borders, which divide tribes and language groups. The inherited legal infrastructure can cause problems when it comes to water- and power-sharing agreements.

Third is that Central Asian countries start to get real cultural polarisation and social fragmentation and then it becomes difficult to get over and it makes all the things more difficult. There is no feeling that you are all together. That’s why countries might think “Why should I deal with this country, if I have nothing in common with it except ancient history? Why can’t I deal with China or Russia instead?” Social cohesion comes first. If social cohesion starts to break apart, all the relations become difficult.

The existing system has some serious problems. It is old; it hasn’t been properly maintained and it was designed for a different environment. When you build such constructions you make environmental assessments: how much water is in the rivers, how much rainfall and so on and you look to the last 50 or 100 years to make these calculations. Those calculations no longer mean anything. The next 50 to 100 years will probably be very different from previous decades. That hydro installation you built which made perfect sense in 1980 may already make no sense today because of increased sedimentation, changing precipitation or glacier runoff.

The existing infrastructure you have may be severely affected by the environment. That old-build infrastructure may in no way be suitable to the new environment. The question is, in designing the new infrastructure, are they taking into account environmental change. Or are they designing it in the same way as they always design it. I suspect they don’t take environmental change into account. I’m not sure that this infrastructure will be able to deliver. It is important to take into account environmental change for both new and old infrastructure.