Research and development programmes sustainable management of arid and semi-arid lands and in combating desertification have been implemented in various regions of the world. In each of them, diverse approaches have been adopted which do not benefit as much as they could from the experiences and results obtained in other regions. The case of the countries of the Community of Independent States (CIS), which until 1989 made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), is representative of this: what has happened there in the management of arid and semi-arid zones and in the combat against desertification has remained until now little or unknown by specialists in these fields in other regions. As one of FAO's roles is to collect and diffuse information on agricultural and rural development and corresponding fields of research, and on the conservation of natural resources, it was therefore decided to undertake a bibliographic study of the work in this sector implemented by the countries of the CIS.
This study has been conceived and carried out within the framework of the Sub-group on Desertification of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Environment and Sustainable Development of FAO. It has been entrusted to Mr. Florian Plit, Professor of Geography at the University of Warsaw, who has been assisted by Mrs. Joanna Plit of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and by Mr. Wladyslaw Zakowski of the University of Warsaw. FAO would like to thank Mr. F. Plit and his collaborators for the quality of this work, which has been completed in a relatively short period of time considering the extent of information collected. Within FAO, Mr. Aleksander Kawalec, Senior Agricultural Officer at the Investment Centre, has been in charge of coordinating the study.
The mandate of this study was to investigate the principal institutions of CIS countries specializing in this field, and the work they do; to analyze available documents and select those which demonstrate the greatest methodological, technical, or socio-economic interest; and, for each of them, to prepare a bibliographic note including, among other things, a summary of the principal conclusions of the document. The work proceeded in three stages: collection and compilation of the documentation available in Warsaw on CIS institutions and their work; discussions with the personnel of the scientific institutions concerned in Moscow, Kiev and Alma Ata, and the collection of supplementary documents and information from these institutions; and, finally, drafting the summary and the bibliographic entries.
FAO hopes that this study best fulfills its designated objective, which is to usefully inform researchers and managers working in the fields of managing arid and semi-arid lands and combating desertification, of the experiences of their colleagues in CIS countries, so that they may benefit from them.
J.P. Lanly
Chairman
Desertification Group