06.11.2026

15.2.1. Events about sustainable use of land

Bukhara State University’s 2025 public record brings together scientific discussion of dryland ecosystems, community environmental participation and practical campus greening. These are complementary forms of engagement: a conference communicates knowledge; a clean-up provides a practical opportunity to act; and a planting event connects environmental awareness with a specific university site.

Scientific exchange on desert–oasis ecosystems

The university hosted the international conference “Desert–Oasis Ecosystems under Climate Change: Problems and Solutions”. Its proceedings are dated 5–6 June 2025, while the university’s event account was published on 13 June. Partners included the higher-education ministry, the regional environmental authority, Green University, Kazan Federal University and Omsk State Pedagogical University. The account records presentations on environmental protection under changing climatic conditions. [S04–S05]

The event’s focus is directly relevant to the methodology’s reference to wild land: it concerns an ecological system rather than only the appearance of university grounds. The published proceedings also make the intellectual content traceable beyond the announcement. The sources establish the event and its subject; they do not supply a consolidated attendance figure.

Practical participation and continuity

The 2025 activities described under 15.2.3 and 15.3.5 add practical land stewardship to the scientific programme. They include planting at the new teaching-building site and a joint neighbourhood clean-up. The chronology below separates an event date documented in proceedings from the publication date of a retrospective news item.

2025 event record

Sustainable land-use conference

Figure 1. A session of the international conference on desert–oasis ecosystems under climate change.

15.2.2. Sustainably farmed food on campus

Institutional food-sourcing commitments

The institution-supplied previous report records adoption of the Ethical Sourcing Policy for Food and Supplies and reproduces its sustainability principles. These give preference to environmentally responsible suppliers, locally sourced or organic products, and production with a low impact on ecosystems. They also address recyclable or biodegradable packaging and renewable or energy-efficient resources. These are the specific food-and-supply commitments carried into this report as the documented institutional policy background.

The policy connects the university’s purchasing decisions with land management outside its campuses. The relevant distinction is between buying a food product and considering how it has been produced. For this criterion, sustainable farming concerns the production stage; local origin and recyclable packaging can support that approach, but neither is independently proof that every purchased product is sustainably farmed.

Policy provisions and their relevance to campus food

15.2.3. Maintain and extend current ecosystems’ biodiversity

Field engagement with animal conservation

The university’s official 2025 channel reports an operating branch of the Ecology and Geography Department at the specialised Jayron nursery. Its account describes student fieldwork, ecological monitoring, research and discussion of projects protecting rare fauna. This establishes a practical university presence in a conservation setting, rather than only a general expression of support. The channel record does not publish a 2025 species-by-species census or a quantified population increase attributable to the university.

Recorded work on the university’s planted environment

A separate university announcement of 30 November 2025 reports planting at the new teaching-building site. The quantities are reproduced below using the plant names in the original publication; these names are not converted into unverified scientific identifications.

Trees reported planted at the new teaching-building site

The total is calculated as 20 + 1,000 + 105 + 250 = 1,375. It is a planting count, not a count of surviving trees at year-end, a native-species inventory or a carbon-removal estimate. The source also describes renewed irrigation and provision for subsequent maintenance.

Contribution and interpretation

Together, the field partnership and planting record show two distinct forms of direct work: engagement with a wildlife conservation setting and management of vegetation on university-associated land. Their ecological outcomes should remain distinct. A managed landscape can provide additional vegetation while a conservation nursery supports different objectives, including the protection of rare fauna. Neither activity is converted into an unsupported overall “biodiversity growth” percentage.

The previous report’s examples of Varnet greenhouse cultivation and fish production are retained as historical context only. Introducing a crop or a cultivated fish species does not automatically restore an existing natural ecosystem. The 2025 account therefore focuses on documented field engagement and planted-site work, without presenting earlier greenhouse or aquaculture descriptions as new conservation outcomes.

Planting at the new teaching-building site

Figure 2. Participants planting a tree at the university’s new teaching-building site under the “Yashil makon” initiative.

15.2.4. Educational programmes on ecosystems

Zoological Museum as a community learning resource

The university’s Zoological Museum profile, dated 13 March 2025, describes the use of its collections in zoology, biodiversity and zoogeography teaching and states that schoolchildren from the city and districts visit regularly to reinforce their biology learning. The collections introduce visitors to fauna from Uzbekistan and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. This is the clearest reviewed institutional description of a continuing wildlife-oriented educational resource reaching learners outside the university.

For methodological purposes, the school visits are important because they identify an external audience and a biological subject. The museum’s academic use and community use can be distinguished without assuming that all its activities are public courses. A profile describing regular visits also differs from a dated attendance register: it supports the existence of outreach but does not provide a total number of visitors during 2025.

Environmental learning beyond the campus

A university account published on 5 December 2025 describes an “Eco-photography” competition at Bukhara Tax Technical College, initiated by an Ecology and Geography Department academic. Thirty college learners presented photographs addressing nature, environmental problems and possible responses. The event formed part of an Environmental Responsibility Week. It is reported here as environmental awareness outreach, alongside rather than as a replacement for the museum’s more specific fauna education.

Educational provision and audience

The previous report’s 16 April 2024 Kyzylkum excursion demonstrates earlier field-based teaching, but it involved university students and lies outside the reporting year. It is therefore not substituted for 2025 community provision.

The reviewed 2025 descriptions do not state admission charges, fee waivers or a formal free-access condition. Consequently, this report records the documented audiences and educational content without claiming the methodology’s free-access distinction or an annual community reach beyond the published figures.

PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION · 15.2.4

Wildlife collections and environmental learning

Figure 3. Zoological Museum collections

Figure 4. Learners engaged in environmental awareness work at Bukhara Tax Technical College.

15.2.5. Sustainable management of land for agriculture (educational outreach)

A dated university–district agricultural initiative

The Bukhara Regional Administration reports that a seminar-training took place at the university’s Natural Sciences and Agrobiotechnology Faculty in Rabotiqalmoq mahalla on 3 February 2025. University academics and public-sector representatives discussed support for household plots and dehqan farming, including seed and seedling quality, fertilisers and agrotechnical services. The account also records a cooperation memorandum between the university and district administration concerning productive cultivation on household and farming land.

The event offers a concrete 2025 example of academic knowledge being connected with community land use. Its documented route is institutional cooperation directed towards household growers. The source names participating officials and academics, but does not provide a beneficiary attendance register, a farm-by-farm service log or a fee schedule. The memorandum is therefore reported as an organisational outcome, not as proof that every household in the district received training.

Agronomic content and sustainability interpretation

The seminar discussed cropping techniques capable of multiple harvests. This was a subject of technical discussion, not a university-measured yield outcome. Productive use of existing plots can be relevant to land-use efficiency; however, high output alone does not establish sustainable water use, balanced nutrient application or maintenance of soil quality. The report preserves this distinction when interpreting the event against 15.2.5.

The earlier institutional report describes a Service Group involving academics, students and researchers in advice on saline-soil cultivation, crop selection and nutrient management. It also records earlier tomato trials in Jondor and rural advisory visits in Karakul. These descriptions provide background to the university’s extension expertise; their hectares, yields and profitability figures are not repeated as 2025 statistics.

2025 agricultural outreach record

The contribution is thus reported as a dated agricultural knowledge-exchange and partnership initiative, supported by a longer-standing advisory background. Its relevance to sustainable land management is strongest where agronomic advice addresses resource use and soil conditions; the available 2025 announcement does not document a dedicated environmental curriculum or free-access terms.

University–district agricultural knowledge exchange

Figure 5. A greenhouse discussion

15.2.6. Sustainable management of land for tourism (educational outreach)

Community-facing tourism education in 2025

The university’s official channel records a seminar for prospective entrepreneurs and lower-income residents of Choloki mahalla in Kogon district. University professors worked with the regional tourism authority and district administration. The published account describes advice on tourism services, enterprise opportunities and participation in the visitor economy, followed by certificates for attendees. Its policy context is the 2025 employment and poverty-reduction programme.

A separate university announcement of 29 January 2025 describes an Economics and Tourism Faculty seminar for regional entrepreneurs. Alongside business modernisation and financial questions, the discussion included the green economy and resource-saving innovation. This establishes an additional channel through which university knowledge reaches local economic actors.

Relationship to sustainable tourism land management

These activities demonstrate external engagement rather than only university classroom teaching. Nevertheless, the land-specific focus of 15.2.6 must remain visible. Managing visitor access, avoiding habitat damage, protecting rural landscapes and relating tourism infrastructure to local environmental constraints would constitute relevant subject matter; the reviewed event descriptions do not explicitly state that these topics were taught. They are therefore not added to the seminars’ reported curricula.

Scope of the available tourism material

The previous report discussed research on investment mechanisms in agrotourism. That research remains relevant intellectual background, but a dissertation defence is a different activity from outreach to local or national communities. Its inclusion in a prior report does not establish the year, audience, access terms or delivered land-management content required here.

Accordingly, the 2025 institutional account records genuine community tourism education and related green-economy engagement, while keeping the narrower environmental land-management content separate. A distinct 2025 programme meeting that full description was not established from the public sources reviewed; no participant number or access classification is assigned to such a programme.

15.3.1. Sustainable use, conservation and restoration of land (policy)

A dated institutional policy framework

The university’s Sustainability Policy is dated 1 March 2024. It applies to staff, students, affiliates and visitors, places implementation responsibility with the Rector, and covers campus biodiversity, sustainable buildings and land-use planning. It sets a four-year review cycle and states that it remains effective during review. These provisions establish an institution-specific policy framework predating the reporting year.

The Climate Action and Environmental Sustainability Strategy identifies a 2021–2026 planning period and addresses land restoration, drylands and conservation. Its scope connects university operations with teaching and research.

Institutional application and land boundaries

The framework is relevant to different settings considered in this report: managed university grounds, the teaching and experimental farm, and areas where the university works with conservation partners. These settings should not be treated as identical. Campus management involves direct operational responsibility; a research partnership at a nursery does not transfer ownership of the nursery’s land to the university.

The practical developments recorded under 15.2.3 and 15.3.3 provide examples against which the policy can be read. They connect the general commitment with a planted university site and a proposed eco-garden. They do not establish that every habitat associated with the university has been restored, or that a quantified area of desert or forest was rehabilitated during 2025.

Policy and implementation are reported separately

The 2024 date is the relevant documented creation date for the general Sustainability Policy and lies within THE’s review window. No additional review in 2025 is asserted. Equally, the date range in the strategy title is not used as evidence of a separate policy review. This gives the land-conservation narrative a clear documentary basis while preserving the chronology of the institution’s governance and practical work.

15.3.2. Monitoring IUCN and other conservation species (policies)

Conservation commitments in the university’s strategy

The environmental strategy addresses flora and fauna cadastres, monitoring, inventories of wild plant resources and rare-animal conservation. It specifically refers to Red Book species and work concerning gazelles at Jayron. These are stated programme directions, not published 2025 census results.

Uzbekistan’s environmental authority provides a national Red Data Book reference on its official portal, dated 1 November 2024. That national reference supplies a conservation-list context, but it is not itself a list of species occurring on university land.

Connection between policy and field practice

The Jayron departmental-branch account discussed in 15.2.3 supplies the practical institutional connection: it reports field study, monitoring and rare-fauna work. The methodological relevance is the link between an institution’s conservation commitments and places where its work may affect habitats. A university partnership with a conservation organisation is useful evidence of engagement, but it does not automatically establish monitoring coverage for every operational site.

Distinct elements of conservation-species reporting

The national and IUCN dimensions should remain separate. A species may have a national protection designation without the same international risk category, and a museum specimen does not prove a living population exists on campus. For these reasons, this report does not attach unverified scientific names or conservation statuses to the trees in the planting announcement or the animals mentioned in historical narratives.

The reviewed institutional sources support a conservation and monitoring orientation, together with an identifiable field setting. They do not publish an IUCN-linked inventory for all university-affected areas or an annual species-monitoring register. The result is therefore presented as the documented policy and field-work framework, rather than a completed institution-wide species assessment. The strategy’s planning period is also kept separate from an unreported policy-review date.

15.3.3. Local biodiversity included in planning and development

Landscaping associated with new educational infrastructure

The completed planting case in 15.2.3 is associated with the university’s new 2,700-seat teaching building. [S07] It is therefore relevant to the relationship between development and the treatment of the surrounding land, rather than only to a stand-alone environmental event.

For reporting purposes, the building’s capacity is not a land-area or biodiversity measure. The four planting categories show what the announcement records, but do not demonstrate that native-species selection, habitat connectivity or an ecological baseline formed part of the original design. Those additional planning processes are not attributed to the university without a corresponding document.

The teaching-farm eco-garden plan

On 11 December 2025 the university announced an eco-garden initiative with the Bukhara Regional Prosecutor’s Office on land belonging to the teaching and experimental farm. The account specifies a plan for 2,700 ornamental and fruit-tree saplings and says establishment work was about to begin. It names a mixture of ornamental trees and apple and plum.

Completed activity and announced development plan

Methodological interpretation

The documentary record shows that vegetation and its maintenance were considered in site improvement and that a further university-land project was planned. These are meaningful components of greener development. They provide less information about the treatment of existing local biodiversity before construction: no project-specific habitat survey, species-impact assessment or native planting schedule was located in the reviewed sources.

15.3.4. Alien species impact reduction (policies)

A specific provision in the institutional strategy

The environmental strategy expressly calls for analysis and control of the spread of alien and genetically modified organisms and development of methods to lessen adverse consequences. This is the relevant university-specific provision for the indicator; it is more directly applicable than a generic tree-planting statement.

Applying the IUCN distinction

IUCN describes alien organisms as those introduced outside their natural range through human activity. Some become established and harm native biodiversity; that harmful subset is classified as invasive alien species. Its guidance emphasises prevention and cross-sector cooperation.

The distinction matters when reading the earlier university report. Greenhouse cultivation of bananas, passion fruit, pineapples or other non-local crops was presented as horticultural activity. Such cultivation is not automatically the restoration of native biodiversity, nor does it establish that those crops are invasive on the campus. The same caution applies to cultivated fish and to ornamental trees named without scientific identification.

Policy scope and the reporting year

The strategy’s 2021–2026 horizon includes 2025, providing the relevant institutional programme context. Its wording establishes a direction for analysis and control; it is not presented here as a completed survey, a list of prohibited species or evidence that named organisms were removed in 2025.

The university’s reported contribution under this indicator is therefore the explicit strategic commitment to reducing adverse alien-species impacts, interpreted with the IUCN distinction and without classifying all introduced horticultural material as harmful.

15.3.5. Collaboration for shared land ecosystems

Joint action with Zarafshon mahalla

The university’s report published on 13 June 2025 describes a plogging activity organised by the university Youth Union together with workers of Zarafshon mahalla. Participants collected litter along neighbourhood streets while jogging. This is a documented shared-space activity involving an identifiable community partner and a practical maintenance action. The methodological value lies in the partnership and location: the activity took place in a neighbourhood environment, not solely within a university classroom. Litter collection is a direct form of care for a shared terrestrial environment. The announcement does not measure waste mass, material composition or subsequent ecological change, so the report does not assign tonnes collected or a biodiversity improvement rate.

Other collaborative settings

The planting announcement analysed in 15.2.3 also identifies participation by regional and district activists, education workers and the wider public. It provides a second example of joint participation in maintenance of university-associated land. [S07]

The Jayron relationship supplies a different form of collaboration: a departmental presence in a conservation setting. It is reported as cooperation in field learning and ecological work, without describing the nursery as university-owned. [S11] The agricultural memorandum in 15.2.5 concerns a further university–district relationship, but its stated farming objective is not automatically treated as a habitat-restoration agreement.

Forms of collaboration distinguished in this report

The documented contribution is strongest at the activity level: the university worked with named external actors, in identifiable places, on practical environmental tasks. This makes its community role concrete while preserving the distinction between participation, continuing stewardship and measured ecosystem outcomes.

Community care for shared land

Figure 6. Litter collection associated with the university–community plogging activity in Zarafshon mahalla.

15.4.1. Water discharge guidelines and standards

Institutional policy and the applicable legal framework

The Sustainability Policy includes prevention of pollution from emissions and discharges. This is the institution’s general policy basis for considering wastewater impacts.

Uzbekistan’s 2025 Water Code, effective from 31 October 2025, supplies an applicable national framework. Article 110 permits wastewater discharge to water bodies only subject to pollutant limits and treatment levels prescribed by environmental and sanitary authorities; it also addresses restrictions where requirements are breached. Article 111 makes reuse for greening conditional on treatment and the required approvals. These are legal requirements, not a university-specific laboratory result. [S19]

Research-based technical guidance

The university’s published strategy describes a textile-wastewater treatment research sequence: analyse the influent, determine reagent requirements, treat and settle the water, remove sediment and analyse it again before sewer discharge. The setting is an industrial research example, not proof that the university campus operates the treatment installation described. [S02, PDF pp. 4–5]

Different forms of water-discharge information

2025 reporting interpretation

The available sources support a policy, legal and technical framework for protecting receiving environments. They are not merged into a single claim of measured discharge compliance.

15.4.2. Policy on plastic waste reduction

A specific plastic-reduction commitment

The university’s published Sustainability Report and Net Zero Plan include a 2026 target to reduce single-use plastic consumption by 50%, supported by reusable bottles and containers. The same plan includes a 30% landfill-diversion target for 2026 and an objective to establish partnerships with local recycling organisations by 2025. The plastic target directly addresses the policy subject of this indicator. [S03, p. 15]

These three statements describe different objectives. Plastic consumption, total waste diversion and recycling partnerships are not interchangeable measures. The 50% and 30% figures are retained as targets with their original deadlines, not as results achieved in 2025.

Published waste-related objectives

Supporting institutional context

The university’s 2023 SDG 12 report describes segregated plastic and other waste streams and onward recycling arrangements. This is historical operational background predating the 2025 reference year, not an annual waste balance for that year. The supplied previous SDG 15 report also reproduces a procurement preference for recyclable or biodegradable packaging.

Taken together, these documents describe both prevention and post-use handling: fewer disposable items are sought at the point of consumption, while sorting addresses materials after use. Their relevance to land ecosystems is the reduction of unmanaged material entering shared spaces. The 2025 community clean-up in 15.3.5 provides a practical awareness context, but its announcement does not classify the collected litter as plastic or measure its quantity.

The reviewed public record therefore establishes a specific institutional plastic-reduction direction and a broader waste-management background. It does not establish a 2025 plastic baseline, procurement volume, recycling tonnage or target-achievement rate. Publication in the 2023 report provides a dated public record within the methodology’s period; no additional 2025 policy review is asserted.

15.4.3. Policy on hazardous waste disposal

Institutional waste and safety arrangements

The university’s 2023 SDG 12 report describes separation of harmful waste from other collection streams. That statement is useful historical evidence of a differentiated approach, but it does not provide a detailed hazardous-waste inventory or a disposal chain for 2025.

The university’s Civil and Labour Protection Sector profile, dated 6 March 2025, assigns responsibilities for safety guidance, staff training, protective equipment and inspection of premises, equipment, ventilation and sanitary conditions. These responsibilities establish a relevant occupational-safety structure for managing hazardous work. They are not represented here as a substitute for a hazardous-waste disposal procedure

National requirements and the disposal boundary

Article 20 of Uzbekistan’s Law on Waste requires hazardous-waste transport to use specially equipped vehicles and the prescribed environmental certification and authorisation. The relevant wording predates 2025. It supplies a national handling requirement, not evidence that a particular university consignment was transported under an inspected certificate.

Coverage of the reviewed material

For this indicator, ordinary litter collection and recycling of clean packaging should not be treated as the disposal of hazardous laboratory residues. Similarly, the methodology’s inclusion of radiological and biological hazards does not establish that every university generates each category. This report does not invent a radioactive-waste stream, hazardous-waste contractor, treatment facility or disposal quantity.

The university’s documented position comprises an existing waste-separation background, a dated safety-governance structure and an applicable legal framework. The reviewed sources do not disclose a complete 2025 hazardous-waste procedure, transfer register or final-treatment manifest. Consequently, the account describes the documented arrangements and their scope rather than certifying disposal outcomes that the public record does not show.