The unauthorized felling and uprooting of century-old juniper trees has been uncovered in Sariosiyo district of Surkhandarya province, according to a press release from the Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection, and Climate Change.
Environmental inspectors recorded the destruction and damage of trees on August 3 within the state-owned Uzun Forestry Management area, located in the Sangardak neighborhood. Preliminary assessments indicate that 11 Zarafshan juniper trees, each approximately 100 years old, were illegally uprooted. The logging operations were executed without any official permits and in direct defiance of explicit warnings previously issued by environmental enforcement officers.
A special task force—comprising representatives from the Eco-police, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Surkhandarya province Administration, and the regional environmental directorate—is currently conducting an on-site investigation. Officials emphasized that once the probe is finalized, the total financial and environmental damage will be calculated, and strict legal actions will be pursued against the perpetrators in accordance with current legislation.
Deforestation and environmental degradation remain a persistent issue across the country. In a recent case in Olot district of Bukhara province, a local entrepreneur was ordered to pay 1.3 billion soums in damages for illegal logging. Similarly, an unauthorized logging operation in the Toshkent province recently resulted in the felling of 121 trees, causing over 1 billion soums in environmental losses.
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