NGOs of Caspian littoral countries establish Caspian House Platform

NGOs from Caspian littoral countries are creating the Caspian House Platform for joint efforts to protect the Caspian Sea's ecology.

Report informs that the decision was made at an international conference titled "Caspian Sea and Sustainable Development: Environmental Protection" held in Baku within the framework of COP29.

Gulbara Sultanova, Chair of the Civil Society Affairs Committee of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Culture and Information, highly valued NGOs' initiative in addressing Caspian issues.

Nidal Salim, founder of the Swiss Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health, noted the Caspian Sea's important geostrategic significance and the global nature of its challenges.

Vladimir Grebnev, head of the Central Asian Regional Environmental Center, stated that the Caspian Sea doesn't divide countries but unites them, and solving its problems requires solidarity, joint action, and mobilization.

COP29 Organizing Committee member and Executive Director of the Azerbaijani Agency for State Support to NGOs Aygun Aliyeva, UN High-Level Champion for Climate Change at COP29 and Organizing Committee member Nigar Arpadarai, and MP Azer Allahveranov emphasized that Azerbaijan's government considers the Caspian's ecological problems among its top priorities and is actively working in this regard.

In the first panel titled "Current Ecosystem of the Caspian Sea: Perspectives, Threats and Solutions," Vagif Mammadov, research scientist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Science and Education, gave a presentation. He stated that the Caspian Sea is connected to other water basins through underground rivers, evidenced by the presence of non-lake species in its wildlife. Mammadov noted that as academic research on the Caspian Sea intensifies, new information will emerge.

Sergey Mikhailovich Alekseyev, Deputy Chair of the Public Council under Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Distinguished Ecologist of the Russian Federation, UN expert Alexey Kokorin, and Kirill Vladimirovich Osin, Chairman of Kazakhstan's "Eco Mangistau" Public Association, delivered presentations on the topic.

In the second panel titled "Regional Cooperation of Caspian Countries' Civil Society: Technology and Innovation," presentations were made by Svetlana Mogilyuk, head of Kazakhstan Ecoforum and Chair of the Central Asian Civil Society Climate Network; Professor Amir Aliyev, head of the Caspian Sea Coast and Bottom Geomorphology Department at the Academic Hasan Aliyev Institute of Geography; Korlyakov Konstantin Aleksandrovich, head of the water groupings laboratory at Russia's Chelyabinsk State University; and Berkeli Atayev, head of Turkmenistan's Nature Conservation Society (Tebigy Kuwwat).

In conclusion, NGOs from Caspian littoral countries decided to establish the Caspian House Platform for joint efforts to protect the Caspian's ecology.