- 1Department of Geography, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , USA.
- 2Department of Geography, Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , USA.
Abstract
Improving
human welfare is a critical global concern, but not always easy to
achieve. Complications in this regard have been faced by the states of
the Former Soviet Union, where socialist-style economic institutions
have disappeared, and the transition to a market economy has been slow
in coming. Lack of capital, ethnic conflict, and political instability
have at times undermined the institutional reform that would be
necessary to enable economic efficiency and development. Nowhere are
such challenges more pronounced than in the new nation states of central
Asia, including Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Here, a severe
climate limits agriculture, and industrialization has been inhibited by
lack of infrastructure, low levels of human capital, and a scarcity of
financial resources. These conditions are aggravated by the fact that
the central Asian states are landlocked, far from centers of market
demand and capital availability. Despite these daunting barriers,
development potential does exist, and the goal of the paper is to
consider central Asia's pastoral economy, with a focus on Kazakhstan,
which stands poised to become a regional growth pole. The article
pursues its goal as follows. It first addresses the biothreat situation
to central Asian livestock herds, the most significant existing
impediment to realizing the full market potential of the region's animal
products. Next, it provides an outline of interventions that can reduce
risk levels for key biothreats impacting central Asia, namely foot and
mouth disease (FMD), which greatly impacts livestock and prohibits
export, and Brucellosis, a bacterial zoonosis with high incidence in
both humans and livestock in the region. Included is an important
success story involving the FMD eradication programs in Brazil, which
enabled an export boom in beef. After this comes a description of the
epidemiological situation in Kazakhstan;
here, the article considers the role of wildlife in acting as a
possible disease reservoir, which presents a conservation issue for the
Kazakhstani case. This is followed by a discussion of the role of
science in threat reduction, particularly with respect to the potential
offered by geospatial technologies to improve our epidemiological
knowledge base. The article concludes with an assessment of the research
that would be necessary to identify feasible pathways to develop the
economic potential of central Asian livestock production as changes in
policy are implemented and livestock health improves.
KEYWORDS:
biothreats; central Asia; conservation of natural resources; economic development; geospatial analysis
