Seminar Report – Climate Change and Migration in Central Asia
Speaker: Dr. Asel Murzakulova, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Asia
Seminar title: Rethinking Migration: Climate Change and Adaptation in Central Asia’s Vulnerable Landscapes
Thursday 27 March 2025
Speaker’s bio: Dr. Asel Murzakulova is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bishkek Campus at the University of Central Asia (UCA) and conducts research on border studies, human mobility, environmental change, natural resource management, and adaptation insecurity. Dr. Murzakulova has held visiting positions at Harvard, Uppsala, University of California Berkeley, among others.
Author: Lois Seese, MECACS intern and student of International Relations and Arabic at the University of St. Andrews.
In her seminar, Dr. Asel Murzakulova shared her recent research, which she plans to publish, on the state of migration and climate change adaptation in Batken, Kyrgyzstan, a vulnerable landscape for migration and climate change migration in Central Asia.
To present her research, Dr. Murzakulova briefly outlined a history of Central Asian climate change and migration policies from the 1990s to the present day. There is vague recognition of the notion of “environmental refugees” in academia and policy circles, she noted. However, there is an increased recognition, concern, shift in terminology, and solid policy strategy on involuntary migration or immobility due to environmental stresses and climate change. This background is a crucial component to understanding Dr. Murzakulova’s research, which recognizes this gap in climate change and migration discourse. “In Central Asia, the climate and migration nexus weren’t recognized for a long time and just recently we can see some development.”
Dr. Murzakulova highlighted her research through a case study of the Aral Sea “catastrophe” caused by the Soviet Union’s industrialization policies. This unsustainable use of natural resources, like hydraulic missions, prioritizes economic and political policy over climate and environment concerns, as was evident in the seriously diminished Aral Sea from 1960 to the present day. Dr Murzakulova provided visuals of potential scenarios for the state of the Aral Sea and its canals at the end of this century. She emphasized the agricultural consequences of the damage to the arable land, including food scarcity and water stress.
Dr. Murzakulova also noted that there is a serious gap in terms of empirical data in global climate migration studies in relation to the Central Asian region. One factor that contributes to this lack of studies is the variety of farming methods in the region, from smaller livestock farming to massive agro-corporations. Dr. Murzakulova presented statistics from The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which showed nearly 217,000 internally displaced peoples in Central Asia due to natural disasters. These statistics, showcased in another graph on remittances from the World Bank Data, evidence showcases a steady and serious decline in the agricultural industry.
Dr. Murzakulova’s research in the Batken province of Kyrgyzstan began in 2015. She focused on populations living at different altitudes and has researched how they adapt to climatic shocks, using climatic analyses to understand these changes in environment. One of the biggest challenges in collecting data was the mountain topography. Dr. Murzakulova chose Batken as a case study because of the strikingly high poverty levels and widespread migration in the region. Dr. Murzakulova studied three mountain zones at varying altitude levels over the course of three seasons, in which the main crops and livelihoods in the region are apricots, apples, and livestock. The changes in climate significantly shifted the timing of cattle return and livestock moving, and increased summer temperatures which led to dried grasses, and higher feed stock for livestock keeping. Considering recent climate change adaption plans across regions, they are too broad and do not consider the details in each region such as Batkin’s varying altitudes.
Dr. Murzakulova added that the specificities of each region are crucial when gathering data on climate migration. Labour migration was found to be an “adaptation practice” to the climate change in the region, alongside other adaptation practices like intercropping, “renegotiation of water allocation,” and herd reduction.
In the Q&A Dr. Murzakulova elaborated on the lack of cohesive solutions within the broader region, and the lack of a cohesive state and legislation and Kyrgyzstan’s focus on economic development rather than climate legislation. In conclusion, she highlighted the urgent need for specific and in-depth regional studies and data collection in Central Asia to further understand the climate change and climate migration crisis, and work towards productive and promising adaptation practices.