Yagnob Valley - nature, history, and chances of a mountain community development in Tajikistan

The Yagnob Valley represents in its upper part an example of an isolated peripheral area very typical for the highlands of Asia and especially for Tajikistan, where each mountain valley has its own unique ethnic and cultural style of life and land use structure, highly adapted to natural conditions. The natural isolation of the Yagnob Valley was conducive to the preservation in its upper part of an unique ethnic group - the Yagnobis whose language is very similar to the Ancient Sogdian language attributed to the East-Iranian language group. A strict dependence of land use type on natural conditions and natural processes, as well as the peripheral positions and low accessibility, limited the development and application of new economic methods. The study is undertaken with respect to the model of the existential space of the Yagnobi community affecting land use, risks, and possibilities for survival. Within the limits of the existing structure of the natural resources and the use thereof, there are four very important types of risks that threaten to destroy the existing relationship between the natural environment and the local economy: agroclimatic risk, risk of slope processes, anthropogenic degradation, the social and political risk.