As part of Central Asia Solidarity Groups’ 2025 series highlighting our partnerships across Central Asia, this story continues from our previous post about ISDS’s work in strengthening community resilience and biodiversity protection. While ISDS focused on wetlands and environmental education, El-Too’s initiatives show how the same regional cooperation has inspired new forms of local action, creativity, and community participation in Kyrgyzstan.
In the mountains and semi-desert plains of Kyrgyzstan, the organization El-Too has spent the past three years working with farmers, students, and local authorities to turn ecological awareness into everyday practice. What began as a project to promote permaculture and climate adaptation has evolved into a wider movement for sustainable livelihoods, agroecological tourism, and cultural expression.
By 2025, the results were visible in both the soil and the communities themselves. Farmers experimented with rainwater harvesting and mulching, planted hundreds of walnut seedlings, and opened guesthouses that welcome travelers to landscapes once known only to locals. El-Too continued to involve students and young people in environmental activities through field visits, guesthouse documentation, and participation in community events, ensuring that ecological knowledge reached the next generation. Meanwhile, El-Too’s land consultation center, established earlier in the project, continued to help rural families secure their rights and defend their land. What was originally planned as a three year initiative has grown into something larger, a network of people, places, and practices that connect ecology, economy, and culture, showing that sustainable change begins when local knowledge and creativity take root.
The work that took shape in 2025 built on years of groundwork. During the earlier phases, El-Too had already introduced communities in Naryn and Issyk Kul regions to the principles of permaculture and the benefits of composting, biohumus, and soil restoration. By the final year, this knowledge had become practice. Two pilot farms began testing different mulching materials and rainwater harvesting systems. The farmers kept observation journals, measuring soil moisture, plant growth, and crop yield, while sharing their findings with others. The experiments proved that local methods could be effective, affordable, and sustainable. In addition, 650 walnut seedlings were planted across target villages, purchased directly by the farmers themselves, creating a link between environmental restoration and long term economic benefits.
At the same time, El-Too helped rural communities look beyond farming to new opportunities connected to nature. In 2025, the organization launched the Green Region concept, a model linking permaculture with eco and agritourism. Training sessions in the Ton and Naryn districts brought together more than sixty participants to learn how to register and promote guesthouses on platforms such as Booking, Google Maps, and TripAdvisor. Professional photographers helped families prepare visual profiles, and by the end of the season, more than thirty five guesthouses were online. Many of them had already welcomed their first visitors, including international guests who came to see Kyrgyzstan’s natural landscapes and experience daily life in the countryside.
For many families, this was not only an additional source of income but also a new way to protect and share their environment. Through the Green Region approach, guesthouse owners learned to use eco friendly cleaning products, sort waste, and showcase their permaculture gardens as part of local culture. Routes for eco tours were developed in ten locations, combining nature, traditional crafts, and community life. The initiative also attracted the attention of the Tourism Development Fund and district authorities, who expressed interest in promoting sustainable tourism standards at the regional level. The Ton District Administration later proposed to designate the south shore of Issyk Kul as a pilot zone for green tourism, a significant step toward turning small local initiatives into a broader environmental policy.
El-Too’s work in 2025 also reflected a broader regional trend in Central Asia, integrating youth, women, and local decision-makers into practical environmental solutions. Young volunteers helped design eco routes and document stories from the villages, while students supported local activities connected to eco tourism and permaculture, ensuring that environmental awareness is passed to the next generation.
In 2025, El-Too continued to strengthen its outreach and visibility by documenting community stories, sharing practical environmental knowledge online, and highlighting new examples of sustainable tourism and rural entrepreneurship. The organization’s communication efforts expanded significantly in 2025. Its online audience grew from around two thousand to six thousand followers, and one video featuring a guesthouse reached more than one hundred eighty thousand views, showing the growing public interest in sustainable tourism and rural life.
Alongside creative and economic work, El-Too continued to provide legal support to rural residents. The land consultation center, established in 2024, remained an essential resource for farmers and communities facing land disputes or unclear property rights. Over the course of the project, it conducted more than one hundred twenty consultations, prepared legal documents, and supported several court cases. In 2025, the organization updated its handbook with thirty real cases based on the latest changes in the national Land Code, ensuring that people in remote areas could access clear and practical information about their rights. The center also collaborated with journalists and produced informational videos that reached audiences beyond the Ton district.
The integration of environmental, economic, and social components became El-Too’s main achievement in 2025. Farmers began to see that climate resilience could go hand in hand with profit, creativity, and pride in local traditions. Women who had once been limited to household production started small enterprises making organic products or offering homestay services. Schoolchildren who learned about permaculture in earlier years helped maintain gardens and shared their knowledge at home. Students connected their learning to real environmental practice. Duty bearers from local municipalities joined discussions about sustainable tourism and environmental planning. The result was not just a collection of separate activities but an ecosystem of initiatives that supported one another and encouraged independent action.
Institutionally, El-Too also strengthened its foundation. In 2025, the organization revised its internal procedures to comply with new NGO legislation, developed and translated policies on procurement, anti corruption, and gender equality, and sent team members to business training on social entrepreneurship. These steps, though administrative in appearance, were crucial for ensuring that the organization could continue operating transparently and confidently in a changing regulatory environment. El-Too’s active participation in the Green Alliance network and its election to the Council for 2025–2027 further affirmed its growing role within Kyrgyzstan’s environmental movement.
The achievements of 2025 also reflected the strong cooperation between El-Too, Central Asia Solidarity Groups, and many partners. Knowledge exchange visits, expert consultations, and long term mentoring helped El-Too refine its methods, monitor results, and test new ideas. Collaborations with municipalities, universities, and subnational institutions gave the project both legitimacy and reach. From volunteers who photographed guesthouses to researchers studying permaculture practices, everyone involved contributed to turning the project into a shared effort that bridged disciplines and sectors.
Today, the results of this cooperation can be seen across the Ton and Naryn districts. Walnut trees are growing in the soil that was once barren, eco routes guide travelers through villages that value their environment, and community based events connect rural voices to national discussions about sustainability. The work of El-Too has shown that environmental change is most powerful when it grows from within communities, shaped by local experience and imagination.
Although the formal three year project period has come to an end, its spirit continues. The people who built gardens, opened guesthouses, or developed new forms of community involvement have become its new custodians, carrying forward the values of cooperation and care for the environment. For El-Too and its partners, 2025 was not a conclusion but a continuation, a year that transformed ideas into lasting action and laid the foundation for new chapters of ecological and cultural renewal in Kyrgyzstan.
This story is the second in our 2025 series about CAG’s partnerships across Central Asia. The next post highlights how Little Earth applied similar principles of community leadership and sustainable innovation in the high mountain villages of the Yagnob Valley.