Authorities in Navoi province have fined two people a total of 7.48 million soums for picking hawthorn berries in the mountains of Khatirchi district without a permit, the province’s Ecology Department said.
Eco-police officers from the Khatirchi district ecology and climate change division found the pair collecting and carrying away the fruit in the Angidon neighborhood during a raid, the department said.
Administrative reports were drawn up against Sh.S. and Yo.R. under Clause 1 of Article 79-1 of the Code of Administrative Liability, which covers violations of the rules for collecting and using plant life.
“One of the offenders was fined 10 times the base calculation value (BCV) and the other 7 times, a total of 7.48 million soums,” the department said in its report. “The damage caused to nature was assessed at 1.003 million soums.”
Together, the two must pay nearly 7.5 million soums in fines and about 1 million soums for environmental damage.
Under a Cabinet of Ministers resolution, the right to special use of wild-growing plants is granted through electronic online auctions.
A few years ago in Navoi, a person whose goat ate mulberry leaves was fined 2.6 million soums by ecologists, a penalty that drew criticism.
