27 Mar 2007 - Astana,
Kazakhstan – A new nature reserve in north-western
Kazakhstan will protect unique wetlands
and habitats of rare saiga antelopes living
on the country's famous steppes.
More than 93 per cent of the Irgiz-Turgay
nature reserve, with an area of 763,549
hectares, will become a protected pasture
for wild ungulates, including saiga antelope.
“This large reserve is an important step
in achieving our goal of creating a system
of protected areas of more than 6 million
hectares, first of all for rare ungulates
and birds,” says Tatyana Bragina, Coordinator
of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative.
The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative
(ADCI) is aimed at protecting the steppes
and semideserts of Kazakhstan, along with
the species inhabiting them. The initiative
is made up of a coalition of international
NGOs, which includes the Frankfurt Zoological
Society, Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds, WWF, and Association for the Conservation
of Biodiversity in Kazakhstan, in cooperation
with Kazakhstan's Committee for Forestry
and Hunting (the Ministry of Agriculture)
and the Ministry of Environment.
The creation of the Irgiz-Turgay nature
reserve is also an important step in implementing
WWF's ECONET project, which aims to see
a system of reserves connected by ecological
corridors and buffer zones. Such a system
would allow local communities to benefit
from the area's natural resources, while
at the same time protecting the biodiversity.
“The nature of the Irgiz-Turgay area has
long been affected by overgrazing, agriculture
and commercial fishing," says Olga
Pereladova, head of WWF's Central Asia Programme.
"Now these activities will be prohibited
on part of the territory of the Irgiz-Turgay
nature reserve and limited in the rest of
the area.”
The reserve also provides habitat to various
species of waterbirds that use it for breeding
and feeding. The area is also home to the
globally threatened dalmatian pelican and
white-headed duck during the molting season.
The lakes of the lower Irgiz and Turgay
river basins were included in the list of
wetlands of international importance by
the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1975.
END NOTES:
• The saiga antelope has survived practically
unchanged since pre-glacial ages. However,
poaching and habitat loss brought the species
to the verge of extinction. The Frankfurt
Zoological Society (FZS) started a saiga
project, implemented by WWF, because of
a drastic decrease in the population of
the species by the late 11000s. Since then,
the number of saigas has increased. The
Betpakdala population of the saiga, on which
FZS and WWF concentrated their conservation
efforts, grew from 2,000–3,000 in 2003 to
16,800 in 2006.
• The WWF ECONET project is a scheme that
proposes to create an “ecological net” on
about 40 per cent of the region’s area.
It will consist partly of strict protected
areas and partly of ecological corridors
and buffer zones, which allow some types
of land use. In 2006, the WWF ECONET project
was included in the Central Asia Framework
Convention as a solution to biodiversity
loss in the region.
Maria Vinokurova, Communications Officer
WWF Central Asia Project
