Text 5: Marmots Baibak

Marmots baibak is a large hibernating rodent (body length up to 58 cm, tale length – up to 14,5 cm.) adapted to borrow life. It is represent a surface form of squirrel family. Baibak is a valley species, it inhabitated everywhere in steppes from the Ukraine to the River Irtysh, but the ploughing up of virgin lands and intensive hunting sufficiently undermined baibak reserves. Now baibak is preserved in reservoir of virgin steppe in the River Don valley, Middle Volga and Southern Ural. It leaves in big families in burrows with 2-3 entrances and total lengths from 20 to 100 m. burrows are up to 4m. depth with large nesting and winter cameras. These burrows are used for several decades, and butanes’ form over such a burrows. Butanes’ are the hillocks up to 1 meter in height and in diameter up to 20 m. usually butanes have special dry microclimate and are enriched by nitrogen and mineral substances from marmots droppings. Besides the base borrow some smaller short burros-shelters disperse around main one, where marmots hide in the case of danger. Baibak eats lush and soft plant food. It spends winter in the hibernation (usually it sleeps in family groups of 12-15 animals). It does not lay in supplies for the winter, but intensively feeds itself making it weight twice as much during two or three summer monthes.Burrows are tightly closed by earthen plugs. Baibak is an object of fur hunting and it should be protected.

Text 6: Environmental protection

Environmental awareness and activity in Kazakhstan focuses on sustaining biodiversity, and the restoration of its large number of damaged areas: a quarter of the country's land has been heavily affected. Among these regions are the former nuclear arms zone near Semey (Semipalatinsk), the test zones of Saryshagan, Azgir and Taysoygan, the shrinking Aral Sea, Lake Balkhash (which is also retreating), the rising and warming of the Caspian Sea, and the areas surrounding major conurbations. High salt concentration in the soil is a problem, as is the retreat of the country's glaciers, as well as overuse of drinking-water resources. But the biggest problem for environmental initiatives is the poverty of the population in many of the worst areas. People live with no infrastructure to speak of, and where, apart from livestock breeding, there are hardly any sources of income. Poverty leads to illegal logging, overfishing, poaching and overuse of pastureland. Given this situation, the benefits of ecotourism are potentially valuable, creating new prospects for local people.

M uch is being done through the country's scientific research institutes and also by international organizations to analyse the problems and improve the situation step by step. Unfortunately, so far Kazakhstan has not been able to provide the necessary financial resources to preserve the impressive multitude of plants and animals within its borders. In a few areas plans are under way to create UNESCO biosphere reservations and global natural heritage protection zones, and to pursue programmes for the protection of biodiversity. The best results of these efforts have been in the Altai, in the lake district of Tengiz-Korgalzhin and in the dry steppe of Naurzum.

A good example is the work of the German Naturschutzbund (NABU) to expand the natural reserve of the vast wetlands around Lake Tengiz (which w as established as early as the 1950s), to upgrade it to a UNESCO biosphere reserve, and to protect it against uncontrolled and improper agricultural exploitation. A group led by the German biology professor Michael Succow has been engaged in Tengiz on this pilot project for years. His work includes research and lobbying, public relations, equipping of wardens, support for a local nature protection initiative, and the participation of the local population in the development and adaptation of management schemes for the area, which should lead to exemplary sustainable land use. Also included are practical protection measures such as the replacement of high-tension cables, lethal for many large birds, by decentralized solar power generation equipment. Ecotourism here is particularly desirable (see Chapter 5, Sary Arka: the Great Steppe).