Prince of Wales William on BBC's The Graham Norton Show highlighted the recovery of Kazakhstan's saiga antelope population as a successful conservation practice, the Ministry of Ecology reports. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
Prince William's interview
In the interview, Prince William said that the animal was once on the brink of extinction, and now their numbers have increased significantly.
"At one point, this animal was on the brink of extinction. And now their numbers have increased significantly. The government of Kazakhstan understood the importance of the saiga for the country and for conservation and provided maximum support for its preservation," Prince William said in the interview.
Growth in saiga numbers
In Kazakhstan, there were only about 20,000 saigas in 2003, while in 2024 their number exceeded 2.8 million.
International environmental prize
In 2024, Kazakhstan's Altyn Dala conservation initiative won the "Protect and Restore Nature" category of The Earthshot Prize, an international environmental award founded by Prince William.
Work of the initiative
Under the initiative, implemented since 2005, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan, the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan and international partners have been working together to protect saigas, preserve their habitat and restore steppe ecosystems.
Kazakhstan's experience in preserving saigas has been recognized internationally and has become one of the successful projects in the field of nature conservation.