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Victor Tyakht/Adobe Stock

Victor Tyakht/Adobe Stock

Giant steppe, giant leap – Earthshot Prize nomination for groundbreaking saiga conservation initiative

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A groundbreaking landscape restoration initiative in which Fauna & Flora is a core partner, widely acknowledged to have been instrumental in engineering the spectacular comeback of the once critically endangered saiga antelope, has been named as one of 15 finalists for The Earthshot Prize 2024.

Launched by Fauna & Flora’s patron Prince William and our long-standing vice-president Sir David Attenborough in 2020, this global award aims to catalyse innovative solutions to the planet’s biggest environmental challenges.

One of three nominees in the ‘Protect and Restore Nature’ category, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative was originally established in response to the dramatic decline of the saiga in Kazakhstan. The initiative comprises local and international partners working together to restore the degraded habitat of this intriguing antelope and other globally important wildlife across 750,000 square kilometres of steppe, desert and wetlands.

Watch this video, produced for The Earthshot Prize 2024, featuring Altyn Dala's work to save the once critically endangered saiga antelope.

A celebrated partnership

The role of our in-country partner, Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK), working alongside the government of Kazakhstan, Fauna & Flora, Frankfurt Zoological Society and RSPB, has been pivotal to the success of this visionary project, which encompasses an area so vast that it is visible from space.

Nomination for this prestigious prize, which is recognition for what the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has achieved to date, is a cause for celebration in its own right. Just as importantly, it showcases collaborative conservation at its best and shines the spotlight on an initiative that is setting the gold standard in terms of its scale and level of ambition.

This latest honour for the partnership follows hot on the hooves of a 2022 success when the initiative was recognised as a UN World Restoration Flagship. The award – presented at COP15 in Montreal – was the first of its kind at the time, and was reserved for the ten best examples of large-scale ecosystem restoration around the globe.

ACBK field team and government rangers pictured during the 2019 aerial survey. © Albert Salemgareyev / ACBK

© Albert Salemgareyev / ACBK

ACBK field team and government rangers pictured during the 2019 aerial survey.

Reviving other wild species of the steppe

Beyond their efforts to bring the saiga back from the brink, Altyn Dala partners are also working to revive a series of other priority threatened species, including steppe eagle, sociable lapwing, kulan (wild ass) and Przewalski’s horse, which was reintroduced into Kazakhstan in 2024 after a 200-year absence.

Around one million species worldwide are at risk of extinction, and one of the biggest threats to their survival is habitat loss and degradation. With wildlife running out of room to roam, the world needs to do much more to protect and restore nature. At a time when the world is crying out for a scaled-up, joined-up response to wholesale biodiversity loss, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative points the way forward.

Donate to help save Przewalski’s horse conservation Kazakhstan

©Adobe Stock / Alexey

Przewalski's horse was extinct in the wild by the 1960s, but has since been reintroduced to Mongolia and, more recently, to the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Spectacular saiga resurgence

This locally led success story has seen saiga numbers bounce back from fewer than 40,000 individuals in 2005 to a heart-warming 2.8 million antelope carpeting the steppes of Kazakhstan today. That journey has not been without its setbacks. A mass die-off of saiga in 2015 caused by a bacterial infection wiped out 200,000 animals virtually overnight, but the past few years have witnessed a remarkable recovery. Encouraging annual survey results for 2019, followed by a mass calving event in 2020, began to indicate a steppe change in the saiga’s survival prospects. An aerial census in 2021 confirmed that populations were recovering with remarkable speed.

The long-term future of the saiga, and all the rest of the world’s critically endangered species, is in local hands. It is the involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in landscape protection and restoration that holds the key to success. With COP16 about to start, it is our fervent hope at Fauna & Flora that local voices are front and centre of negotiations and that decision-makers put more power in the hands of those ultimately responsible for protecting nature.

ACBK staff weighing a saiga calf to gather species data. © Bakhtiyar Taikenov / ACBK

© Bakhtiyar Taikenov / ACBK

ACBK staff weighing a saiga calf to gather species data.

Altyn Dala – and its recognition as an Earthshot Prize 2024 finalist - is a testament to what can be achieved when local and global conservationists join forces, fusing knowledge and resources. We are restoring the steppe ecosystem for the benefit of people and wildlife. We are proud to have supported the Government of Kazakhstan's efforts to strengthen monitoring and to address illegal wildlife trade. We’ve seen the weird and wonderful saiga antelope rebound from the brink of extinction. I’m so proud of what’s been achieved to date, and there is much more to be done.

David Gill

Director of Operations, Eurasia

Altyn Dala – and its recognition as an Earthshot Prize 2024 finalist - is a testament to what can be achieved when local and global conservationists join forces, fusing knowledge and resources. We are restoring the steppe ecosystem for the benefit of people and wildlife. We are proud to have supported the Government of Kazakhstan's efforts to strengthen monitoring and to address illegal wildlife trade. We’ve seen the weird and wonderful saiga antelope rebound from the brink of extinction. I’m so proud of what’s been achieved to date, and there is much more to be done.

David Gill

Director of Operations, Eurasia

Save the saiga

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