Turkey: the splendor of the Hagia Sophia, the ruins of Ephesus, and the bizarre caves of the Cappadocia. For foreign travelers, Turkey is a nation of cultural, religious, and historic wonders: a place where cultures have met, clashed, and co-created. However, Turkey has another wealth that is far less known: biodiversity. Of the globe’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, Turkey is almost entirely covered by three: the Caucasus, the Irano-Anatolian, and the Mediterranean. Despite its wild wealth, conservation is not a priority in Turkey and recent papers in Science and Biological Conservation warn that the current development plans in the country, which rarely take the environment into account, are imperiling its species and ecosystems.
“The current ‘developmentalist obsession,’ particularly regarding water use, threatens to eliminate much of what remains, while forcing large-scale migration from rural areas to the cities. According to current plans, Turkey’s rivers and streams will be dammed with almost 4,000 dams, diversions, and hydroelectric power plants for power, irrigation, and drinking water by 2023,” the authors write, adding that other threats include urbanization, wetland-draining, and poaching.
Turkey is particularly rich in plants: with over 9,000 recorded to date, a third of them are found only in Turkey. Amphibians and reptiles are also highly diverse with 150 species to date. And Turkey, even now, still retains some startling big mammals including the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), brown bear (Ursus arctos), gray wolf (Canis lupus), caracal (Caracal caracal), and Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx). But it has also lost nearly as many as it has retained, including cheetahs, lions, tigers, and aurochs.Turkey is also a hugely important bird country with over 500 species identified so far.”Turkey lies at the intersection of globally important bird migration flyways. It has the highest number of breeding bird species in the Europe, but also the highest number of threatened bird species in Europe,” co-author Cagan Sekercioglu, a Turkish ornithologist and ecologist, with Stanford, told mongabay.com. “Few people realize that the famous Rift Valley bird migration over Israel and into Africa, and the Rift Valley itself, begin in Turkey. Bird species of traditional farms are declining fastest in Europe but can still be found in large numbers in the bioculturally diverse rural communities of Turkey, particularly in the east. Among others, Turkey hosts globally important breeding populations of threatened white-headed ducks, Egyptian vultures, sakers, great bustards, and imperial eagles, and is a key stopover site for declining migratory bird species like sociable plovers.”But all of Turkey’s remaining species are facing threats. In 2012 the Yale Environmental Performance Index ranked Turkey in the bottom 8 percent for its biodiversity and habitat conservation efforts, putting Turkey in the same category as some of the world’s most troubled and impoverished countries, such as Haiti, Libya, Eritrea, and Iraq. But scientists warn that recent policy efforts could push Turkey, which is working to become an economic powerhouse, even lower.
“Turkey’s environmental laws and conservation efforts are eroding, not improving. This has precipitated a conservation crisis that has accelerated over the past decade. This crisis has been exacerbated by legislative developments that may leave Turkey with a nature conservation legal framework that is weakened and severely out of line with globally accepted principles,” scientists wrote recently in separate letter in Science.Loose laws, poor enforcement, and little public oversight has created a situation whereby the Turkish government is capable of steamrolling any environmental concerns.”The government, practically unopposed, easily modifies existing laws and passes new ones to remove any environmental obstacles to the construction of dams, mines, factories, roads, bridges, housing projects, and tourism developments. Such construction increasingly occurs in ‘protected’ areas, often at the expense of local people,” the authors write.
The biodiversity loss caused by climate change will result from a combination of rising temperatures and predation — and may be more severe than currently predicted, according to a study by University of British Columbia zoologist Christopher Harley.
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Science, examined the response of rocky shore barnacles and mussels to the combined effects of warming and predation by sea stars.
Harley surveyed the upper and lower temperature limits of barnacles and mussels from the cool west coast of Vancouver Island to the warm shores of the San Juan Islands, where water temperature rose from the relatively cool of the1950s to the much warmer years of 2009 and 2010.
“Rocky intertidal communities are ideal test-beds for studying the effects of climatic warming,” says Christopher Harley, an associate professor of zoology at UBC and author of the study. “Many intertidal organisms, like mussels, already live very close to their thermal tolerance limits, so the impacts can be easily studied.”
At cooler sites, mussels and rocky shore barnacles were able to live high on the shore, well beyond the range of their predators. However, as temperatures rose, barnacles and mussels were forced to live at lower shore levels, placing them at the same level as predatory sea stars.
Daily high temperatures during the summer months have increased by almost 3.5 degrees Celsius in the last 60 years, causing the upper limits of barnacle and mussels habitats to retreat by 50 centimeters down the shore. However, the effects of predators, and therefore the position of the lower limit, have remained constant.
“That loss represents 51 per cent of the mussel bed. Some mussels have even gone extinct locally at three of the sites I surveyed,” says Harley.
Meanwhile, when pressure from sea star predation was reduced using exclusion cages, the prey species were able to occupy hotter sites where they don’t normally occur, and species richness at the sites more than doubled.
“A mussel bed is kind of like an apartment complex — it provides critical habitat for a lot of little plants and animals,” says Harley. “The mussels make the habitat cooler and wetter, providing an environment for crabs and other small crustaceans, snails, worms and seaweed.”
These findings provide a comprehensive look at the effects of warming and predation, while many previous studies on how species ranges will change due to warming assume that species will simply shift to stay in their current temperature range.
Harley says the findings show that the combined effects of warming and predation could lead to more widespread extinction than are currently predicted, as animals or plants are unable to shift their habitat ranges.
“Warming is not just having direct effects on individual species,” says Harley. “This study shows that climate change can also alter interactions between species, and produce unexpected changes in where species can live, their community structure, and their diversity.”
Editor’s note: “President Donald Trump has been pushing the U.S. to barrel ahead on deep-sea mining. The country plans to permit mining in international waters under an obscure U.S. law from 1980 called the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act(DSHMRA), which predates the Law of the Sea treaty. Congress wrote the law to serve as an ‘interim legal regime’ — a temporary way to grant mining licenses until the United Nations-affiliated regime took shape.
A main point of contention is that, according to the U.N. treaty and the DSHMRA, the international seabed is designated the ‘common heritage of mankind.’ In other words, the nodules legally belong to all people living on Earth today as well as future generations. The treaty declares that any profits from exploiting that heritage be distributed across nations, not just reaped by one country, in a benefits-sharing agreement that treaty signatories are still hashing out
The French diplomat slammed the Trump administration’s executive order, issued on April 24, that directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) to fast-track seabed exploration and commercial mining permits in both U.S. waters and ocean areas beyond America’s jurisdiction — commonly called the high seas..”
Invoking national security to justify private sector economic development is a tired cliché. And yet, in a troubling twist, a Canadian company is invoking U.S. national security to obtain an exclusive license from the U.S. government for a deep-sea mining venture for critical minerals in international waters—and it appears to be working.
Companies leading the push to launch deep-sea mining under a U.S. license are foreign-incorporated entities with no operational footprint—and no meaningful supply chain commitments to it. The timeline for commercial production remains uncertain and subject to indefinite delays due to technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles.
Far from offering strategic value, this initiative is best understood as a speculative venture propped up by shifting political winds. Deep-sea mining is not the answer to a mineral security crisis—it’s a solution to a problem that does not exist.
At the very least, ask for a 60 day extension to the public comment period because of the crucial nature of the proposal. But also express that you strongly oppose consolidating the exploration license and commercial recovery permit process.
Mining in international waters without global consent carries enormous reputational, legal, and financial risks. It could trigger investor pullout, international condemnation, and logistical nightmares. We can make sure it’s simply not worth the cost.
Despite everything, I left Jamaica feeling positive. Progress might be slow, yet things are moving in the right direction. But we can’t afford complacency. This meeting made clear just how fragile international governance really is. Loopholes and silence are letting corporate interests push the system to its limits.
At the same time, I saw how much influence we still have. Scientists, youth, Indigenous leaders, and civil society are shifting the conversation. The pressure we’re building is working — we have to keep going.
Join us in protecting what should never be plundered in the first place:
“We’re too late to know what today’s ocean without oil and gas drilling, whaling and overfishing would look like. We can stop this next great threat before it starts, and save one of the planet’s final frontiers — and the amazing life that lives there. Tell the Interior Department: Don’t mine the deep sea.” https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/is-the-u-s-going-to-start-deep-sea-mining/
Donald Trump has brought the world together against the U.S. with this dangerous unilateral action.
The deep sea, the planet’s most expansive and least understood ecosystem, remains largely unexplored. Yet while the deep sea may seem a dark and distant space, events underwater directly impact our lives, from essential services like climate regulation to fisheries and the marine food web. While scientific understanding of this realm is nascent, a new industry is rapidly emerging driven by the demand for rare metals essential for batteries, microchips and AI: deep-sea mining.
In the past three years, more than 38 nations have voiced support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, a rapid pace by the standards of multilateral lawmaking, and the equivalent of one new country signing on per month. This progress marks a major shift from just a few years ago, when states were either supportive of mining, reluctant to take a position, or were simply uninformed.
The triggering of a treaty provision known as the “two-year rule” by the nation of Nauru in 2021, intended to accelerate deep-sea mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction, brought increased attention and scrutiny to the activity. Nevertheless, some private actors are pushing for the granting of applications for commercial deep-sea mining of minerals like copper, nickel and cobalt, despite significant concerns from global leaders, the scientific community and the public at large.
This divergence between scientific understanding and prevailing narratives came into sharp focus at the recent annual meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). There, nations gathered to discuss matters profoundly consequential for the future of the deep ocean. However, there also seemed to be a broad understanding that a strong regulatory framework based on science, equity and precaution must be in place before an informed decision can be taken, and that no mining activities should commence in the meantime.
Moving forward, it’s imperative that we actively counter misinformation, significantly invest in scientific research, and, in the interim, take concrete measures to ensure that deep-sea mining activities do not commence in the absence of clear science, robust regulations, sufficient safeguards, and equity.
Here are the three main myths about deep-sea mining:
‘Deep-sea mining will provide an economic boom and promote global peace and security’
The primary justification for exploiting the seabed rests on a dubious economic premise: that mining’s financial gains will somehow outweigh its environmental costs. Yet, the economic case for deep-sea mining is tenuous at best, and expert indications suggest the burdens will far outstrip any tangible benefits. Deep-sea mining is an inherently capital-intensive endeavor, demanding massive amounts of upfront investment to take part in a high-risk, burgeoning industry. Developing and deploying specialized machinery capable of operating thousands of meters below the surface, under immense pressure and in corrosive conditions, presents unprecedented engineering challenges. The costs associated with exploration, environmental impact assessments, research and development, and then the actual extraction, processing and transport of minerals from such remote and hostile environments are projected to be staggering.
Some argue that deep-sea mining could bolster supply chain security for critical sectors such as defense, transportation, construction and energy. Given the vital importance of these industries to national security, the seabed’s mineral resources become intrinsically linked to the economic futures of nations like the U.S., which view them as a means to diversify mineral access: the majority of such mineral extraction occurs in regions like Africa, South America, Indonesia and Australia, and the supply chains for many of these critical minerals are currently dominated by geopolitical rivals like China, further intensifying the scramble to mine the deep.
However, it is naïve to think that deep-sea mining would address or alleviate global geopolitical tensions. If anything, the pursuit of unilateral deep-sea mining seems more likely to exacerbate fraught international relations, with the consequences spilling over to the global legal order more broadly. Countries should instead consider investing in a more circular economy, responsible sourcing and refining, encouraging innovation to be less metal-dependent, and developing multilateral frameworks to promote responsible and equitable international cooperation for critical metals and minerals.
A glass octopus, a nearly transparent deep sea species whose only visible features are its optic nerve, eyeballs and digestive tract. Image by Schmidt Ocean Institute (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
‘Deep-sea mining will reduce or alleviate the environmental impact of terrestrial mining’
Another justification is that we will be able to move away from many of the environmental and social ills of terrestrial mining. While it is true that terrestrial mining has caused massive deforestation and led to severe human rights abuses in areas like the Democratic Republic of Congo, the idea that shifting mining activity to the sea will ease the pressure on land-based operations is misguided.
As deep-sea competitors arise to challenge the establishment of terrestrial mining, the increased competition will only serve to expand the global footprint of resource extraction and encourage operators to cut corners to stay competitive. When mining activity accelerates, the environmental and social harms produced are likely to follow, leading to an increasingly untenable situation where biodiversity is wiped out and the planet’s capacity to provide ecosystem services depleted. In this scenario, it is local communities and Indigenous groups in the Global South who will suffer most as they become dispossessed of the resources needed for survival, like forests for fuel and fish for food.
While the recovery and restoration of former terrestrial mining sites is possible, with governments increasingly mandating multiyear rejuvenation and rehabilitation projects, the situation in the deep sea is vastly different. Deep-sea recovery is limited and extremely slow on human timescales. Moreover, current scientific knowledge indicates that any restoration effort there would be difficult and cost-prohibitive, if not impossible.
Moreover, the environmental footprint of deep-sea mining activities, particularly for polymetallic nodule extraction — where a single mining project will involve extraction over a very large spatial area spanning thousands of square kilometers — will far exceed the footprint of terrestrial mining, which usually involves a very small and targeted area. If deep-sea mining were to alleviate or replace terrestrial mining, there would need to be multiple of such extraction projects — which would be disastrous for the marine environment and the planet.
The ISA is currently debating how to factor environmental externalities into contractor payments, as harm to these common heritage resources shouldn’t burden society. The requirement to compensate developing countries with large terrestrial mining industries for lost earnings, funded by ISA revenues, suggests the entire exercise could result in a net negative benefit.
A deposit of polymetallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean. Image by Philweb / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
‘Deep-sea mining is necessary for the energy transition’
The need for metals to power the energy transition is largely overstated by deep-sea mining advocates. Their arguments often cite expanding demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy, both cornerstones of the energy transition that currently require large supplies of rare-earth metals and minerals to craft the infrastructure needed to generate and store renewable power. For these advocates, deep-sea mining is presented as the sole means to access adequate supplies of crucial transition minerals.
However, these arguments are built on the false premise that demand for transition metals will continuously rise alongside our demand for energy. Advances in battery chemistry are already helping to reduce demand for cobalt, and circular solutions like recycling can further reduce our reliance on virgin metals obtained through mining, thereby challenging narratives that we are facing an unavoidable mineral deficit unless we turn to the deep seabed.
So, given the high costs and severe environmental risks, why then pursue deep-sea mining? This activity threatens unique deep-sea ecosystems and could irrevocably alter ocean health, impacting life on land. Scientists warn of irreversible damage from sediment plumes, habitat destruction and noise pollution to ecosystems formed over millions of years. Without sufficient baseline data, predicting or mitigating these risks is impossible, mandating caution under the precautionary principle.
Finally, the numbers also do not add up, which means financing deep-sea mining is akin to investing in a financial scam. If we are serious about tackling the unprecedented and existential threats that we are now facing, destructive activities like deep-sea mining surely cannot form part of the equation. It is therefore heartening to see many global leaders and governments voicing their concerns and calling for a pause or moratorium on deep-sea mining.
Pradeep Singh is an ocean governance expert at the Oceano Azul Foundation and holds degrees from the University of Malaya, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard Law School.
Banner Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration. Public Domain
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s national human rights commission has found a slew of legal and rights violations in a government-backed project to establish large-scale plantations in the eastern region of Papua.
The so-called food estate project, categorized by the government as being of strategic national importance, or PSN, aims to clear 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land in Merauke district, two-thirds of it for sugarcane plantations and the rest for rice fields — an area 45 times the size of Jakarta.
The rights commission, known as Komnas HAM, launched an investigation after receiving complaints last year from four Indigenous tribes whose ancestral lands overlap with the food estate. The tribes — the Malind, Maklew, Khimaima and Yei — alleged that the project violated their land rights and impacted their livelihoods.
Komnas HAM, which is funded by the government but operates independently, quizzed officials involved in the project from the local and national governments. Based on these inquiries, it said it had found indications of land grabbing, environmental degradation, militarization and intimidation.
For one, Komnas HAM said the Indigenous communities hadn’t given consent to transfer or use their customary lands for the project. When the government zoned their areas for the food estate project, it never properly consulted them, the inquiry found.
However, these communities lack strong legal standing to defend their territories, as their land rights aren’t formally recognized by the government. The only basis for their Indigenous territorial claims is participatory mapping — carried out by themselves — of their lands.
The Indigenous communities also complained of the intensified presence of the military in their areas. Papua has long been the most militarized region of Indonesia, the result of a long-running insurgency. But while Jakarta maintains that the heavy security presence there is to counter what it calls “criminal armed groups” affiliated with the West Papua independence campaign, the military is now engaged in the food estate project.
On Nov. 10, 2024, 2,000 troops arrived in Merauke to support the project; military posts had already been established beforehand. And earlier last year, the military also provided a security escort for a fleet of heavy equipment to build infrastructure for the project in Ilwayab subdistrict.
“The addition of military forces around forests and Indigenous lands affected by the PSN creates heightened tension,” Komnas HAM wrote in a letter detailing its findings. “Although their official role is to support the project, their large-scale deployment increases fear among Indigenous people, who feel watched and physically threatened.”
Satya Bumi, an environmental NGO that’s been monitoring the project, said the government’s decision to deploy armed forces to Merauke indicates the state views Indigenous peoples as a threat to the nation who must be subdued.
Threat to forests and people
The plantation project’s large-scale monoculture model also threatens Merauke’s biodiverse forests and ecological balance, Komnas HAM found. These ecosystems are vital to the livelihood of the Indigenous communities, providing traditional food crops like sago and tubers, the commission noted.
Franky Samperante, director of the Pusaka Foundation, an NGO that works with Indigenous peoples in Papua, welcomed Komnas HAM’s findings.
“They confirm that there is indeed a potential for human rights violations — starting from the formulation of the laws and policies themselves, which were done without consultation or consent from local communities, to the potential impacts on their way of life,” he told Mongabay.
Based on these findings, Komnas HAM concluded that the food estate project contradicts multiple national regulations protecting Indigenous rights.
It cited the 1999 Forestry Law, which requires permits and consultation for the use of customary forests — a requirement that in this case wasn’t fulfilled. Similarly, the exclusion of Indigenous peoples violates the principle of participation under the 2012 Land Procurement Law.
The project also goes against international human rights and environmental standards. While Indonesia hasn’t ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Komnas HAM emphasized that the principles it enshrines — particularly the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — should serve as a benchmark.
The project’s ongoing deforestation and disruption of Indigenous territories also run counter to Indonesia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework, both of which oblige the government to uphold forest conservation, climate resilience and Indigenous rights.
List of rights violations
In all, Komnas HAM identified five human rights violations in the food estate project.
The first of these is the right to land and customary territory, which is guaranteed under Indonesia’s Constitution.
The second is the right to a healthy environment, also enshrined in the Constitution and the 2009 Environmental Protection Law.
The third is the right to food security, guaranteed by the Constitution and the 2012 Food Law, which mandates that food policies be based on community needs and participation, including of Indigenous peoples.
The fourth is the right to participation in decision-making, guaranteed by the 2012 Land Procurement Law.
And the fifth right violated in the project is the right to security, as the heavy presence of the military creates psychological pressure and increases fear of intimidation or violence among Indigenous peoples, Komnas HAM said.
Recommendations
Given these multiple rights and legal violations, Komnas HAM issued a number of recommendations for the government, at local and national levels.
It said the government should first increase Indigenous participation in the project planning by ensuring local communities’ active involvement to obtain their FPIC. Consent must be obtained not only from tribal or clan chiefs, but from all traditional stakeholders, it said. The government must also provide an effective complaint mechanism to address Indigenous communities’ complaints about the project.
Second, the government must work with Indigenous communities to carry out legally sound and transparent mapping of customary lands to prevent unauthorized land transfers and ensure legal recognition of the communities’ land rights, Komnas HAM said.
The rights commission also said the government should strengthen policies that acknowledge Indigenous rights to land and territories, including decisions over forest use and agricultural land use.
In addition, the government must ensure that projects involving Indigenous land provide fair benefits and promote sustainable development for Indigenous peoples, it said.
Komnas HAM’s final recommendation is for the government to evaluate the issuance of permits and concessions to companies operating on customary lands, prioritizing the interests of Indigenous communities in land-use policies in their areas.
Calls to end the project
Uli Parulian Sihombing, a commissioner at Komnas HAM who issued the recommendation letter, said the commission will continue its inquiries of government officials to ensure the recommendations are carried out. However, the commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.
Satya Bumi called for the more drastic step of ending the Merauke food estate project entirely. “The Komnas HAM recommendation must serve as a loud alarm,” the group said.
Evaluating the project alone isn’t enough, given its potential to wreak systematic destruction of the environment, living spaces and the socioeconomic fabric of local communities, the NGO said.
It added similar measures must be taken to halt other PSN projects elsewhere in the country, which have similarly been the target of human rights violations, such as a solar panel factory on Rempang Island and an oil refinery in Air Bangis, both in Sumatra.
And since land grabbing and environmental destruction have already occurred in Merauke, the government must restore the rights of the affected communities through compensation and the recovery of customary forests, Satya Bumi said.
“Efforts to restore rights and guarantee the welfare of communities can serve as evidence that the government upholds its constitutional duty to promote public welfare, as written in the 1945 Constitution,” Satya Bumi said. “If not, then all nationalist claims and rhetoric about prioritizing the people’s interests are empty slogans, mere political fiction.”
The group also demanded the withdrawal of military and police forces from PSN locations like Merauke, saying their presence has endangered local communities and instilled ongoing fear.
“The many reckless approaches the government has taken in managing the country through the PSN [designation] reflect how it sees Papua: as empty land,” Satya Bumi said. “The promise of equitable development is a sham, when in fact the intended beneficiaries, the people, feel threatened and are forced to face an increasingly difficult existence.”
Franky from the Pusaka Foundation said it was unlikely the government would heed any of the calls by civil society groups or even Komnas HAM. He said the central government has a track record of ignoring grievances raised by communities and civil society, and instead prioritizing the interests of investors and fast-tracking their large-scale projects.
“The national government must also implement the recommendations, because they are responsible for the project,” Franky said.
In 2006, a group of international NGOs and the government of Kazakhstan came together to save the dwindling population of saiga antelope of the enormous Golden Steppe, a grassland ecosystem three times the size of the United Kingdom. Since that moment, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has successfully rehabilitated the saiga (Saiga tatarica) from a population of roughly 30,000 to nearly 4 million.
For this monumental effort, it was awarded the 2024 Earthshot Prize in the “protect & restore nature” category. This prize, launched by David Attenborough and Britain’s Prince William, also provides a grant of 1 million pounds ($1.32 million) to each winner.
Joining the podcast to discuss this achievement is Vera Voronova, executive director of the Association for the Conservation Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, an NGO involved in the initiative. Voronova details the cultural and technological methods used to bring the saiga back from the brink and to help restore this massive grassland ecosystem, and shares lessons learned along the way, plus hopes and plans for the future.
“When [the] initiative [was] started, the saiga would be always like the flagship and the priority species because we did have this emergency case to recover saiga,” she says. “But the whole … picture of restoring the [steppe] was always behind this, and will be now a long term strategy.”
Voronova emphasizes the importance of local community participation in this effort, pointing to the role of local landowners residing in ecological corridors between protected areas, and education programs on the value of Kazakh wildlife for children especially.
“One of the recent book[s] that we published was about specifically the steppe animals, because as a child, I grew up knowing a lot about African animals and very little about what kind of animals live in my country,” Voronova says. “And this is exactly [what] we want to change, [the] attitude of the people, to know more about nature they live close to.”
Saiga antelopes, among the most ancient living mammals, are set to be reintroduced to China 75 years after they went extinct in the region, thanks to a donation of 1,500 wild individuals from Kazakhstan.
The transfer, announced during a meeting between the countries’ presidents on June 17, is projected to begin in 2026. Its aim is to restore part of the antelope’s historic range, which stretched from Kazakhstan into northwest China until the 1950s.
The donation “is a significant conservation-driven move aimed at restoring the saiga population in China and promoting international collaboration on the conservation of transboundary species,” conservation biologist Zhigang Jiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Mongabay by email. Jiang co-authored a 2017 study on the saiga antelope’s historic range and its prospects for reintroduction in China.
The saiga (Saiga tatarica), most easily recognized for its large otherworldly nose, lived alongside Ice Age megafauna like woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats thousands of years ago. Until the 1800s, the species could be found as far as Eastern Europe, but its range has contracted ever since.
As of April, there are now an estimated 4.1 million individuals, with more than 98% concentrated in Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe.
China has tried to reintroduce the saiga into the wild since the 1980s, but low numbers and a limited gene pool from its captive population have largely frustrated previous efforts. A safe translocation from other populations has been considered for decades as a possible but challenging fix.
“For the reintroduction to succeed, it’s crucial to identify habitats for saiga in China,” Jiang said. “Open steppe and semi-desert ecosystems, with low human disturbance and migratory space, will support large herds of saigas.”
Wild saigas were last recorded in China in the Junggar Basin of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which borders Kazakhstan. But according to Jiang, other sites could also potentially host saiga herds, including areas bordering Xinjiang such as the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai province, northern Gansu, western Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.
“I am expecting the reintroduced saiga from Kazakhstan to return to its historical range in China,” Jiang added.
Banner image: A saiga antelope at the Stepnoi Sanctuary in Russia. Image by Andrey Giljov via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
