OREANDA-NEWS. On 01 September 2009 was announced, that fire-fighting machinery (fire engines, trailers, tractors, fire truck tractors, bulldozers, motor pumps and other fire-fighting equipment) was transferred to protected areas in East Kazakhstan: West-Altai State Zapovednik, Markakol State Zapovednik and Katon-Karagai National Park to strengthen their inspectors’ service technically and improve their work in extinguishing forest fires which are the main threat to unique valuable forests.

Procurement of fire-fighting equipment was organized within the framework of implementation of the joint project of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Federal Republic of Germany, United Nations Development Programme and the Regional Coordination Centre in Europe and the CIS Expansion of the Protected Areas Network for the Conservation of the Altai-Sayan Region”.

The Project goal is reducing natural and anthropogenic reasons of climate change in forest ecosystems of Western part of the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion by means of establishing new protected areas, green corridors and minimizing human-caused threats of fires.

As a rule, fires spread to vast territories because a lot of time passes between the beginning of the fire and its discovering and also because remote territories are hard-to-reach. That is why during implementation of the Project prevention of fires arising and spreading to the protected areas is of great importance. To strengthen forest fire control within the framework of the Project, in addition to purchasing fire-fighting machinery for the three PAs of the region, construction of the fire-chemical station in West-Altai Zapovednik was started this year, fire water bodies were located and radiocommunication was improved in Katon-Karagai National Park, information campaign on preventing forest and steppe fires is being conducted among population.

Participants of the Project are Katon-Karagai National Park, Markakol State Zapovednik and West-Altai State Zapovednik, akimats, nonprofit organizations, local communities. The implementing agency from Kazakhstan is the Forestry and Hunting Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture of the RK; the implementing agency from the Federal Republic of Germany is the Federal Ministry of Ecology, Natural Resources Conservation and Nuclear Safety.