Altai-Sayan region
Its ecosystem is comparatively unchanged since the last ice age, and it is the host of endangered species that include the saiga, nerpa, and snow leopard.
[2] Contained within this ecoregion is the Great Lakes Hollow, a large semi-arid depression, bounded by the Altai in the West, Khangai in the East and Tannu-Ola Mountains in the North.
[4] According to Anatoliy Mandych, a geographer at the Russian Academy of Sciences (see also WWF[5]), For many centuries, the region has been at the crossroads of European and Asian civilizations, and thus is home to great historical treasures.
Conditions in the Altai-Sayan are stable, so ancient humans may have taken refuge there during glacial interchanges and lived off the diverse game species.
[2]: 236 [7] Recent genetic studies have shown that some indigenous peoples of the Americas are partially derived from southern Altaians.
The wetlands are based on the system of interconnected shallow lakes with wide reed belts within the steppe.
As a key part of the Central Asian Flyway, the wetlands support a number of rare and endangered migrating birds: Eurasian spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia), black stork (Ciconia nigra), osprey (Pandion haliaetus), white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), swan goose (Cygnopsis cygnoides), bar-headed goose (Anser indicus), and white pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus.
[12] Threats to the biodiversity of the region, according to the Fund, include poaching and illegal wildlife trade, industrial development, climate change, overgrazing and competition for pastures, unsustainable forestry, water pollution, and poverty.
[12] Beginning in the late 1990s, several government-level initiatives were begun with the stated purpose that included helping to preserve the Altai-Sayan ecoregion and biodiversity.
In 1998, representatives of Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and Russia met in Urumqi to organize a trans-boundary nature reserve and launch joint biodiversity conservation programs.
[2]: 237 That same year, several republics in the Russian Federation (Tyva, Khakassia and Altai) also signed an environmental protection agreement.
