ASTANA — The Central Asia Climate Foundation (CACF) reported on Jan. 12 that, according to the National Report on the State of the Environment and the Use of Natural Resources in Kazakhstan for 2024, the country’s total forest fund exceeded 23 million hectares, accounting for 8.7% of the country’s total land area.
Photo credit: Alexander Buzurnyuk / Pexels
From 1991 to 2024, the total area of the country’s forest fund increased by 12.846 million hectares. However, there has been both an increase and decrease in the area of forested lands across regions.
Since Kazakhstan gained independence, the largest increase in the forest fund area has been noted in the Kyzylorda (+5,597,400 hectares), Zhambyl (+4,117,000 hectares), Turkistan (+2,950,700 hectares), and Zhetisu (+1,517,200 hectares) regions, while reductions have occurred in the East Kazakhstan (-1,006,300 hectares), Pavlodar (-325,000 hectares), Karagandy (-98,300 hectares), and North Kazakhstan (-95,300 hectares) regions.
As of the end of 2024, the largest areas of the forest fund are located in the Kyzylorda, Zhambyl, Turkistan, Almaty, and East Kazakhstan regions. The largest forest and shrub plantations are in the Kyzylorda, Zhambyl, Almaty, and East Kazakhstan regions, reads the article.
In the structure of the forest fund, forest areas and shrub plantations account for 61% (14.1 million hectares). The highest forest cover is found in the North Kazakhstan (90%) and Pavlodar (86.9%) regions, while the lowest is in the Turkistan (16.5%) and Ulytau (19.3%) regions. The high forest cover (84.4%) in Kyzylorda is due to the extensive areas of sparse saxaul forests.
Kazakhstan’s four natural-climatic zones (forest-steppe, steppe, desert, and high mountain) have contributed to the wide variety of plant species. According to various estimates, more than 5,700 species of higher vascular plants grow in the country, including horsetails, ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants. Among them, there are 108 relict plants and around 300 endemic species, which are found nowhere else in the world in a wild state.
Kazakhstan’s forests are classified into aspen and birch groves in the northern regions, island forests in the northwest, pine forests in the Kazakh Uplands, ribbon forests along the right bank of the Irtysh River, mountain forests of the Altai and Saur ranges, Dzungarian Alatau, and Tian Shan, as well as saxaul, tugai, and floodplain intrazonal forests.
