Current conservation issues for the saiga

By 2005 the saiga had declined to an estimated 50,000 individuals, in 5 populations, 3 of which are found in Kazakhstan. Concerted conservation efforts since then have led to an overall population increase to an estimated 100,000 individuals (though both estimates are subject to bias and uncertainty; McConville et al. 2009). However this masks a mixed picture; the small Mongolian population appears stable, the Russian population is not recovering and is subject to heavy poaching, as is the transboundary (Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan) Ustiurt population; the Ural population (Kazakhstan/Russia) appears to be increasing slightly, while the Betpak-dala population (Kazakhstan) appears to be increasing healthily (information in CMS Status Report, 2010). Kazakhstan holds the majority of the global saiga population.

Heavy poaching, documented in Kuhl et al. (2009), is still ongoing in all saiga populations, but with increasing success in law enforcement as documented in Saiga News. A recent study of the Ustiurt population (undertaken by FFI, SCA and ACBK) showed substantial poaching and cross-border trade in both meat and horns, with trade routes going through Kazakhstan to Almaty and on to China. Other threats include infrastructural development for oil and gas, as well as potentially climate change and land use change.

In May 2010, 12,000 saigas died over the course of a week in the Ural population. This was mostly females who had just given birth, and was estimated at 1/3 of the population. Major investigations by the Kazakh government were initiated, with international support, and the SCA and ACBK instituted the population's first public engagement project. In both 2011 and 2012 around 500 saigas died in similar circumstances, and investigations are still ongoing. The collaboration promoted under the CMS MOU, which this project aims to promote, was instrumental in ensuring a coordinated and constructive approach to the problem.

Currently a fence is being constructed along the Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan border, which threatens to bisect the fragile Ustiurt population. Again a coordinated response is being launched with the involvement of the CMS, national and international partners, supporting the Kazakhstan Committee on Forestry and Hunting through suggesting mitigating fence designs and promoting bilateral discussions between the two countries.

Background to the project

In February 2011 the CMS, SCA and ACBK jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of consolidating, developing and intensifying their cooperation and their ability to support the implementation of the MTIWP under the Saiga MoU and improve its monitoring, coordination and cooperation. The SCA and ACBK aim to provide technical and logistical support to the CMS, help to develop mechanisms for broader communication between all interested parties, and promote a proactive approach to driving saiga conservation forward internationally. The planned outcome is that coordination has a positive effect in increasing and improving saiga conservation activities within the framework of the MOU MTIWP.

MOU coordination requires strong links with all stakeholders, from the secretariat to ground-level implementers, and particularly with the range state governments. It also requires a broad knowledge of the activities being carried out range-wide and internationally to conserve saigas, and an ability to ensure that there is ongoing communication between all involved in implementing the MTIWP. ACBK, with its deep and extensive in-country links, and SCA, with its international network, are ideally placed to do this.

In order to kick-start the coordination process the Swiss Government generously donated a grant of 15,000 Euros via the CMS. These funds were used for the initial development of the SRC, the development and implementation of new reporting forms for the collation of information from national governments, NGOs and other interested parties, the development, maintenance and inclusion of the project and experts databases into the SRC, to establish and support a coordination office within ACBK in Astana, Kazakhstan, and for the translation of the main content of the SRC into Russian.

Saiga News

Saiga News, the SCA's biannual bulletin in six languages (English, Russian, Chinese, Uzbek, Kazakh, Mongolian), was developed as a service to all those working on saigas, including conservationists, governments and the public throughout the world, but particularly within the range states. This was in response to a perceived disconnect between in-country knowledge and actions and the decisions made in international forums. The aim was to build an international community of those working to conserve the saiga, using Saiga News to share information, opinions and expertise.

Saiga News is the authoritative source of information on saigas for a growing audience, publishing the results of saiga-related research and conservation initiatives and acting as an important forum for open public discussion on topical issues (e.g. the causes of the recent mass saiga deaths in Kazakhstan). It carries news items, articles, profiles of saiga heroes, project updates and press reports and is published in six languages to ensure that it is widely accessible. The Editorial Board has representatives from all range states, China and the UK, and its wide readership ranges from schoolchildren in remote villages to government ministers. Saiga News helps people who would otherwise not be able to publish their work in an international journal to do so, to access information about what others are doing and to share best practice.

The importance of Saiga News as a communication mechanism was recognised in the saiga MOU's MTIWP in both 2006 and 2010, with support for its mission listed as a priority action. It won the prize for best environmental publication in Uzbekistan in 2008, and its influence has been recognised by consistent grant funding from a range of supporters. Issue 15 will be published in summer 2012.

Justification of implementers/collaborators

The SCA was involved in monitoring the MOU on saiga conservation from June 2007 to October 2009, under a contract from the CMS Secretariat to Imperial College London. This included creating and maintaining databases of saiga experts and of saiga conservation projects; and reporting on a 6-monthly basis on progress towards the implementation of the MTIWP, with the reports being available in English and Russian at the SCA website's MOU page and summarised in 6 languages in the bulletin Saiga News. Under this contract, the SCA convened an interim technical meeting in Kazakhstan in October 2008 to review progress. For the second meeting of the Signatories to the MOU, the SCA took the lead in preparing a report analysing progress towards implementing the MOU, in preparing the draft MTIWP for 2011-2015, and in chairing the discussion of both these reports in the technical meeting and revising the documents accordingly. More recently the SCA has been responsible for the design, implementation and ongoing maintenance of the SRC.

ACBK has worked intensively with a wide range of stakeholders in Kazakhstan over the last five years to design and implement conservation actions for the saiga. ACBK therefore has a strong track record of on-the-ground implementation of the MTIWP itself, and of interaction with the signatories to the MOU and other parties who are also working towards fulfilling the MTIWP on the ground. In particular they have a strong and long-standing relationship with the Forestry and Hunting Committee of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture and its relevant bodies, which means that they are able to liaise directly with them on MOU coordination matters. As Kazakhstan is the range state with the largest saiga numbers, covering 3 of the 5 populations of the species, this is an important requirement for effective implementation of the MTIWP. More recently ACBK have been responsible for the design of national and project report forms and ongoing interaction with those completing the forms, and the maintenance of stakeholder and saiga conservation project databases. The SCA and ACBK have a track record of successful collaboration, and ACBK Director Olga Klimanova is a member of the SCA Steering Committee.