Nature
PUBLISHED
Tigers have been extinct in this part of Central Asia for nearly 70 years, but a new project is looking to change that – and it all starts with planting thousands of trees. Last year, conservationists planted more than 37,000 seedlings in an effort to revive the ecosystems of Southern Balkhash and prepare for the return of its long-absent tiger population.
The massive reforestation campaign has been centered in the Ili-Balkhash State Nature Reserve in southeastern Kazakhstan. Working alongside the WWF and the United Nations Development Programme, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources planted approximately 30,000 narrow-leaf oleaster seedlings, 5,000 willow cuttings, and around 2,000 turanga seedlings during the spring and autumn of 2025.
The goal is to restore the region’s native tugai forests, dense riverside woodlands that act as an oasis of biodiversity in Central Asian arid zones, and to prepare suitable habitat for the tiger’s return.
In 2024, two Amur tigers, called Bodhana and Kuma, were transported from the Netherlands and released into a semi-wild enclosure within the reserve. Their relocation marked a major milestone in Kazakhstan’s ambitious Tiger Reintroduction Program.
Now that last year’s restoration efforts have begun to take root, conservationists hope the recovering forests will provide the foundation for a self-sustaining ecosystem capable of supporting not only tigers, but the full range of wildlife that once thrived there.
“Restoring tugai forests is the basis for the return of wildlife to the region. Without healthy ecosystems, it is impossible to speak of stable animal populations, including the return of the tiger. We are grateful to all our partners and local residents who are contributing to this work,” Aibek Baibulov, WWF Central Asia Project Manager for Forest Restoration in Kazakhstan, said in a statement.
“The results of 2025 are the outcome of many years of painstaking work. We are not simply planting trees – we are laying the foundation for resilient ecosystems capable of sustaining themselves,” Baibulov explained.
“Today, we already see that plantings from previous years have reached heights of up to 2.5 meters [8.2 feet], their root systems have reached groundwater, and they are forming полноценные [full-fledged] natural communities.”
The project's eventual aim is to introduce at least 10 tigers by 2033, laying the groundwork for a viable population of up to 120 individuals. However, there are many hurdles to overcome.
Amur tigers, aka Siberian tigers, are native to the snowy forests of the Russian Far East and Northeast China. A thriving population used to live in this part of Kazakhstan, but they fell into local extinction in the 1940s following decades of habitat loss, reduction of prey, and systematic hunting by military troops.
Their plight is a microcosm of the global crisis. Wild tigers now occupy less than 6 percent of their historic range, with 4,500 or fewer individuals scattered across just 63 fragmented landscapes. A dedicated few groups are working to reverse this tide, but there's still a very long way to go.
