Bringing the Saiga Antelope Back to the Ustyurt Plateau

The Saiga Conservation Alliance has partnered with Uzbekistan's Institute of Zoology since 2004 on community-based conservation of the saiga antelope, one of the fastest-declining large mammals ever recorded. Its work spans participatory 'Saiga Friends' monitoring, school-based Saiga Day celebrations now formally recognised by the Uzbek government, alternative-livelihood projects for local women, and research that helped justify the creation of Aralkum National Park on the former Aral seabed. That park, established in March 2022, covers roughly one million hectares of the exposed sea floor and now hosts a resident population of saiga antelope in its Resurrection Island core zone. The alliance also supports anti-poaching ranger patrols and habitat research across the trans-boundary Ustyurt plateau shared with Kazakhstan.