Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative wins The Earthshot Prize 2024

We’re thrilled that the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has won the prestigious Earthshot Prize 2024. Co-founded by the RSPB, it’s a long-term large-scale collaborative conservation initiative, which has been instrumental in the remarkable recovery of the Saiga Antelope.

The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has been named the winner of the ‘Protect and Restore Nature’ category of His Royal Highness Prince William’s Earthshot Prize 2024. The prize recognises the initiative’s vision and results to conserve and restore the grassland, wetland and deserts of Kazakhstan.

The Earthshot Prize searches the globe for game-changing innovations that will help us repair our planet. Each year, five of the very best solutions receive £1 million each to scale their work, along with expert support, partnership and coaching opportunities through The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance Partners. 

In winning the prestigious prize, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative’s efforts to create and expand protected areas, restore threatened species’ populations, address illegal wildlife trade, and provide professional training and public education were recognised at the award ceremony held in Cape Town.

As a long-term collaborative partnership between Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology & Natural Resources, the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK), Fauna & Flora, Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Altyn Dala was initially founded in 2005 to prevent the extinction of Saiga Antelopes.

Home to rare steppe grassland habitat, the Altyn Dala project area in Kazakhstan covers over 75 million hectares – that’s roughly the size of Turkey! The steppe is semi-arid, meaning only 200-400 millimetres of rain falls per year. Despite these extreme conditions, there is a rich ecosystem with perfectly adapted species like the Saiga Antelope.

The Saiga is an ancient species, which would’ve once roamed alongside Woolly Mammoths and Sabre-toothed Tigers. However, despite its longevity, the populations were on the brink of a catastrophic collapse in the early 2000s. Targeted by criminal poaching gangs for their horns, it reached lows of fewer than 40,000.

Sustained research, anti-poaching, anti-smuggling, protected area establishment and public education efforts have since enabled Saiga Antelope populations to recover to an unprecedented level of over 2.8 million in 2024. This represents one of the most dramatic recoveries of a mammal ever recorded.

Beyond the efforts to recover Saiga Antelope populations, Altyn Dala partners are additionally working to revive a series of other priority threatened species found within steppe ecosystems. These include Steppe Eagles, Sociable Lapwing, Kulan (wild ass) and Przewalski’s Horse – the latter reintroduced in 2024 after a 200-year absence. The project has also created rural employment.

Working at an ecosystem scale, efforts to secure the long-term future of the ancient Kazakh steppe are ongoing. The funding provided by The Earthshot Prize will further enable Altyn Dala to build the steppe’s resilience to climate change impacts, maintain anti-poaching and anti-smuggling activities, recover threatened species and connect restored landscapes that function both for wildlife and communities’ land uses.

Additionally, to strengthen national capacity for delivering conservation effectively, investment in existing professionals, the current generation of students, and school children across Kazakhstan is crucial.