Short Biography:

Vera Voronova is the Executive Director of the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK), Kazakhstan’s leading national civil society organization dedicated to conserving and restoring nature. An ecologist, on her position she works with government ministries, agencies, and orther NGOs to protect and restore landscapes, revive threatened species, and ensure that human impacts on nature in Kazakhstan are minimised. Ms. Voronova chairs the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, a dynamic partnership of government/civil society recognized in 2022 by the United Nations as a ‘World Restoration Flagship’ and the winner of The Earthshot Prize ‘Protect & Restore Nature’ category in 2024 for its impacts restoring saiga antelope populations across Kazakhstan’s vast grasslands.

Session Title: Dream to reality – Restoring the Golden Steppe at scale — Work of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative

The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative in Kazakhstan represents the large efforts to restore temperate grasslands. Encompassing over 180 million acres of steppe ecosystems — incorporating “wetland islands in the sea of grass”, to arid southern areas transitioning into desert steppe. Altyn Dala, meaning ‘Golden Steppe’ in Kazakh, was driven initially by the urgent need to conserve the migratory saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica). While saiga recovery served as the early focus, the broader objectives have always been the long-term restoration of steppe ecological processes, habitats, and their biodiversity, over vast landscapes.

Established in 2005 as a multi-stakeholder partnership — comprising the Government of Kazakhstan, national and international conservation organizations — Altyn Dala integrates science-based conservation planning and delivery, policy development and enforcement, education and capacity building. Key interventions include landscape-scale protected area expansion and restoration planning, anti-poaching and anti-trafficking enforcement, species recovery, including reintroductions, alongside long-term ecological monitoring. The initiative has applied satellite telemetry, remote sensing, ecological modeling, and targeted field research to identify and safeguard critical habitats and migration corridors and enabling both passive  and active restoration approaches.

Since its inception, protected steppe and wetland areas have increased fivefold, and saiga populations have recovered from below 40,000 individuals in 2005 over 2.8 million in 2024, which are now driving grassland restoration. These remarkable outcomes are directly linked to sustained investments in institutional capacity, public engagement, and evidence-based decision-making, building institutional capacity, and ongoing public engagement especially in remote rural steppe communities.

Recognized as a UN World Restoration Flagship in 2022 and then winner of The Earthshot Prize in 2024, Altyn Dala is demonstrating the ecological and socio-economic potential of restoration in underrepresented biomes such as temperate grasslands. Current priorities include scaling up habitat protection and restoration planning, expanding species recovery programs to include reintroduction of wild horses and enable recovery of migratory steppe eagles. Efforts are also shifting focus to foster collaboration with key large-scale temperate grassland restoration projects, from Mongolia to Argentina and the USA.