Tokayev urges five Caspian states to unite to save Caspian seals

Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told the COP17 Leaders' Summit on biodiversity about his country's efforts to restore rare species.

Tokayev said the recovery of the saiga population was a key achievement: about 98 percent of the world's saiga population is now in Kazakhstan, rising from 21,000 in 2003 to 4.7 million this spring. He also cited a rise in snow leopards to about 190 from critically low 1990s levels, and thanked Russia, UNDP and WWF for help releasing a Turan tiger into the wild in June, the first in 70 years.

On the Caspian Sea, Tokayev said he had called for urgent, coordinated action at the first Caspian Ecological Summit in Turkmenistan. The Caspian seal population fell from one million to 270,000 over the last century, he said, and he called on all five Caspian states and the international community to step up protection. He warned that the Aral Sea tragedy shows the consequences of irresponsible use of natural resources, and that the Caspian must not share its fate.