Saiga Conservation Alliance are delighted to announce the 2 Excellence in Saiga Protection Winners.
Bringing back our Annual Awards, after a short hiatus, has been very important for the alliance. Through this award we aim to build capacity among members for more effective conservation and information-sharing.
SCA also wishes to take this opportunity to thank our donor for this award Zoofari Parks. Without Zoofari Parks’ support this award would not be possible.
We received several strong applications from saiga range states during the application process and we are pleased to declare our winners from Mongolia and Kazakhstan
We congratulate Olonbaatar Gaanbat from Mongolia and we congratulate Okhotzooprom Ranger Team, from Kazakhstan.
“Okhotzooprom” Ranger Team of the Western Regional Branch of the State Enterprise in Kazakhstan. Since 2020 the wildlife inspectors are credited with identifying 85 criminal violations of environmental legislation, helping the number of saiga in the Ural population has grown from 217 thousand individuals in 2019 to 1,130 thousand individuals in 2023.
Under leadership of Arman Kuzhakhmetov, protection measures are carried out by 56 wildlife inspectors.
Awarded due to his outstanding contributions to the protection of the critically endangered saiga antelope in Mongolia, Olonbaatar is a wildlife specialist and inspector at the Environmental Protection Agency of Gobi-Altai Province in Mongolia. His work in saiga protection includes his work in monitoring saiga populations and understanding their population size and habitat use patterns. Olonbaatar has also been actively involved in community outreach and education. He has assisted in numerous workshops, training sessions, and other educational activities to engage local communities particularly school children and build support for saiga conservation efforts.
We look forward to supporting Olonbaatar and Kuzhakhmetov and wish them the best of luck. Thank you to all who applied and we wish you good luck with your saiga conservation efforts.