Caspian Sea: State of the Environment 2019

To create effective standards for the manage- ment, protection and use of specially protect- ed natural areas, a new Law of Turkmenistan, dated 31 March 2012, “On Specially Protected Natural Areas” was issued. The law has great- ly expanded the categories of protected area, making it possible to create state biosphere reserves and national natural parks. State bo- tanical gardens and zoological parks were the first to acquire legally protected status on en- vironmental grounds. These gardens and parks seek to preserve the plant world under natural conditions in collections and at experimental plots, and to protect animals in captivity. The law provides for the preparation and adoption of a programme to develop a system of specially protected natural areas. According to the new law “OnNature Protection”, adopted on 1 March 2014 (Kepbanov 2016), wet- lands of international importance, key ornitho- logical territories, outstanding natural water bodies (or the areas in which they are located) are also a type or category of protected area.

ing the natural biological state. Protected areas (excluding zoological and botanical gardens, and health, recreational, historical and cultural lands under the jurisdiction of other ministries and de- partments) currently cover 2,152,360 ha, or more than 4 per cent of the entire country. Nature re- serves cover 925,157 hectares, or more than 43 per cent of the protected areas. Nature sanctu- aries occupy about 50 per cent of the territory (1,070,506 hectares), protected areas account for more than 5 per cent (114,660 hectares), natu- ral features for 0.09 per cent (2020 hectares) and ecological corridors for about 2 per cent (40,017 hectares) of the entire protected area. According to currently available data, 777 verte- brate species live in Turkmenistan, including 105 mammal species, 436 bird species (70 settled, 181 migrating-nesting, 71 migrating, 75 flying-win- tering and 39 visiting), 100 amphibian and reptile species and subspecies, 135 fish species and sub- species and one cyclostome species, and 12,000 invertebrate species, including about 8,000 insect species (Rustamov 2009; Rustamov 2018).

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