Ile-Alatau

Ile-Alatau National Park was created in 1996 in south-eastern Kazakhstan, on the northern flank of the Tian Shan, and protects some 2,000 km² immediately south of Almaty, the country's largest city.

The massif climbs from the edge of the city to more than four thousand metres, with glaciers at the valley heads and a succession of belts running from steppe to alpine tundra. In its valleys are Big Almaty Lake, of an intense turquoise, and the gorges of Medeu and Shymbulak, the latter with a ski resort. Mudflows from glacial meltwater have historically been a serious threat to Almaty and prompted the building of large retaining dams.

Its botanical value is of global reach: on the slopes of the Tian Shan grow forests of wild apple (Malus sieversii), the species from which the domestic apple descends. Genetic studies have placed the origin of all the world's cultivated varieties in this region, and the city of Almaty itself bears a name related to the apple. Those forests are severely threatened by urban and agricultural expansion. The wildlife includes snow leopard, Siberian ibex, Tian Shan brown bear and cliff-dwelling birds including the bearded vulture.