Kyrgyzstan has officially designated a massive stretch of its high-altitude landscape as a protected corridor for snow leopards and other mountain wildlife.
The Ak Ilbirs ecological corridor, formalized in 2025, spans nearly 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) and was designed with the future climate in mind, Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reports.
The corridor connects several existing protected areas in the country, as well as pastureland, forest and other ecosystems across 14 rural municipalities to ensure wildlife, including snow leopards (Panthera uncia), can move freely as climate change shifts their habitats.
The project was spearheaded by the Central Asian Mammals and Climate Adaptation (CAMCA) initiative, led by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with the Kyrgyz government, Humboldt University of Berlin, and local conservation groups including CAMP Alatoo and Ilbirs Foundation.
Murat Zhumashev, director of CAMP Alatoo, said that while the Ak Ilbirs corridor carries official protected area status, it functions differently from most.
