The government of Kazakhstan has given the green light to implement a major investment project that will violate the central element of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site «Western Tien Shan», located on the territory of three states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

A meeting of the Investment Promotion Council was chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Roman Sklyar, reports the press service of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

At the meeting of the investment headquarters, the main terms of investment agreements aimed at modernizing key enterprises, creating new jobs and developing innovative industries were reviewed and approved.

Among other things, a project for the construction of a water pipeline with a cascade of hydroelectric power stations on the Ugam River in the Turkestan region was approved. The total investment in the project is about 190 billion tenge. The stated goal of the – project is to provide high-quality drinking water to about 1 million residents of the Turkestan region.

The environmental coalition «Rivers Without Borders» has repeatedly criticized this project for the threats it poses to the cross-border UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site «Western Tien Shan».

«We are told that the project for the construction of a hydroelectric power station and a water pipeline in the central element of the World Natural Heritage – on the Ugam River – is the best option of all the alternatives considered, — was said last fall at a meeting with the UNESCO mission in Shymkent by the director of the OF «Rivers Without Borders» Alexander Kolotov. – What then could be even worse than the currently proposed blocking of the river with a cascade of dams, fragmentation of the river system, creation of an array of reservoirs with the destruction of the river ecosystem and the irrevocable removal of part of the flow of the Ugam River?».

The report on the results of last year’s mission of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature to the World Natural Heritage Site «Western Tien Shan» will be considered in 2025 at the regular session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will be held in Sofia (Bulgaria). In its report, the mission will also have to evaluate the Kazakh project for the construction of a water pipeline with a cascade of hydroelectric power stations on the Ugam River in the Turkestan region.