Experts propose to add Zhambyl region's tulips to UNESCO World Heritage List

The first day of the festival featured a research-to-practice conference, which brought together the world's leading scholars from Germany, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and the Netherlands, as well as experts in biodiversity, botany, ecology and natural sciences, members of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the representatives of UNESCO.

The territory of South Kazakhstan, in particular Zhambyl region, is one of the world centres of tulip diversity.

Kazakhstan is home to 41 species of tulips, 18 of which have been inscribed on the country’s Red Book.

18 species of tulips grow in the territory of Zhambyl region, with 10 of them included in the Red Book of Kazakhstan.

“Among many varieties, the most valuable are the Kaufmanniana and the Greigii  tulips. Based on them, Dutch experts have developed new types of tulips  that adorn gardens all over the world,” says Director General of the Institute of Botany and Phytointroduction, Doctor of Biological Sciences Gulnara Sitpayeva

In their reports, the conference participants noted that the Syr Darya Karatau mountain range, namely the so-called Small Karatau located in Zhambyl Region, is a historical homeland of the Greigii Tulip, regarded as the King of Tulips (it is the ancestor of around 300 varieties of cultivated tulips).

A resolution was adopted following the conference. The participants submitted a proposal to consider the issue of inscribing the Greigii, Kaufmanniana and Regel's tulips in the UNESCO World Natural Heritage List. Another proposal outlined is to establish a geopark in the territory of Small Karatau in order to preserve the unique gene pool of Kazakhstan’s tulips.

In early March, the first tulips, harbingers of spring and renewal of nature, bloomed at the Botanical Garden scientific research institute of the Yassawi University.