President Nazarbayev visits green belt surrounding Astana

The Head of State was briefed on the progress in improvement of the green belt and surrounding area. Nursultan Nazarbayev said he has been visiting the green belt over the past 20 years and was pleased to see how the things are going there.

It bears to remind that the area of the green belt is located in the dry steppes with salty soil which is not a good place to plant trees and shrubs.

In order to protect the Kazakh capital from high winds, President Nazarbayev decided to develop the green belt around Astana in September 1997.

The first trees were planted in 1998 and today its area embraces more than 14,827 ha.

For the past seven years over 2.3 million trees have been planted in the green belt. Those are mainly fir trees, pines, oaks, elm trees and other varieties of trees.

The released pheasants are closely monitored in order to ensure the conservation of wild pheasant population. Today President Nazarbayev helped release 150 pheasants.