The Dam project in the reserve in the east of Kazakhstan has been declared illegal
A decisive point has been put in the complicated story with plans to build a hydroelectric power station on the Kalzhir River in the East Kazakhstan region. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan has officially recognized the rightness of environmentalists and the illegality of the project in its current form, confirming that the project touches the very heart of the Ontustik Altai State Nature reserve.
It all started with a legal mess bordering on the absurd. In June 2025, environmentalists from the public foundation “Rivers without Boundaries” received two diametrically opposed responses to their requests from the authorities of the East Kazakhstan region. The Regional Department of Natural Resources – the main environmental authority of the region – announced in black and white that the site for the Dam is entirely located on the territory of the reserve of republican significance “Ontustik Altai”, where any capital construction is a gross violation of the law. However, literally on the same days, the land relations department of the Markakolsky district claimed exactly the opposite, stating that the land leased to the investor was not located in a specially protected natural area. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan has already held an auction and determined the winner – the company “KALZHYR RIVER ENERGY”, which received the right to build a Dam. There was an absurd situation – the investor, in fact, through the state auction was given the right to build where it is impossible to build.
To unravel this knot, environmentalists have already sent requests to republican government agencies. It was the answers from the capital that made the final clarity. The Ministry of Ecology, as the authorized body in the field of specially protected natural areas, unequivocally confirmed the position of the regional Department of Natural Resources: the requested site is entirely located in the zone of the nature protection regime of the Ontustik Altai nature Reserve. The Agency stressed that construction on this land is expressly prohibited by Article 69 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Specially Protected Natural Areas”. Moreover, the official response informs about the measures already taken – the territorial Forestry Inspectorate sent a letter to the Akimat of the East Kazakhstan region with a direct recommendation to consider other alternative options for the placement of Dams. This step is actually a recognition of the illegality of the project in its current form at the level of the relevant ministry.
The responses received as a result of forwarding requests helped to uncover the scheme that led to the initial confusion. It turned out that the entire Dam project occupies 626.1 hectares. Of these, the district akimat cunningly leased only 263.6 hectares – the part that is located outside the reserve, creating a false impression of the legality of the entire enterprise. However, the key and most important part of the project – 362.5 hectares, or 57% of the total area – falls precisely on the lands of the state nature reserve, which were not leased and could not be transferred.
“The implementation of the project in the protected area is impossible, and now the only way for the developer to legalize the project is to initiate the most complicated procedure for transferring the reserve lands to reserve lands, for which it is necessary to prove that the proposed small Dam with a capacity of 16 MW is a strategic facility for the whole of Kazakhstan, and there are no other options for its placement,” explains the director of Rivers without boundaries” by Alexander Kolotov. – After that, it will be necessary to obtain a positive conclusion of the state environmental assessment and, finally, to achieve a special decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.”
However, environmentalists consider such a scenario unlikely due to the position of the Ministry of Ecology of the Republic of Kazakhstan clearly expressed in the official letter. Public activists have achieved the main thing – a key government body has stood up for the protection of nature, confirming that the law and common sense are above short-term investment plans that threaten the unique ecosystems of Kazakhstan.
Original (in Russian): Проект ГЭС в заказнике на востоке Казахстана признан незаконным
