Environment and Climate ChangeFeaturesNatureRussiaWildlife Conservation
How the Soviet Union’s end sparked a grand rewilding
After thousands of people left the steppes of Kazakhstan, nature began to reclaim it on a huge scale.
When Alyona Koshkina walks through the wild grasses of Kazakhstan’s vast plains in spring, she is overwhelmed by the life blooming around her.
- Chris Baraniuk
- BBC
Migratory birds zip overhead through a sprawling sky, greenery shimmers, ocean-like in the breeze, and flowers dot the landscape with specks of purple, yellow, white and red.
“You have always this sound of wind in your ears,” she says. “It’s very open.” Koshkina, a researcher at the Association for the…