Uzbekistan is not only the ancient cities, monuments, exquisite cuisine, hospitable people, but also the rich nature carefully protected by ecologists.

The republic has more than 15 nature reserves, including the major in Central Asia - Gissar. On its territory there are rare species of animals, plants and birds listed in the Red Book. This year, the Gissar Reserve marks its 30 years.

The Gissar State Reserve was formed in 1983 by combining Qizilsu and Miroqi reserves and has an area of 80986.1 hectares. These natural systems were combined to create more favorable environmental conditions for the preservation of endangered species of flora and fauna.

One of them is a beautiful and graceful animal - snow leopard. Uzbekistan is a member of the International Program for the conservation of these predators, which are killed by poachers for their valuable fur. The work on the study of snow leopards in the reserve has been implementing for about 10 years. Conservation and increase of the population of this endangered specie is the merit of the deputy director of the Gissar Reserve, Bakhtiyor Oromov and a group of employees engaged in the study this specie. Since the foundation of the reserve the number of snow leopards has increased several times.

And this is a true pride, as only two thousand pieces of these predators are left in the world.

The Gissar Reserve is very picturesque: waterfalls, caves with underground lakes, bushes of juniper and delicate flowers are everywhere. All this is carefully protected by workers of the reserve.

“The reserve is founded on the territory free from industrial plants. Due to this the nature of the reserve has preserved its original appearance,” told the editor-in-chief of the Chinor Ecological Publishing House, Rustam Ibragimov. “The State Biological Control and the State Committee for Nature Protection carefully monitor the work being carried out in the reserve, for further development of which in 2011-2012 was allocated about 42 million soums.”

(Source: “Uzbekistan Today” newspaper)