The mountains of Bolshoy and Maly Balkhan, which are located in the west of Turkmenistan, will become a reserve. At present, a new reserve is being created with a core on Bolshoy Balkhan and sanctuaries on Maly Balkhan and South Ustyurt. This is reported by "Turkmenistan: Golden Age".

The idea of preserving the nature of the Bolshoi and Maly Balkhan mountain range was first voiced after the first comprehensive expedition to the Caspian Sea by Grigory Karelin in 1832. In 1836, the Bolshoi Balkhan ridge was mapped and described. Later, expeditions to the Balkhan were organized by zoologists Mikhail Laptev (in the 1920s-1930s) and Geldy Shukurov (in the 1940s-1949s), who studied vertebrates.

A biodiversity inventory conducted by scientists in our time has confirmed the need to protect the ecosystems of the mountain island in the middle of the desert.

Over the past decades, slopes with springs and accessible meadows of the high-mountain plateau, which are part of the forest fund, were converted into pastures for small cattle, which changed the appearance of ecosystems, including the depletion of the nature of the Bolshoi and Maly Balkhans. When a new protected area is created, local cattle breeders will have the foothills of the Balkhans and pastures around them to continue their activities.

According to the latest data, there are two species of amphibians, 28 species of reptiles, 174 species of birds, and 45 species of mammals in the Balkhan Mountains. The Balkhan Mountains are home to the Central Asian leopard, grey monitor lizard, bezoar goats, mountain sheep, Indian porcupine, wolf and jackal, manul, Turkmen caracal, Severtsov's jerboa, Kopetdag hamster, Turkmen corsac fox, stone marten, and marbled polecat.

Of the birds - the bearded vulture, the griffon vulture, the Egyptian vulture, the imperial eagle - migrated to other places, stopped nesting due to the reduction of the snow leopard's food supply. Due to the reduction of the vegetation cover, the number of the sparrowhawk, white-throated thrush, mistle thrush, juniper grosbeak, partridge and desert partridge has decreased.

Previously, during severe winters, the saiga migrated from Kazakhstan to the north of the mountains of both Balkhans, being numerous in the last century. This does not happen now.

The expansion of the network of specially protected natural areas is part of the National Forest Program of Turkmenistan. In addition to the organization of the protected region in the Balkhans, preparatory activities are being carried out to create the Zengibaba sanctuary as part of the Kaplankyr State Nature Reserve in the Dashoguz Velayat and the sanctuary of the Amu Darya State Nature Reserve, which covers the Pitnyak Upland with a nearby lake. The Koytendag Nature Reserve in the Lebap velayat will include the Tallymerjen plain, where the rare sandpiper stops, the source notes.