Kazakhstani Diplomats

No, I don't mean Borat. Everyone has been asking me that, as if the only guy in Kazakhstan is Borat because it's really a mystical land full of unicorns and angry central Asians in ninja suits.

This is totally legit.

We had three guys, important guys, from Kazakhstan come to our office here in Ft. Collins specifically because though there are 23 national parkish-type places in Kazakhstan, there is no independent oversight of the park service. It's all government run, and we all know how secretive and not-so-benign governments can be. The head of the Department of Natural Resources and Resource Regulation was there, as well as two dudes who are the Kazakhstani equivalents of park superintendents. So I got to hang out with some pretty important dudes. We had a little pow-wow in which our director, Gail, discussed who we are and what we do (something that, perhaps, other NPCAers could benefit from), and then allowed our visitors to ask questions. They seemed particularly impressed that 1) so many of our park superintendents are women and 2) that our program receives no (official) government censorship. From what I understand, Kazakhstan is relatively democratic, but like many blossoming democracies in Central Asia and East Europe, as hot quite grasped the concept of free speech. People have to be willing to be insulted and live with it before they can really embrace all that is Western media. Also, the structure of their park systems is similar to ours in many ways: they have areas that are off limits to anything but hiking (wilderness areas), preserves, and national parks. But like many national parks outside of the US, there is an emphasis on sustainable use (versus pure conservation), and there are many farms, villages, homes, and pastures to be found in most protected lands (except the three that are "wilderness" areas). We never got the chance to ask our burning questions, such as what kinds of problems do they have with poaching? What are the various regulations inside protected areas? What are the policies on cultural resources (they do have parks dedicated to cultural resources, but they are run under a different department, probably the Department of Culture or "Positive Patriotic Propaganda" Department).

We also should have recorded the part when one of these guys told us that he felt our program was extremely useful because we provided commentary that the government cannot control and that the parks may not hear from anyone else. All three felt our program was doing great things.

Or maybe they just liked our pretty pictures.

Regardless, I could go on about various cultural idiosyncrasies, but I won't. Feel free to ask if you want to know more about these Kazakhstanis. Really, I'm just hoping they invite me over to Kazakhstan to assess the condition of their cultural resources... that could be way fun.