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The paper presents data on uranium content in water, soils and plants in the territories of the largest uranium geochemical provinces of Kyrgyzstan where uranium mining and production complexes functioned and operated until the 1960s. The migration of uranium and its contamination of the biosphere are discussed. The paper provides recommendations on using natural phytomeliorants that would discriminate uranium, fix the ground, reduce the risk of mudflows formation and the degree of uranium contamination of the territory, and also facilitate the recovery of the disturbed natural mountainous ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed the threatened status of 163 Central Asian vertebrates using the IUCN Red List Criteria (Version 3.1) at the national and regional levels, and compared these assessments to the global assessments given in the IUCN 2002 Red List. We thus compared threat status at three spatial scales; national for five countries separately (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), regional for the five countries together, and global. This analysis was undertaken as a test of the applicability of IUCN criteria at the sub-global level. Generally the criteria worked well. In 400 of cases, the threat category was lower at the smaller scale of assessment. This was predominately caused by the use of decline rate criteria at the larger scale when populations at the smaller scale were stable. We also encountered issues with the listing of migratory species at the sub-global level. We used our data to carry out a preliminary assessment of Protected Area coverage in the region, and found evidence suggesting that threatened species and endemics are not well covered by the current protected area system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]