ABSTRACT
The very isolation and underdevelopment that have allowed much of Kyrgyzstan’s natural environment to remain intact have encouraged ill-advised agricultural and metallurgical activities. Of Turko-Mongol origin, the Kyrgyz people are closely related to Kazakhs, and in fact, Russian colonial rulers in the 19th century referred to the Kazakhs as Kirghiz and today’s Kyrgyz as Kara-Kirghiz. The climate of Kyrgyzstan is arid steppe in lowland areas and cooler and variably wetter in the mountainous regions. The high mountains that cover much of Kyrgyzstan have made infrastructure development expensive and limited population to areas of lower elevations, such as the main cities of Bishkek, Osh, Naryn, and Jalal-Abad. Kyrgyzstan in 1990 had less than ten percent of the paved roads in Central Asia and remains particularly disadvantaged in railroad development, with less than two percent of the total rail lines of Central Asia. The types of non-ferrous substances mined or processed in Kyrgyzstan are particularly dangerous to the environment.
