Almaty Environmental Community Board called upon Almaty city residents not to encourage eradication of snowdrops. Almaty, March 3. Interfax-Kazakhstan - Prior to the spring holidays the Almaty Environmental Community Board called upon Almaty city residents not to encourage eradication of snowdrops by giving such spring flower bouquets to women on the Women's Day, the 8th of March.

"We call upon all citizens of Kazakhstan, especially Almaty residents not to buy those flowers. During the spring holidays, these symbols of spring are mercilessly destroyed in hundreds of thousands, which is reducing their population," said a member of Almaty Environmental Community Board Kuralai Karibayeva on press conference on March 3 in Almaty.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan Isa Baybulin reminded that the Kazakh law provides for administrative and criminal liability for collecting snowdrop from the wild.

Meanwhile, the project manager of the Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia Iskander Mirkhashimov said that dozens of organized groups are involved in the illicit sale of snowdrops in Kazakhstan." "We need to do something about it at the local level by involving the police, as Ukraine did," he added.

Snowdrop is included in the Red List of Threatened Species of Kazakhstan.