Kazakhstan has seen a decline in environmental crime. From January to September 2025, 328 criminal offenses against nature were recorded — a 15.9% drop compared to 390 cases during the same period in 2024, QazMonitor reports citing Finprom.kz.
The majority of offenses involved the illegal handling of rare and endangered species of plants and animals — 99 cases, down by nearly one-third year-on-year. They were followed by illegal fishing and harvesting of aquatic species (93 cases) and unlawful logging (55 cases).
At the same time, the number of individuals caught for environmental crimes increased by 16.5% to 282.
Administrative environmental violations also slightly decreased — 54.3 thousand cases, down by 1.1%. Most of them were related to vehicle emissions exceeding pollution norms (19.1 thousand), illegal fishing (10.1 thousand), and hunting (7.4 thousand).
Fines totaled 14.4 billion tenge, of which 5 billion were collected.
Environmental protection investments grew significantly, reaching 100.8 billion tenge — nearly four times more than in 2024. Aktobe region led the way with 81.5 billion tenge, followed by Karaganda (9.8 billion) and Pavlodar (2.6 billion), together accounting for over 93% of all national investments.
