Shymkent officials responsible for landscaping blamed the severe frosts that overtook the south of Kazakhstan last winter for the dead trees in the city.  However, the local conservationists claim that the trees are drying up due to improper care, the Khabar 24 reports.

The conifers cover 90 per cent of Shymkent ethnopark. Although the pines are already 10 years old, they did not survive last winter. The tree type called Eldar, has been imported from Uzbekistan and is considered to be resistant to heat, but could not to frost.

  Roza Baisarieva, biologist:

  It’s a special crossbreed of the Crimean pine which is not suitable for our climate. The authorities somehow overlooked it. They had to keep track of a variety of seedlings stated according to the procurement bid.

More than 70 thousand coniferous trees have been planted in the city. Ten thousand of them began to languish. Specialists are trying to save them. But 700 pines will have to be cut down.

Abilkhayir Ongar, Deputy Head of the Department for the Development of a Comfortable Environment:

“We have a five-year public-private partnership agreement with the contractor who will restore a pine forest of 700 trees that withered due to frost.”

Shymkent officials are planning to plant another 200,000 saplings and they promise to choose more frost-resistant varieties.