LOCAL ECO-ACTIVIST’S PERSPECTIVES ON ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS ISSUES IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Environmental issues in Kazakhstan are one of the most undermined research areas in Kazakhstan, particularly if we are speaking about aspects on environmental awareness. This study asked Kazakhstani eco-activists to provide their expert-rich responses to eleven open-ended questions related to environmental awareness aspects in Kazakhstan, which were divided into five sections, namely 1) degree of the environmental problem in the country; 2) reasons for the existence of the environmental problem; 3) role of the government in environmental awareness aspects; 4) the role of civil society in environmental awareness matters; and 5) solutions and prospects. For that, ten eco-activists have participated in our study, who were selected from the social media website ‘Linkedin’ via a convenience sampling method. As a data analysis, a content analysis approach was used. Our results have indicated that environmental awareness level has improved since 1990’s and numerous factors ranging from low levels of ecological literacy and environmental activism were mentioned as reasons for existence of low level of environmental awareness. By now, there are practically no empirical data on how eco-activists view, comprehend and assess environmental awareness issues in Kazakhstan. Such primary data could help share valuable insight on important policy and research aspects, namely concerning ineffectiveness of government-initiated actions, role of civil society in pro-environmental projects, studying level of awareness for government-initiated environmental programs, or policy proposals in tackling low environmental awareness levels. Thus, our research could be both valuable for researchers in filling the research gap and for practitioners in proposing viable policy alternatives to address environmental awareness issues. Despite the study’s research limitations concerning lack of international eco-activist’s focus, social-desirability-response bias and low sample size representativeness, this study recommends conducting expert interviews with NGOs (e.g. UNECE or CARECECO), reintegrate environmental concern and activism aspects as well as focus on policy solutions.