While looking for a place to settle to do some remote work from our truck mobile-studio for a few weeks we met Director of Baiboosun Nature Reserve, Baatyrbek Akmatov. He showed us the incredible footage taken from their camera traps, which have been installed to monitor and protect the wildlife. It was fascinating; we saw snow leopards and other endangered animals, living peacefully in these idyllic, remote landscapes. We fell in love with this project.
Our time in Baiboosun Nature Reserve has been a huge learning experience, as well as an intense journey in physical resilience. The harsh winters, as well as the high altitudes in the Tien-Shan, are unforgiving. But all these challenges and experiences are worth it though when you reach the top of a mountain (after one of the most difficult treks of your life), sit down on a rock, and check the footage from the camera traps for the first time. Finding out that wonderful, mystical creatures have been roaming around in the same place that you are now, is an incredible feeling.
This post in social media illustrates what's like to live to protect snow leopards in the Tien-Shan: "As I write this message, I am withstanding the extreme weather of the Tien-Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan, living in an ex-soviet farm with a fire burner that needs coal every 40 min to keep warm, with no running water, an outside toilet 100 meters away, with no shower apart from the community saunas in the village. This is what it takes to try to make a difference where it is most needed. And I love it because it’s more fun than having your life sorted. But most importantly, I love to think that those incredible animals in the mountains of the nature reserve could somehow feel that I care about them no matter what mountain I have to move."