Kazakhstan
Some tour operators also consider Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan and Tibet to be part of Central Asia. Close to eight million international border crossings were registered in this area in 2004. Kazakhstan, the ninth-largest country in the world and half the size of the continental USA, offers a variety of ecotourism activities, including nature tourism amid the country’s vast steppes, and trekking, rafting and climbing in the dramatic Tien Shen Mountains, Chinese for “Celestial Mountains”, that lie along the country’s south-eastern fringes (UNESCO says). Tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon in rural Kazakhstan, but there is growing interest in traditional Kazakh nomadic culture among foreign tourists, and this could help alleviate problems of rural unemployment and poverty. With a population of 15.6 million, Kazakhstan has benefited from the good situation of its tourism industry. Setting Turkey's development strategy as its model, the country has been successful in improving its infrastructure. Larger than all Western Europe, Kazakhstan is a vast country of steppes and mountains rich in natural beauty.

Nongovernmental organization “Karaganda Ecological Museum” is Partner of the Region. It was established in 1997 with the aim of collection and dissemination of ecology information on the territory of Central Kazakhstan for the increase of public role in solving actual ecological problems and the development of democracy processes in the society. One of the lines of EcoMuseum activity is the development of community based ecological tourism in Central Kazakhstan.