Belagash State Nature Sanctuary (zoological)

The Belagash sanctuary is a state zoological nature reserve in Bukhar-Zhyrau district, Karaganda region, protecting a mix of forest and open steppe terrain typical of the low hill country found in parts of central Kazakhstan. Its landscape includes stands of forest alongside flowering steppe and rolling hills, with sections that have experienced wildfire and are now undergoing natural regrowth. The reserve was established to maintain this patch of forest-steppe habitat, a type increasingly fragmented in Karaganda region, and to support wildlife that depends on the cover and food sources the forest provides amid the surrounding grassland. Access is primarily for forestry and wildlife management rather than tourism, and the sanctuary functions as one of several small forested refuges scattered through the steppe of central Kazakhstan, valued for keeping a wooded habitat intact in a largely treeless region.