According to the ministry, the diving service has received new equipment, including boats, as well as winter and summer special clothing, not to mention underwater drones. Thanks to this new equipment, over the past three years, divers have been able to retrieve old poaching nets that had been on the bottom of Issyk-Kul for decades.
Sabyrzhan Alamanov, head of the diving service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, noted that the synthetic nets retrieved in 2025 were collected in one location. This was done not over the entire year, but in the last three to four months, to demonstrate to citizens and those engaged in illegal fishing the serious consequences of such actions.
According to Alamanov, synthetic nets have a significant negative impact on the ecology of Issyk-Kul and worsen the condition of the lake. Over the past 25-30 years, and especially in the last ten years, such nets have been found in the water in large quantities, which has adversely affected the natural environment.
Cleaning work began in 2023, but it soon became clear that the problem was not only with the garbage on the surface. Synthetic nets have filled the lower layers of the lake as well. Currently, the retrieved nets are being taken out of bags, cut up, and rendered unusable.
According to the head of the diving service, over the past four months, more than 141,000 nets have been retrieved from one area, and in total, divers have raised more than 151,000 synthetic nets in 2025. At the same time, cleaning from other debris was carried out, resulting in the removal of more than 7 tons of various waste.
Some of the retrieved nets are stored not only at this base but also in other locations, including Grigorievka and the Tyup district, where there are also bases of the diving service. In the future, all collected nets are planned to be transferred to the Ministry of Natural Resources after processing and rendering them unusable.
Alamanov emphasized that this needs to be done before the warm weather arrives, as the nets begin to emit an unpleasant odor.
