Analysis of new state documents on environmental awareness aspects in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Environmental awareness issues in Kazakhstan are one of the most undermined topics both among the public community and in terms of state rhetoric. In the context of official state documents, so far only two official environmental codes and a national program called Zhasyl Kazakhstan were introduced in the country in 2021. In this regard, the main goal of this paper is to analyze critically the main content of the Environmental Code and the Zhasyl Kazakhstan Program, with a particular focus on sections related to environmental awareness-raising aspects. This paper applied subjective-based content analysis to identify interesting insights on regulatory legal aspects, future research streams, and uncovering of improved legislative frameworks in the context of an environmental awareness issue. Apart from that, five open-ended questions were sent out to the Ministry of Ecology, Geology, and Natural Resources to obtain primary data on the state’s view regarding current previous, recent, and future aspects of environmental awareness issues in the country. Keywords: Environmental awareness, Environmental code, Zhasyl Kazakhstan;