Allium altyncolicum

The lake shore on which this species resides is within the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage site which consists of: Altaisky Strict Nature Reserve and a buffer zone around Lake Teletskoye Natural Monument; Katunsky Strict Nature reseve and a buffer zone around Mount Belukha Nature Park; and the Ukok Quiet Zone nature Park on the Ukok plateau (Debonnet and Lethier 2012).

The Altaisky Strict Nature Reserve is reported to have a high standard of management by federal authorities as well as being well staffed. Tourism is not thought to be detrimental to the reserve thanks to its relatively low occurrence (7,000–7,200 people a year) and on-going monitoring. In addition to this, special regulations have been developed for the lake (including those parts which are not included in the Altaisky Strict Nature Reserve). This incorporates the establishment of a special monitoring group on anthropogenic influence of recreational zones around the lake, as well as on-going efforts to increase capacity to deal with wildfires through satellite monitoring systems throughout the reserve (Debonnet and Lethier 2012).

The reserve is reported to be very sensitive to climate change but, due to lack of information on population size, specific effects on Allium altyncolicum remain unknown and more data collection and research in this area is needed (Debonnet and Lethier 2012).

In 2006 however, the company Gazprom unveiled plans for the construction of a natural gas pipeline to export gas from Russia to China. The World Heritage Committee expressed concerns that the projected path of this pipeline goes through the Ukok Plateau and would therefore be classed as a serious threat to the outstanding universal value of this specific site and those associated with it. Although this is not classed as a direct threat to the population of Allium altyncolicum situated on Lake Teletskoye’s shorelines, the situation is noteworthy as it could potentially present a case for inscription of the Golden Mountains of the Altai site on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger (Debonnet and Lethier 2012).  

As described in the ‘Threats’ section, this species is found within a protected area so, despite not knowing exact level of species specific in situ conservation, it is presumed that the species will be subject to some passive conservation at its native site.

Ex situ conservation of the species is briefly discussed in the two reports published by the European Cooperative Programme for Plant genetic Resources (ECPGR) concerning the first and second meetings of the Vegetables Network (VEGNET).

In the first meeting, Allium altyncolicum is recognized as being in the secondary genepool of Allium cepa and therefore having potential for gene donation and crop improvement, consequently more active preservation in genebanks is called for by Thomas et al. (2005).

In the second meeting of VEGNET it was stated that as of January 2007 there existed four accessions of A. altyncolicum kept in the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research Gatersleben (IPK) genebank, which have been duplicated in other genebanks (Astley et al. 2009) such as the 2,000 seeds held in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV Data Portal 2013).

According to Botanical Garden Conservation International (BGCI 2013) this species has living collections in six botanical gardens worldwide, although the origin and location of the collections are not detailed in this resource (garden locations are undisclosed to protect rare and valuable plant species).