he valleys of the Tien Shan mountain range between Kazakhstan and China are forested with groves of wild apple trees. The greatest diversity in these ancestral apples occurs around Kazakhstan's capital, Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, which means "Father of Apples."

Political events in Kazakhstan have both opened up and threatened this center of apple diversity. The dissolution of the Soviet Republic beginning in 1989 allowed Westerners to communicate with and travel to these remote regions for the first time in over 50 years. However, the economic and political unrest accompanying the breakup of the Soviet Union has led to an uncertain future for the apple forests and the scientists studying them. Control over nature preserves, which protected many of them, has passed to newly independent states, such as Kazakhstan. In an effort to generate much needed hard currency, the Kazakh government has sold off many of the once-protected reserves, leading to their development. Since 1935, 90% of the wild apple forests around Almaty have disappeared.