«NEWS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC DEPARTMENTS OF NATURE RESERVES»
RESULTS OF “CREATION OF REGIONAL PNA SYSTEMS”:
A BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION GEF PROJECT
The main aim of this biodiversity conservation GEF Project is to develop a system of protected areas (or an ecological network, an ecological framework) to support ecological balance, biological diversity and a favorable environment in adjacent areas.
Instead of the $750,000 envisaged for this project, only $225,000 was allocated. Nevertheless, the work that was done helped develop methodology and management approaches in forming a system of ecologically interrelated PNAs and begin its implementation in a number of model regions.
In addition to GEF funds, the Project received financing from other sources, mostly from the regions. The largest contributions were made by the city of Moscow and by the Moscow and Ryazan regions.
At the Russian Plain Center (the Vladimir, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver’, Tula and Yaroslavl regions and the city of Moscow) all the arrangements were carried out on a contractual basis with the Institute of Geo-Ecology. Collaborative efforts by NGOs and regular interaction with state conservation agencies also helped. As well, the Institute of Geo-Ecology established its Laboratory of Applied Ecology (LAE). The Laboratory is managed by specialists – former participants in the LAE/BCC Russian Heart Program. A total of 50 specialists from higher education and research institutions, national parks and NGOs participated in the Project. Some activities involved several hundred volunteers — members of student nature conservation brigades, students, schoolchildren and other activists.
Main achievements:
A draft of the Ecological Network of the Russian Plain Center – including a Register of key natural areas, transition and buffer areas –with annotations has been completed;
An assessment of 200 earlier known key natural areas, including regional PNAs, has been made;
89 new natural areas of various value status have been identified;
Proposals to create 109 new PNAs have been prepared;
2 new sanctuaries (zakazniks) have been created; agreements on the creation of another 24 PNAs have been concluded with district administrations and land users;
Proposals to ensure conservation of key natural areas belonging to the State Forest Fund of the Ryazan Region have been submitted to the Ryazan Regional Committee on Nature Resources;
Support has been provided to the Red Book of Rare Species of the Ryazan Region as regards plants, lichen, and mushrooms;
Support has been provided to the Red Book of Rare Species of Moscow as regards invertebrates;
The steppe area in Kulikovo Pole Museum Reserve (Tula Region) has been ecologically restored;
A network of natural heritage curators (public support of regional nature conservation) in all regions of Russia has been planned.
A Regional Public Charitable Organization (the Center for Promotion of the Volgo-Urals Eco-Net in Tolyatti) is to develop the Ecological Framework for the Volga-Urals Region (Republic of Bashkortostan, Samara regions, and Republic of Tatarstan).
The Center achieved the following results:
A draft of an Ecological Network of the Volga-Urals Region, including a Register of key natural areas, required transition and buffer areas with annotations has been completed;
A Register of 942 valuable natural areas and objects and 44 transit areas with annotations has been compiled;
Control visits have been arranged to see that conservation legislation in 10 key natural areas, including PNAs, is being observed;
Proposals to establish 6 new PNAs have been drafted;
Assistance has been rendered the Urals Animal Protection Union of the Ulyanovsk branch of Russian Bird Conservation Union and activists of Samara Region.
A Register of existing and to-be-designated PNAs in Central Chernozemye, an analysis of PNA condition, and relevant conservation regulations and system of public support for conservation in the region were done by the state environmental protection agency of Belgorod Region and the Belgorod State University with the participation of the state committees on environmental protection of the Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk and Tambov regions.
The Divnogorye Nature Reserve and the Archeological Museum Reserve (Voronezh Region) with the help of experts from St.-Petersburg and Voronezh state universities completed a project on the development of theory and practices of establishing ecological links between PNAs in forest-steppe areas.
Activities in the Central Chernozemye area will be no doubt used to develop a trans-border (Poland/Ukraine/Russia) Galitsko-Slobodjansky ecological macro-corridor.
In Gorny Altai, the Altai — 21st Century Regional Public Fund (in the city of Barnaul) with the participation of the state environmental protection agency of the Republic of Altai made an electronic map and a Register of Altai Republic PNAs with annotations as well as to-be-designated key natural areas in Gorny Altai. Registers of terrestrial vertebrates and flowering plants, vegetable communities with annotations and a description of historical and cultural monuments were prepared.
In accordance with the agreement between the Center for the Development of International Technical Assistance Projects and the WWF Russian Program Office, the documents will be given to the executive offices of the WWF Project to Ensure Long-term Conservation in the Altai-Sayan Eco-region.
Among the other activities sponsored by GEF Project was the development of ecological frameworks for two Baikal natural area sites: Khilok river basin (Chita Region) and Goloustnaya river basin (Irkutsk Region).
Between November 2001 and February 2002, Russia’s Ecological Network Electronic Conference was carried out. Seventy-five administrative state PNAs, 64 regional nature conservation departments, 175 NGOs and experts from Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Ukraine had regular access to Conference materials. This helped increase the number of experts involved in discussions about GEF-sponsored ecological networks, including 29 experts from 14 regions not involved in the GEF Project.
The Project has been well coordinated with major Russian eco-net initiatives run by the WWF Russian Office and the Biodiversity Conservation Center. Results of projects by GreenPeace, SEU, BCC, the Institute of World Resources and other organizations to identify little-disturbed forests were used in drafting the Russian Eco-Nets project proposal as the basic spatial component of the Pan-European ecological network.
The development of ecological networks in European Russia within the framework of the GEF Project was carried out in compliance with Ecological networks in the Volga-Vyatka region (carried out by the BCC in cooperation with the Nizhni-Novgorod state conservation agency and the Dront Ecological Center) and Lower Volga region (carried out by the BCC in cooperation with the Volgograd branch of the Russian Ecological Academy) with the financial support of the ROLL Project and the Institute for Sustainable Communities. This helped us to develop a basis for the general ecological backbone of the Volga river basin.
The Federal Act On Environmental Protection provides the legal basis for the practical application of eco-net projects in Russia by establishing the right of citizens to a favorable environment. At the same time, PNA protection regulation needs improvement; the following amendments are especially needed:
To introduce into state legislation conceptual notions relating ecological networks and PNA system development;
To establish a juridical balance between the right of citizens to a favorable environment and the right of land and other nature resource users to use land and nature resources;
To develop and introduce precise mechanisms and procedures for designating parts of the most valuable natural areas to be included afterwards in the system of protected natural areas;
To establish the procedure for imposing minimum necessary restrictions on nature use in most valuable natural objects starting from the moment of their identification and registration in appropriate state conservation agencies;
To establish procedures for creating and protecting transit areas.
The key goal of further ecological network development in Russia, as defined in the Pan-European Strategy for Biological Diversity, is to establish a Russian Ecological Backbone by 2005. Taking into account, on the one hand, the degree of fragmentation of natural areas and, on the other, the conservation value of biodiversity, the following regions should be given priority as regards eco-nets:
Central and southern parts of European Russia (unification of existing projects into one project), including the Ivanovo, Kostroma, Orenburg, Penza, Rostov, Saratov and Ulyanovsk regions and the Republic of Udmurtiya;
Southern Urals and Western Siberia (the Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen’, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo regions and the steppes of the Altai Krai);
Northern Caucasus and Ciscaucasus (the republics of Adygeya, Dagestan, Ingushetiya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Nothern Osetiya and Chechnya; Krasnodar and Stavropol Krai).
The achievements of the GEF Project should also be taken into account when developing the ecological network in the Volga river basin (between the river head and the first large hydroelectric station) and ecological backbone in the Oka river basin. This will let us connect natural areas of western Central Russia with nature massifs in the Meschera lowlands and, further to the East, with the Great Eurasian Natural Massif to make an ecologically integrated system.
