NEW: Vodlozersky National Park Information
According to Russian law, the 83 reserves in Russia that comprise roughly 1.4 per cent of Russia's landmass are designated as specially protected areas and have the following mandates:
- To protect ecosystems and the genetic base of these territories
- To perform scientific research of existing ecosystems and conduct annual monitoring
- To educate the public on the principles of environmental protection and sustainable development
Each reserve has a small research department for territorial monitoring and organization of research activities. Customary activities include:
- Research on biodiversity
- Field internships for college and post-graduate students
- Field practice for school/university teachers
- Environmental monitoring
Founded more than 70 years ago, the first Russian reserves have collected a large quantity of scientific material. Reserve science libraries contain decades of observations and reports, different samples and collections. Unfortunately, most of these libraries are not utilized properly due to insufficient staff personnel and a lack of computer database equipment. These insufficiencies have led to a shortage of potentially very important research publications.
The special statute of the reserves and their constant territorial protection make them attractive to international scientific research. In the former USSR Soviet scientists managed to convince the central government to periodically single out territories for nature reserves as a compensatory measure for environmental damage. This principle guided the creation of a special federal network of reserves equal in combined size to Italy (in present-day Russia alone). The establishment of such a diverse network has few analogies and its results are of major interest to the international community.
