Protected soil is being prepared for tourism – Newspaper Kommersant No. 47 (7492) dated 03/21/2023

The law on the development of tourism in nature reserves and national parks was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The document “creates incentives for the development of domestic ecological tourism” and introduces the main criteria for such activities in specially protected natural areas (SPNA). However, environmentalists fear that the amendments may create conditions “for a large-scale human invasion of protected areas.”

The President of the Russian Federation signed amendments to the legislation on protected areas, which introduce a unified framework for the legal regulation of tourism within the boundaries of nature reserves and national parks. Last week, the State Duma adopted the document in the third reading. “Along with the conservation of biological diversity and the maintenance of natural complexes and objects in their natural state, one of the goals of creating protected areas is their use for recreational purposes,” the explanatory note says. “However, in practice, this use remains insufficient, which is largely due to the low level of guarantees protection of the rights of investors who create and operate recreational infrastructure in such territories.

To “eliminate this shortcoming”, the law introduces a number of criteria for tourism in protected areas, including the preservation of unique natural complexes, objects of flora and fauna, minimization of the negative impact on the environment, compliance with the maximum allowable recreational load, tourism on specially equipped places and routes . The explanatory note states that within the framework of tourism in protected areas, infrastructure should be used that has “the lowest possible negative impact on the environment.” It will be possible to develop recreational activities in areas of limited economic use of nature reserves, as well as in national parks.

The rules for organizing tourism, as well as the procedure for calculating the maximum allowable recreational capacity, must be approved by the government of the Russian Federation. Based on these documents, the regional authorities will approve their standards.

According to the law, legal entities and individuals will have to coordinate the “carrying out of economic and other activities” in the territories of national parks with federal authorities. The list of activities subject to approval and its procedure are also to be established by the government of the Russian Federation. In addition, the White House will have to submit a list of capital facilities that can be built in national parks. The law stipulates that the construction of residential buildings is not allowed.

“The new law, on the terms of a reasonable balance, creates incentives for the development of domestic eco-tourism and generally outlines the principles of the industry,” Dmitry Kobylkin, head of the Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, commented on the document. “In particular, it clearly defines the parameters for the construction of tourist facilities on PAs. Each unique reserved place has a threshold for the number of tourists, exceeding which is unacceptable under any circumstances.” According to him, in recent years the number of visitors to protected areas has been steadily growing, last year their number reached 14 million.

Earlier, the public association “Expert Council on Reserve Affairs” (a group of environmental experts in the field of natural heritage protection) sent a letter to State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin with a request to finalize the bill.

The ecologists conclude that the document does not provide for the inclusion of the concept of “ecological tourism” in Russian legislation. At the same time, deputies exclude the wording “educational tourism” that is close in meaning from the articles on reserves and national parks, replacing it with the “generalized concept of tourism”.

“This creates the prerequisites for the extremely undesirable use of these territories for sports, health, pilgrimage, fishing and other types of tourism that are incompatible with the functionality of these territories, including through the construction of appropriate infrastructure,” the letter said.

Greenpeace Russia expert Mikhail Kreindlin explains that now in the law “On Protected Areas” the tasks of nature reserves include the development of only educational tourism: “It was understood that it was only about seeing and studying sights and natural complexes. The current legislation prohibits any activity that is not related to the tasks of the reserve. This hindered capital construction, including, for example, ski resorts, in these territories. The amendments remove the word “educational” and leave any type of tourism among the goals of the reserves.” Mr. Kreindlin sees this as a risk of ski resorts, sanatoriums and other tourist infrastructure appearing on protected lands.

Honored ecologist of the Russian Federation, head of the Center for Responsible Nature Management of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Shvarts emphasizes that only ecological tourism is possible in nature reserves and national parks, for example, specially equipped trails and visitor centers, since any other capital infrastructure can cause great damage to the natural value of these territories. As an example, Mr. Schwartz cites the experience of the United States: “Many decades ago, a very small number of hotels were built in national parks there, and since then, almost nothing new has been built. They have a very high cost of living, they are always booked at least six months in advance. The state authorities are developing a tourist infrastructure around the protected areas: any tourist would prefer to spend the night in hotels outside the national parks, since there is an acceptable price tag. And such a scheme does not lead to the violation of natural complexes.

However, the authors of the explanatory note also emphasize the importance of observing the maximum allowable recreational load.

The bill itself emphasizes that the most important task is to preserve the natural resources of protected areas, and the organization of recreational activities in such areas should not cause damage to nature, Zoya Galeeva, managing partner of the Center for working with distressed assets, draws attention. The document provides for a special allocation for the organization of tourism of areas that do not include natural ecological systems, natural complexes and objects and are not the habitat of objects of flora and fauna. “But both the proximity to the tourist infrastructure and the process of building infrastructure on the territory of the reserves cannot but have an impact on nature, for the protection of which the reserve was created,” says Ms. Galeeva. She admits that the bill may create conditions “for a large-scale human invasion of specially protected areas, which poses a serious threat to flora and fauna.”

Anna Vasilyeva