The borders of the reserves are sacred and inviolable – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

The Fifth Cassation Court invalidated the law of the Stavropol Territory, which allowed changing the boundaries of regional specially protected natural areas (SPNA). It was adopted by deputies in November 2021 and immediately protested by both the Stavropol prosecutor and environmental activists. This is not the first litigation around the attempts of the regional authorities to legalize the possibility of changing the boundaries of reserves, including for their development.

Regional law 118-kz was adopted by the Duma of the Stavropol Territory on November 25, 2021. This document amended the main regional law regulating the activities of protected areas (33-kz; adopted in 2014). The amendments gave the regional authorities the opportunity to change the boundaries of such territories if necessary for their economic use. They also made it possible to place recreational, road transport or engineering facilities on part of the territories.

The regional prosecutor Alexander Lorenz said that the new law significantly weakens the regime for the protection of natural areas. He noted: out of 14 grounds for changing the boundaries of protected areas, 13 allow changing them downwards, which may subsequently lead to the loss of the status of protected areas. In December 2021, the regional prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit to cancel the new law as contrary to federal law. At the same time, a similar lawsuit filed local environmental activists. The Stavropol Regional Court refused them, after which the plaintiffs appealed to the Third Court of Appeal in Sochi. There 118-kz recognized illegal.

Now the regional authorities and the Duma of Stavropol have filed a complaint with the Fifth Court of Cassation. They pointed out that there is no prohibition in federal legislation to change the boundaries of protected areas at the regional level.

The authors of the complaint also stated that the Third Court of Appeal allegedly changed the claims.

At a meeting in the Fifth Cassation Court, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office stated that the disputed legal act contained norms that did not comply with land legislation and legislation on specially protected natural areas. It allowed the regional authorities to reduce the boundaries of specially protected natural areas. A total of 108 protected areas with a total area of ​​more than 106,000 hectares fell under this law, including natural monuments of the Caucasian Mineral Waters – Mashuk, Beshtau and Zmeyka mountains.

The representative of the civil plaintiffs, a member of the coordinating council for environmental welfare at the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, Georgy Legkobitov, recalled that the courts to appeal the provisions of the 33rd regional law and decisions issued on its basis have been going on since 2019. “The fact is that the federal legislator in the federal law on protected areas and the Constitutional Court in the ruling of September 27, 2018 oblige at all levels of government to preserve protected areas and their buffer zones within the boundaries in which they were created on December 30, 2013,”— he said. And he complained that the regional legislation in the field of protected areas has not yet been brought into line with the federal one. Moreover, the regional authorities are adopting new norms that are identical to those that have already been canceled by the courts as illegal.

After hearing the arguments of the parties, the Fifth Court of Cassation sided with the plaintiffs. The cassation ruling entered into force on the day of its issuance.

However, one of the civil plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by environmentalists, Elena Suslova, fears that the case will not end there. She told Kommersant that a representative of the legal department of the Duma of the Stavropol Territory told the court that the regional deputies would again adopt a law similar to the repealed one, because “the problem of the boundaries of the reserves needs to be resolved.”

Recall that, based on the norm contested by the prosecutor’s office, the government of the region in June 2019 tried to change the boundaries of the Beshtaugorsky reserve. The authorities decided to withdraw from the reserve 300 hectares, allegedly having lost their conservation value. These territories were planned to be leased for the construction of a complex of hotels and restaurants. In addition, more than 80 km of country roads and trails on the Beshtau and Zmeyka mountains, which cut the reserve into several parts, were deprived of their protected status. Officials have announced plans to build 82 km of paved roads for “international cycling competitions.”

In November 2019, 407 residents of Mineralnye Vody filed a class action lawsuit demanding the repeal of an article of the regional law adopted in 2014. The lawsuit was supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia and the prosecutor’s office of the Stavropol Territory, but the regional court sided with the regional government. In November 2020, the Third Court of Appeal nevertheless declared the article invalid, later this decision was upheld by the Fifth Court of Cassation and the Supreme Court of Russia.

In April 2021, having lost all court cases with the prosecutor’s office and social activists, the regional Duma came up with a legislative initiative to the State Duma of the Russian Federation to supplement the law “On Specially Protected Natural Territories” with a new article 231, which will provide for “cases and procedures for changing the boundaries of state nature reserves of regional significance.” However, the initiative of the Stavropol residents did not find support at the federal level, after which, in November 2021, the deputies adopted new amendments to the law on protected areas, which were declared illegal and invalid in court.

Alexandra Larintseva, Pyatigorsk