The “People’s Front” revealed an increase in cases of seizure of lands of specially protected natural areas and weakening of their protection

The presidential movement “Popular Front” (PF) draws attention to the increasing trend of confiscation of areas of specially protected natural areas (SPNA) “with replacement with lands of no ecological value.” Movement activists stated this based on the results of the monitoring, which was made available to Kommersant. The NF emphasizes that this happens “regularly in many regions” – it looks “not a random error, but a system.” The results of the investigation are planned to be included in the report to the President of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the national project “Ecology”.

The presidential public movement “People’s Front” monitored the integrity of specially protected natural areas (available to Kommersant). Experts from the Popular Front. Analysts draw attention to the trend of increasing cases of land seizures and weakening of special protection regimes. Among the main problems identified, they also name attempts to change legislation and an insufficient network of protection zones created on land and water bodies adjacent to protected areas to prevent adverse impacts on them.

In the spring of 2023, the movement said, an all-Russian survey was conducted, the main task of which was to identify environmental problems that concern Russians (9,581 respondents from 87 regions took part). “10% of respondents indicated that one of the most pressing environmental problems is the destruction (reduction) of protected areas,” the NF said. “These are serious indicators that required additional attention.” Following the survey, the movement decided to conduct “careful monitoring.” “The NF has accumulated examples of illegal reduction of protected areas by decision of regional authorities and in coordination with the Ministry of Natural Resources,” said the NF. “If you look at these examples individually, then each looks like a random mistake, but with general observation we see a system: over the last two -for three years, high-quality areas have been regularly withdrawn from protected areas in many regions, or attempts have been made to remove them, replacing them with ones that have no ecological value, and sometimes without such replacement. We see this as a trend and want to draw public attention.” As the most striking illustration, activists point to the exclusion of 15 thousand hectares of the territory of the Vilyuchinsky volcano, Vilyuchinskaya and Zhirovaya bays from the Yuzhno-Kamchatsky natural park (UNESCO World Heritage Site “Volcanoes of Kamchatka”) for the construction of the “Three Volcanoes” resort.

The territory inhabited by Red Book animals and plants with an area of ​​more than 2 thousand hectares has been excluded from the Ladoga Skerries National Park of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation.

The organization plans to include the results of the investigation in the official report to the president on the implementation of the national project “Ecology,” which the NF prepares once every six months. NF specialists, the organization clarifies, have prepared a number of proposals that can help preserve the integrity of the protected areas. In particular, the federal legislation proposes to provide a closed list of exceptional cases of the possibility of downgrading the status of protected areas of regional and local significance; conduct an independent audit of the legality of land seizure and reduction of the regime of special protection of protected areas; approve the regulations on protected areas of protected areas, which will include a ban on the most dangerous types of economic activities, such as clear-cutting, mining, construction outside populated areas (except for facilities necessary to support the corresponding settlements and the functioning of the protected areas themselves).

“We are confident that in order to develop informed decisions in the field of natural zones with a special protection status, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources needs to cooperate more actively with the expert community,” noted the representative of the NF, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Ecology Zhanna Ryabtseva (ER). “To preserve natural areas in the natural In the current state of the law on protected areas, we propose to introduce the concept of “ecological tourism” and develop sufficient measures for its organization.” Ecotourism, explained in the NF, means “a form of tourism that involves the concept of not causing any harm to natural areas when organizing and visiting them.” The NF recalled that they regularly raise systemic issues, including in the field of legislative initiatives. They cited as an example the bill on forest and green belts developed by activists, adopted by the State Duma in 2017.

Mikhail Kreindlin, head of the board of the environmental project “The Earth Touches Everyone,” a member of the Expert Council on Nature Reserves, called the problems that the NF recorded “the most relevant in the framework of work with protected areas.” Honored ecologist of Russia Vsevolod Stepanitsky (former head of the department of state policy and regulation in the field of environmental protection of the Ministry of Natural Resources) agrees that the concept of “ecological tourism” should be supplemented with the Federal Law “On the Fundamentals of Tourism Activities in the Russian Federation” and changes should be made to the Federal Law “On Protected Natural Areas” establishing that only eco-tourism can be carried out in state nature reserves and specially protected areas of national parks, as well as taking sufficient measures for its development in the country. The expert believes that only if such an initiative can be implemented “with attention to all the details”, it will be possible to say that “tourists do not harm the protected area ecosystem.”

The Ministry of Natural Resources told Kommersant that the monitoring was not received by the department, and promised that when this happens, the document “will be considered by the relevant department.” “In terms of measures to organize eco-tourism, which contributes to the preservation of natural areas in their natural state, No. 77-FZ was adopted in March 2023,” the environmental department recalled. “The law will become a driver for the development of tourism in protected areas and will form the basis for other regulatory legal acts of the government Russia, which will ensure the attraction of extra-budgetary sources of funding for the creation of tourism infrastructure in protected areas, as well as strengthening control over compliance with environmental legislation during the development of tourism in protected areas.”

A source close to the Ministry of Natural Resources, commenting on the activity of the NF, in a conversation with Kommersant, made it clear that on the eve of the presidential elections the movement can pay great attention to environmental issues, because “this area, as a rule, worries citizens, which means criticism of officials and improvements in this area will create the proper resonance.”

Polina Yachmennikova