Atlas of High Conservation Value Areas, and Analysis of Gaps And
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3. ANALYSIS OF DELIMITATION OF HCV AREAS AND ASSESSMENT OF REPRESENTATIVENESS OF PROTECTED AREA NETWORK IN NORTHWEST RUSSIA Elena Esipova, Konstantin Kobyakov, Andrey Korosov, Anton Korosov & Aleksander Markovsky Editor: Konstantin Kobyakov 3.1. Network of existing ered together with the zakazniks to which they protected areas are closest and have similar status and protection regime. A complete list of protected areas in the six regions of this study is presented in the Appendix, 3.1.1. Distribution of protected with total surface areas and year of establishment. areas by category Titles of protected areas on the maps correspond to those in the list of protected areas of Arkhangelsk The network of protected areas in the six admin- Region (A), Vologda Region (B), Leningrad Region istrative regions of northwest Russia(four regions, (C), the City of St. Petersburg (D), the Republic of one republic and City of St. Petersburg) that are Karelia (E), and Murmansk Region (F). included in this study is described in Chapter 1. Below we will discuss the representativeness of the It should be noted that the data on the total area areas of high conservation value (HCV areas) in the of protected areas with respect to the total area of protected area network in each of these regions. the administrative region are approximate, as the exact boundaries for several nature monuments The total number of protected areas (federal and in Arkhangelsk Region, as well as for some pro- regional levels) in the study area is 641: tected areas in Vologda Region and the Republic • 8 strict nature reserves or zapovedniks (five of Karelia, were not determined at the moment of with protected buffer zones) writing for various reasons (see notes in the Ap- • 5 national parks (one with protected buffer zone) pendix). These protected areas are not included in • 2 nature parks the analysis. Similarly, we do not include protected • 175 zakazniks (specific Russian category of areas of local level established by municipalities nature reserves, see 1.3) because their status may differ by regions, or may • 316 nature monuments be undefined. • 1 botanical garden and 1 healing resort area. Thus, the analysis includes 570 protected areas, The Russian Federation law on specially protected covering altogether 57,600 km2, or 6.7% of the stud- nature areas (Federal Law…1995) also delegates ied area. It should be noted that their areas are cal- to the competent authorities the right to establish culated by the authors using GIS-based contours of other protected area categories in addition to those protected areas on the maps. In addition, protected listed in the law. Vologda Region is the only region areas comprise 2,100 km2 of water surfaces of the in northwest Russia which has made use of this Barents, White and Baltic Seas. These figures may right, establishing three new protected area cat- differ, sometimes greatly, from those indicated in egories, i.e.: their official regulations (applies only to protected • 118 protected mires and 13 other protected areas which have official State regulations). areas of the local level • 2 tourism-recreational areas At first glance, the area covered by protected ter- • 1 protected nature complex. ritories in the study area is large enough. However, is this proportion − nearly 7% of the total studied In order to reduce the number of fractional types area – enough to perform the tasks of the network of protected areas in the analysis, these regional of protected areas, i.e. conservation of biological categories of small protected areas will be consid- diversity and natural environmental systems? 125 One requirement is to estimate the exact share of seems absolutely impossible. Therefore, we must any territory, or of the entire area of any particular note with regret that full preservation of natural type of the biogeocenosis that must be taken un- biodiversity in northwest Russia is not a realistic der protection, to prevent it from further degrada- target. However, we can define the most urgent tion and loss of biodiversity. This question has not task: to prevent the total degradation of the most been answered so far, but there is clear evidence valuable natural HCV areas. It is also difficult to that each type of natural ecosystem has its own assess accurately the proportion of each type of threshold in the protected part percentage of the HCV area selected in this study which must be total area. There are only rough, generalized esti- taken under protection to exclude the risk of ex- mations which may vary considerably in each case. tinction of this particular type of HCV area. The Reymers & Shtilmark (1978) suggested the follow- maximal share should be 100%. This would allow ing ratios for anthropogenically transformed and preserving HCV areas in their natural state despite natural ecosystems for different vegetation zones: negative effects from adjacent transformed areas. As a minimum proportion requiring protection, r Arctic and tundra zones: natural ecosystems one can use the protocol adopted by the Confer- (including reindeer pastures) should consti- ence of the Parties to the Convention on Biological tute at least 98%, transformed areas no more Diversity at its tenth meeting on 29 October 2010 than 2%. In the most vulnerable biotopes, in Nagoya, Japan (Report of the tenth meeting ... intact parts must constitute 100%. 2010), which recommends 17% of terrestrial areas r Northern boreal, middle boreal and south- and inland waters to be protected. Achievement of ern boreal forest sub-zones (or northern and this figure does not imply that the protection status middle taiga zones), all mountain taiga ar- of HCV areas is good, but a share of less than 17% eas, as well as mountain forests in the south- suggests that the situation of a given HCV area is ern part of the former Soviet Union: natural critical. Below, we will use this threshold value to ecosystems should constitute 80-90%, trans- show the types of HCV areas which are in the most formed areas no more than 20% of the area. urgent need of protection. This value seems quite r Hemiboreal forest zone (or southern taiga): realistic in northwest Russia, because in some Eu- transformed areas should constitute no ropean Union countries, this threshold has already more than 50%. been reached and even exceeded. By the beginning of 2011 the area of protected areas was already 18% It is clear that these recommended limits of the of the surface part of the European Union as whole transformed areas are greatly exceeded for all veg- (More details ... 2011). etation zones in northwest Russia, which may lead to gradual degradation of many types of natural Figure 3.1 shows that nature reserves, or zakazniks, ecosystems and consequent loss of biological di- constitute the most significant (in terms of area) versity. However, in the existing socio-economic category of protected areas in northwest Russia. situation, creation of protected areas with a fair- Together with special categories of regional pro- ly strict regime of protection on such huge areas tected areas in Vologda Region (protected nature Area, 1000 k ²m 40 40 35 35 30 30 25 25 20 20 15 15 10 10 5 5 0 0 Zakazniks Nature parks National parks Healing resorts Botanical gardens (zapovedniks) Other regional PAs Nature monuments PAs of federal level PAs of regional level Strict nature reserves Protected buffer zones and national parks of strict nature reservesCategories of protected areas Regional and federal level of protected areas (PAs) Fig. 3.1. Total area of protected areas (PAs) in northwest Russia according to PA categories. 126 complexes, tourism and recreational areas, pro- nature protection and are not of principal impor- tected wetlands) which have similar protection tance in the regional network of protected areas. regimes and legal status, they constitute 67.1% of the total area of protected areas in the studied ter- Fig. 3.3 shows that Arkhangelsk Region provides ritory. The area of regional level protected areas ex- the largest contribution to the acreage of protected ceeds by about a one-third the area of federal pro- areas. Here are two of the largest protected areas tected areas. Despite this, however, most regional in the study area, Vodlozero National Park (area zakazniks, due to peculiarities of their protection of 468,000 ha, with 341,000 ha in Arkhangelsk Re- regimes, do not make the largest contribution to gion, the remainder in the Republic of Karelia), 30°0'0"E 45°0'0"E Categories of protected areas Strict nature reserves (zapovedniks) National parks 70°0'0"N Protected buffer zones of strict nature reserves and national parks Murmansk Zakazniks and other regional protected areas Nature parks Nature monuments Botanical gardens Healing resorts Local types of protected areas (in Vologda Region only) NLAND Arkhangelsk FI Petrozavodsk 60°0'0"N St. Petersburg 60°0'0"N Vologda 30°0'0"E 45°0'0"E Fig. 3.2. Categories of protected areas in northwest Russia. 127 Marine areas Strict nature reserves (zapovedniks) Murmansk Region 10.1% National parks Protected buffer zones of strict nature St. Petersburg 1.8% reservesand national parks Zakazniks and other regional PAs Leningrad Region 5.8% Nature parks Republic of Karelia 4.5% Nature monuments Vologda Region 5.4% Botanical gardens Arkhangelsk Region 7.3% Healing resorts 0 5 10 15 20 25 Area, 1000 km² Fig. 3.3. Areas of protected areas as a percentage of total administratve region area. Note: Arkhangelsk Region hereafter is considered excluding Nenets Authonomous District. and the State zakaznik Primorsky ( 440,000 ha). etation zones. For this reason, we prepared a work- Protected areas constitute 7.3% of the entire area ing version of the map of zonal vegetation types on of Arkhangelsk Region, which is similar to the av- the basis of vegetation maps of the European part erage values for the entire northwest Russia.