Zapovednik
The fundamental idea of zapovednost' is the exclusion of people and the prohibition of economic activity, the only exceptions being non-intrusive access allowed to scientists and rangers.
[4] In 1910 the theory of zapovednost' was taken a step forward by I. P. Borodin, who argued that zapovedniks should not be established piecemeal, but as a planned system of reserves including samples of all the main natural regions in the country.
[6] It would be difficult, if not impossible, to establish a 'perfect' zapovednik today, entirely natural and self-sufficient, especially in view of downstream effects involving pollution and greenhouse gases.
[11] Lenin may have had an interest in nature protection because permission was granted promptly for the creation in 1919 of [12] in the Volga Delta on the north-western shore of the Caspian Sea.
[13] The recognition of zapovedniks was put on a firm legal footing by a measure "On the Protection of Nature Monuments, Gardens and Parks", signed into law by Lenin in 1921.
[14] The creation of zapovedniks continued, but the measure also allowed for the establishment of national parks, though none were set up in the Soviet Union for another half century[citation needed].
The first of these was planned by Aleksandr Malinovskii; it was carried out in 1951 with a view to turning the zapovedniks into "commercial-and-research" institutions as well as releasing substantial areas of protected forest for commercial exploitation.
[17] Over the next 10 years the zapovednik system recovered somewhat, but in 1961 Nikita Khrushchev criticized it, famously referring to a film about them[18] in which a scientist was shown watching a squirrel gnawing a nut.
[citation needed] It is not easy to summarize the coverage of ecosystems protected by zapovedniks, but a rough idea can be gained by counting the number of reserves in the main natural-vegetation zones.
[22] Non-intervention management is difficult to practise in steppe zapovedniks, which are often far too small to support a self-sustaining ecosystem including wild herbivores (such as saiga) that may have been migratory.
Resort is sometimes made to various mowing regimes, which however cannot satisfactorily replace natural processes insofar as it does not recycle nutrients and organic matter through the herbivore and carnivore food chain, and cannot replicate trampling effects.
[24] Under the pressure to become self-financing, some zapovedniks have tried at various times to develop ecological tourism - usually in the reserve's buffer zone, so avoiding infringement of the principle of zapovednost'.
The anthropogenic impact on the environment - due to pollution, climate change and ultimately human population growth - is generating increasingly serious problems, the solution of which will depend on a better understanding of the biosphere than we already have.
To provide conditions in which such an understanding can be developed, it is essential to preserve as far as possible intact examples of natural ecosystems, and the zapovedniks are the only large system of protected areas created primarily for this purpose.
