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- Protected areas are more expensive: large-scale violations have been identified in dozens of nature reserves
Protected areas are more expensive: large-scale violations have been identified in dozens of nature reserves
Large-scale violations have been detected in dozens of nature reserves across the country. Among them are 47 illegal hunting grounds, commercial buildings, deforestation and lack of protection of Red Book plants and animals. This is stated in the submission of the Prosecutor General's Office sent to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Gaps in the restoration of animal populations have affected even priority species — the Central Asian leopard, aurochs and sterch. According to experts, any disruption in the activities of specially protected areas can lead to the disappearance of the biotope and its inhabitants. Previously, the issue of the need to solve a complex of systemic problems of nature reserves has already been raised at the government level.
What violations were found in the reserves
Commercial buildings and hunting grounds were opened in specially protected areas, illegal logging was carried out, and measures to protect populations of Red Book plants and animals were disrupted. This follows from the submission of the Prosecutor General's Office, which was sent to the Ministry of Natural Resources by First Deputy Prosecutor General Anatoly Razinkin in December 2025. Izvestia has reviewed the document.
"By measures of the prosecutor's response only in the Nizhny Novgorod and Ulyanovsk regions in 2024-2025, hunting grounds were excluded from the borders of 47 regional natural territories [...] Inaction [...] to suppress the organization of hunting in the nature reserve fund entails harm to unique objects of the animal and plant world," the document says.
Such violations were also detected in Dagestan, Zabaikalsky, Stavropol, Khabarovsk Territories, Vologda, Kaluga, Leningrad, Tver regions and other regions. The document states that Irina Makanova, former director of the Department of State Policy and Regulation in the field of development of specially protected natural territories of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (left the position in August 2025. — Izvestia), already in the absence of authority, continued to issue decisions on regulating the number of fauna, on shooting individuals in the Sebezhsky and Curonian Spit national parks, the Mekletinsky and Remdovsky sanctuaries.
The decisions previously issued by the official have not been withdrawn — as a result, the protected area has created an opportunity for year-round hunting of wild boars, wolves, moose, and bears, the prosecutor's office said. As a source in government agencies told Izvestia, decisions on the shooting could have been issued after Irina Makanova left the ministry by using the official's electronic signature.
— Protected areas are huge territories. Hunting is often prohibited in some places of protected areas, while in others it is allowed during a certain season. Specially protected areas also include particularly valuable areas where hunting is completely closed in spring, and allowed in autumn and winter. Hunting is completely prohibited in reproductive areas," explained Vitaly Dolgushin, senior hunting specialist at the Voskresensk District Society of Hunters and Fishermen.
Incorrect registration of hunting grounds on the territory of protected areas may unreasonably extend the period of permitted hunting, as well as give access to those areas where conditions should have been created to protect and restore animal populations, an industry source explained to Izvestia. The fact that the prosecutor's checks revealed the illegal operation of dozens of such lands is an important measure to protect biodiversity, he added.
As Izvestia wrote, against the background of poaching and legal hunting of deer, the feeding base of Amur tigers, scientists have recorded an almost twofold decrease in their numbers in some protected areas of Primorsky Krai. According to the latest photo surveys in 2024, there are only five adults left in the Call of the Tiger National Park, compared to 10 in 2015. And in the neighboring Lazovsky reserve — nine instead of 16. Experts then explained that one of the main reasons for the serious decline in the population is the legal hunting of spotted deer near protected areas, which occupies up to 70% of the tiger's diet. However, the authorities of Primorsky Krai still increased the quota for shooting spotted deer by 10% in 2025, to 4,461 individuals.
Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Prosecutor General's Office.
Deficiencies in ensuring the restoration of populations of rare species have also been identified in the Russian conservation system. For example, the restoration program for the Central Asian leopard has not been implemented, which assumes the appearance of 50 individuals: so far, 15 individuals have been released into the wild, five of them have died. The releases of five leopards were disrupted. A special introduction center is not involved in the adaptation of animals in nature, and safety standards for the release of the Central Asian leopard are ignored, according to the Prosecutor General's Office. In 2023 and 2024, the release of the sturgeon was disrupted due to the lack of suitable individuals in the Oka Reserve.
The measures of the bison conservation strategy were also under threat of failure, the nursery for them is in a dilapidated state, the document says. These animals are among the 17 priority species that are under special protection in Russia.: Their disappearance will lead to serious consequences for the entire ecosystem, and the preservation of the population requires comprehensive conservation measures.
Boris Tuniev, a former deputy director for scientific work at Sochi National Park and an expert on the nature of the Caucasus, explained to Izvestia that any disruption in the work of protected areas could lead to the disappearance of the biotope and its inhabitants. According to the ecologist, the national nature reserve system needs to be strengthened by scientists. The problem will not be solved until a separate agency for specially protected natural areas is created, he added.
In which territories was the greatest damage detected
The Prosecutor General's Office found the greatest damage from violations in the Sochi National Park, according to the materials of the supervisory authority.
— In the city of Sochi, systemic miscalculations and the lack of any control over the actions of the leadership of the federal institutions managing the GPPZ (Caucasian) Natural Biosphere Reserve have been revealed. — Editor's note), the Sochi National Park, the Sochi Arboretum, the arboretum "Southern Cultures" (permanent director of these institutions S.G. Shevelev and affiliated with him M.L. Shchegolikhina, V.I. Atoyan), the Sochi Wildlife Sanctuary and the Priazovsky Wildlife Sanctuary, the document says.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, these institutions have withdrawn from the suppression of environmental offenses in protected areas located in cramped urban areas, in favor of commercial interests.
On January 21, the Sochi National Park announced that Sergey Shevelev had resigned. As Izvestia wrote, under his leadership (he simultaneously held the positions of acting director of the Sochi National Park and director of the Caucasian Nature Reserve), the administration did not fight illegal logging in any way. The Prosecutor General's Office revealed 21 such facts with damage amounting to 1.3 billion rubles. Damage to the national park was also caused during the construction of a narrow-gauge railway in the area of the Akhtsu Gorge, a criminal case was opened on this fact. Initially, it was estimated at 14.6 million rubles, but during a more thorough inspection it increased to almost 1 billion, as more than 40 species of red book plants grow in the construction area. The inspectors paid special attention to the case of major damage to the Yew and boxwood grove, which amounted to almost 1 billion, Izvestia reported.
The issue of serious violations in the work of the Sochi National Park was raised on December 10 at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects. Then the head of the executive committee of the Popular Front, Mikhail Kuznetsov, told President Vladimir Putin that, in particular, a "gray zone" was being formed there in the field of admission to the territory of tourist groups.
Tourists on Eagle Rocks in Matsesta forest area in Sochi National Park
— On the cordons "Laura" and "Pslukh", which were intended to ensure economic activity and control on the territory of protected areas, a large number of recreational facilities and recreation areas for tourists appeared. In principle, the statutes of the reserve and the national park do not prohibit this, but these facilities have not passed the state examination, and some of them are capital buildings. Baths and fonts for tourists, backwaters for fishing, where fish species that have never been found here were released, and their appearance is fraught with serious gaps for the ecosystem," Alexander Zobnin, head of the Sochi Geographical Society, told Izvestia.
What can be changed in the nature reserve system of the Russian Federation
There are systemic problems in the field of domestic protected areas, said Mikhail Kreindlin, coordinator of the protected Area program of the Earth Concerns Everyone project. There is still no unified strategy for the development of protected areas in the country, the expert said.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev announced in December 2024 that a number of problematic issues had accumulated in the conservation industry, including those identified during a government audit. Among the problems, he named the lack of a strategic planning document for the industry, a number of land and property issues, as well as financing problems.
Managing the vast, extensive system of natural territories in Russia, which includes more than 12,000 protected areas with an area of about 245 million hectares and occupies about 13% of the country's territory, requires new approaches, Director of the Unified Scientific Center of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Federal State Budgetary Institution VNII Ekologiya Alexander Zakondyrin previously noted. According to him, a set of measures for the scientific transformation of the Russian network of protected areas can also be implemented within the framework of the national project "Environmental well-being".
One of the programs of the national project, the federal project "Biodiversity Conservation and Ecotourism Development", provides for the allocation of about 50 billion rubles from the budget until 2030.
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