On Friday, December 5, a telegram sent from the Ministry of Natural
Resources to all of the nation’s 35 national parks and 100
zapovedniks (strictly protected nature reserves) sent shockwaves across
the country. The missive grimly informed the managers of Russia’s
protected areas about a “conclusion” about the “inexpediency.... of their
future existence” and demanded a list of documents and budgets, as though
to give the managers one last chance to justify their existence.

The telegram bewildered the leaders of this nearly 80-year old system of
nature reserves and its younger national parks. It also caused a great
stir in Moscow where the environmental community rallied
immediately. World Wildlife Fund (WWF)- Russia organized a “panda
passport” action for people to send letters of protests to the ministry by
fax and email. SocioEcological Union, Greenpeace, WWF and other NGOs are
now monitoring the situation. A number of front-page stories in national
and regional papers carried the story (including Izvestia, on Dec. 8),
spreading the news that Russia’s federally protected areas would be closed.

An amazing reversal occurred on Monday, December 8, when a second, very
brief telegram was sent to all of the same recipients from Deputy Minister
Pavlov (the same person who sent the first telegram). In this telegram he
reported that the first one had been “sent mistakenly” and that those who
made the error will be “reprimanded/punished.”

Why was the first telegram sent?
Apparently this was generated by bureaucrats from within the Department of
Property of the Ministry of Natural Resources, which is responsible for
managing state-owned properties (land and physical structures such as
buildings) that fall under the Ministry's management oversight. The
Department of Property is also responsible for implementing the current
governmental policy to transfer small state-owned enterprises that are not
profitable to private ownership. This means that small scientific
institutes under the Ministry will be closed and/or privatized. Some of
these occupy valuable real estate.* Apparently a number of these small
institutions recently received a telegram about the lack of expediency and
practicality of their existence, and it appears that the same missive was
fired off to “mailing lists 51 and 50,” the parks and reserves.

How and why this Deputy Minister sent such a telegram to the parks and
nature reserves is unclear. Evgeny Shvarts, Director of conservation at
WWF-Russia wonders if perhaps this was a way of testing public opinion, to
see whether there would be any reaction. Shvarts also draws a correlation
between this event (misstep or feigned attack?) on protected areas and
current changes in forest policy.

There is now underway an effort to privatize valuable lands, a tendency
reflected in the recent version of the federal forest code passed by the
Duma (which proposes, for example, the privatization of green belts
surrounding Russian cities, which are prime real estate for dachas, or
country homes.) The forest code continues to erode decision-making
authority of the conservation/management branch of the forest
service. Such a power play seemed to be at work when the Dept. of Property
overstepped its bounds, issuing the telegram to the national parks and
nature reserves, which are actually managed by the Dept. of Biological
Diversity and Protected Areas.

Nothing has been stated publicly about privatizing the protected areas and
for now they seem to be safe. It should be noted that even if a second
telegram had NOT been sent to nullify the first, the orders sent last week
from the Ministry would have been un-enforceable. The Ministry cannot just
blot out the country’s nature reserves with the swipe of a pen (or in this
case, the tapping out of a telegram). Federal legislation protecting the
nature reserves and national parks would have to be changed to disband
these protected areas.

However, this is clearly an issue to watch. The fact that such mishaps, or
even possibly purposeful ill-intended efforts, can occur is extremely
alarming. Russia has the world's premier system of strictly protected
areas. While not perfectly managed, this system is unprecedented in its
mission to conserve biodiversity. Putin’s administration has done very
little to shore up this imperiled system during his administration. In
fact, after a ten-year expansion of the system in the 1990’s, the years of
the Putin presidency marked the first years when no new reserves or parks
had been established.

* (This does NOT affect the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences
or the university system)

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