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Preface Introduction. Russia is the largest state on the Earth with the ancient history, multinational culture and rich natural and intellectual resources. Irregular economic development of the territory conditioned by the relatively severe climate contributed to the conservation of flora, fauna and ecosystems in a close-to-the-wild state on the most part of Russia. This country has rich traditions in the biodiversity conservation. A system of protected areas has been functioning for about 100 years. Forestry, rational use of hunting and sea biological resources have been established through centuries. There are significant achievements in the ecological efficiency of agriculture. Russian basic and sectoral (forestry, agrarian, hunting, fishery) sciences have created conditions for organizing the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, its identification, evaluation and monitoring of its status. Russia possesses a great potential of high-class specialists in the field of biology, ecology, forest science, and geography, i.e. in those areas of expertise which are necessary for the generation and implementation of the biodiversity conservation strategy. At the same time, the country’s economy developed under the conditions of strong centralization, lack of the normal market and isolation from the most of the global system. A lot of innovations, including those in nature protection, remained unused. The above features determine specifics of today’s Russia. This country features many prerequisites for its future ranking among the most advanced states with a mature biodiversity conservation system. Currently Russia is undergoing very hard changes in economic and social relations. The country is standing on the threshold of radical restructuring and updating of its economy in line with world scientific and technological advances. Unfortunately, restoration processes are of a long-term nature and the transformation of nature is extremely high in Russia. Urgent actions are needed to conserve and, in many instants, to rescue certain plant and animal species, unique ecosystems, and natural monuments. Therefore, within the report on Russia’s fulfillment of the CBD obligations, it is important to evaluate the potential and current status of Russian biodiversity, identify perspective and priority areas of its conservation and sustainable use. Synopsis: The Russian Federation incorporates 89 Federation subjects (Fig. 1) and has the status of a country with transitional economy. Its area is 17,000 thou sq km (11,4 % of the global land). It is washed by 14 seas. The sea border lasts for 38 807,5 km. The country’s land border is equal to 14 509,3 km. The territory of Russia features over 120,000 rivers and about 2,000 thousand lakes. The area of wetlands reaches 2 000 sq km and permafrost grounds are spread over almost 65 % of the country’s territory. Within Russia there are large plains and mountain massifs (the Khibins, Caucasus, Urals, Altai, Sayans, Verkhoyansk Ridge, Kamchatka and Transbaikalia mountains). Its plains display ecosystems of 8 natural zones (biomes): polar deserts, arctic and subarctic `, forest tundra, taiga, broad-leaved forests, steppes, semiarid and arid zones (Annex 5.2.2. ). The basis for the Russian biodiversity is formed by more than 11 000 species of vascular plants, 320 - mammals, about 730 - birds, 75 - reptiles, about 30 amphibian species, almost 400 species of coastal sea fish, and 270 fresh water fish species (data of the Institute of Botany and Institute on Ecology and Evolution Problems RAS). Biodiversity and biological resources of the country constitute, to a great extent, the basis for its economics and human environment. The forest fund occupies about 69 % of the total Russian lands. Almost 78 % of all dense forests are located in Asian Russia and only 22 % - in its European part. In 1997, since the introduction of the Russian Federation Forest Code, the structure of ownership for the forest fund has radically changed. The Code made for a transfer of a part of the forest fund to the ownership of Federation subjects and enacted other forms of its possession, disposal and use. Forests, their biodiversity and biological resources determine the life of population and economic structure on almost a half of the country’s territory. In addition to the supply of timber that is harvested annually on about 10 000 sq km (100,8 million m3 in 1996), forests have notable environmental, resource and recreation functions. Another significant unit of biological resources and biodiversity under conservation is formed by natural feedstock lands - hay fields and pastures of all Russian natural zones. Natural feedstock lands (excluding reindeer grazings) constitute 0.8 million km2: 0.2 million km2 - hay fields and 0,6 million sq km - grazings. The area of reindeer and horse grazings is 3,27 million sq km. There is noted a tendency to reducing their areas and productivity due to the degradation of the vegetation cover, aridization, erosion, etc. Productivity of hay harvesting is equal to from 1 (in dry steppes and semiarid zones) to 3 - 4 kg per 1 sq m (reaching 4 - 5 kg of green mass per 1 sq m in Nechernozemie (Poor-in-Black-Soil Lands) and floodplains of the Central Chernozem (Black Soil) region). The calculation of cattle loads on natural forage lands shows that Russia can be potentially looked at as one of the world leaders-producers of livestock breeding products for both domestic consumption and export. Strategic reserves of natural feedstock lands tend to growing in the context of the decline in arable lands during recent years. An important biological resource and biodiversity element of the country are water (sea and fresh water) organisms - algae, invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals. Fishery and commercial use of sea biological resources rank among the key sectors of Russian economy, particularly in the export volume. A total rate of the fish catch was about 5.5 million tons in 1996. Despite the National Report template suggested by UNEP (having been reflected in the structure and headings of the report) being rigidly fixed, the Russian Party to the CBD formulated the goal of the report as the analysis of the current status of biodiversity, measures for its conservation and sustainable use, and discussion of strategic areas in the Russia’s fulfillment of CBD obligations. In concord with the above, 2 parts are singled out in the report: I - Measures taken by Russia to fulfill the CBD requirements and II - The status of Russian biodiversity. Part I, basing on the evaluation of nation-wide significance of biodiversity, degree of its understanding and character of its present-day use, identifies priority areas of activities in this pool and discusses issues of the to-be-developed biodiversity conservation and sustainable use national strategy and action plan. This part of the National Report is crowned with the discussion of potential stakeholders of the future biodiversity conservation strategy, efforts under the Global Environment Facility project Biodiversity Conservation in Russia and institutional issues in relation to the fulfillment of the CBD obligations. Part II of the National Report, in compliance with the UNEP requirements (Guiding Principles for the Preparation of Research Efforts... in Biodiversity and UNEP\CBD\SBSTTA\1\6 Science and Technology Information to be Contained in National Reports) gives data on the status of Russian biodiversity, relevant socio-economic factors, forms of biological resource use, in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts, local forms of nature protection, economic and financial mechanisms of the biodiversity conservation and its monitoring system. A special section of the National Report deals with potentialities of Russia in the biodiversity conservation and sustainable use: country’s scientific, informational, legislative and institutional potentials are analyzed in the light of CBD obligations. The authors of the National Report, in full understanding of a challengeable character of overviewing the biodiversity status and its determining factors in such a large country as Russia, focused their attention on the selection of reference data for the Annex. Its first unit contains 30 color maps to present the data on biodiversity geography and integral evaluations of the role of socio-economic factors. The second unit includes reference data in the form of lists and tables on current legislation in the filed of nature protection, on rare and endangered plant and animal species, etc. The National Report ends with the list of information sources which served as the basis for the preparation of individual sections of Part II. To prepare the National Report, multiple published and unpublished statistical and analytical materials were utilized. In some cases, they, naturally, reflect author’s or sectoral opinions on situations, issues and prospects. Yet, while preparing the report the authors avoided using unofficial information. To guarantee this, specialists and materials of ministries and sectoral agencies responsible for individual aspects of the matter at the national level were drawn to the work over key biodiversity conservation issues. Among the others, Ministry of Agriculture, SCEP, Rosleskhoz (Russian Forestry Management), Russian Academy of Sciences, State Committee on Land, Ministry of Science, etc. were engaged. The authors of the report realize that the analysis on the status of Russian biodiversity and its determining factors is not comprehensive enough. Hence, the present National Report should be looked at as the first step on the way to the generation of the national biodiversity conservation strategy and to the involvement of Russian and foreign specialists into this process. |
PREFACE
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