Jornal de Biodiversidade e Espécies Ameaçadas

The role of protected areas in wildlife conservation of Republic Sakha (Yakutia)

Abstract

Vladimirtseva M V

The system of protected areas/PA in northern Yakutia began to take shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ygynnya in the Upper Yana River basin, Chaigurgino in the Lower Kolyma River basin, and Jirkogo in the Middle Kolyma River basin are all resource reserves. The nature memory of Stolb Island in the Lena river delta, Pokhodskaya Edoma and Rogovatka in the lower Kolyma area, and Berelekh Mammoth Cemetery in the Lower Indigirka basin have all been validated. In 1985, Russia's largest reserve at the time, UstLensky State Nature Reserve, with a total area of 12, 133 ha, was formed. PA intensification of various forms occurred in northeastern Yakutia in the mid-nineteenth century. More than 20 P?s, including nature parks, resource reserves, and nature memorials, were formed and are operational in Yakutia as a result of President Michail E. Nikolaev's decision. To conserve endangered animal species, the major resource reserves: Lena Delta, Terpei Tumus, Kytalyk, Kolyma Koren, and Bear???s Islands were established in the 1990s and 2000s. PA's function in biodiversity and vertebrate fauna conservation in the northern part of Yakutia was evaluated using analytic study of literature, found data, and personal data. The globe is struggling to meet the agreed-upon goal of preserving 17 percent of its terrestrial surface as a protected natural area by 2020, covering various ecosystems. The Sakha Republic (Yakutia; Russia's largest region) has already surpassed this amount, with 38 percent of its total land area preserved in various types of natural reserves.

Sakhamin Afanasyev, Yakutia's Minister of Ecology, Nature Management, and Forestry, announced this monumental feat on September 26 during the Northern Sustainable Development Forum's (NSDF) "Ecotourism and Protected Area" event in Yakutsk. This event, co-organized and led by the Yakutian Government and LT&C, was one of many unique events held during the course of the four-day Forum. Mikhail Nikolaev, Sakha's first president, is credited with establishing the wide network of nature reserves. The current government is expanding on his foresightful environment conservation strategy from the 1990s, which was originally dubbed a "Gift to the Earth" by WWF. The network of protected areas continues to expand. The entire New Sibrian Islands were only recently declared a regional nature reserve. In the last 35 years, thanks to the Ust-Lensky Reserve's protection system, the population levels of commercial fish, birds, and animals have stabilised. PAs were particularly important for the protection, population restoration, and range expansion of endangered bird and mammal species along the wall near-Arctic Yakutia area (Siberian crane Grus leucogeranus, Brent geese Branta bernicla, and other species), Ross???s gull Rhodostethia rosea, Spectacled Somateria fischeri and Steller???s Polysticta stelleri eiders, Peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus, Gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus, Black-capped marmot Marmota camtschatica, Polar bear Ursus maritimus).