More protected areas will appear in the Arctic. The plans for their creation were announced by the director of the Roszapovedtsentr, Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, Andrei Baryshnikov.
Speaking at the IX International Forum “The Arctic: Present and Future”, he said that the national project “Ecology” will focus on four specially protected natural territories that will be created in the Arctic by 2024.
These are the national parks “Koygorodsky” and “Kytalyk”, the reserve “Bear Islands” and the “Laptevomorsky” reserve.
According to Baryshnikov, the attendance of nature reserves and national parks located in the region isincreasing and new tourist sites are being opened. One of the leading Arctic protected areas - the Russian Arctic National Park. In 2019 it was visited by more than 1,300 people. At the same time, for the first time in the ten years of the history of the national park, 262 Russians, including children, visited the Russian Arctic Park which ranked first in terms of the number of visits.
Baryshnikov noted that the Ministry of Natural Resources has given special attention to child tourism as part of educational work. Since 2014, every summer, at the cordon “Old Koms” of the Central Siberian Reserve there is a rally of friends of the reserve attended mainly by schoolchildren. Another popular place in the Russian North is the Kandalaksha Reserve, it conducts field expeditions for students in the summer field season, which help researchers keep records of nesting birds and perform work on the collection of data. New Year's children programs held by the Lapland Nature Reserve are also very popular among visitors because of the estate of Santa Claus.
“One of the brightest events of this year in the life of the protected Arctic area was the opening of the northernmost visit center in Russia. It began to function on Hooker Island of the Franz Josef Land Archipelago in the Russian Arctic National Park. The event was timed to the 90th anniversary of the Soviet polar station Tikhaya Bay,” said Baryshnikov.
He added that the remoteness remains a common problem for most Arctic national parks.
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