The expedition team of the Russian Arctic National Park, located in the Arkhangelsk Region, has successfully carried out a number of planned field and technical works in the specially protected natural area.
The work was carried out by the team of the park, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Geographical Society, Rosneft and the Arctic Museum and Exhibition Center.
As part of the expedition scientists and government inspectors visited the Hooker and Hayes Islands on the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Northern cluster of the Park, as well as the stronghold of the Cape Zhelaniya Park in its southern cluster on Novaya Zemlya.
According to the director of the Russian Arctic National Park Alexander Kirilov, food supplies were replenished at the control points, and fuel was also delivered.
On Hooker Island in Tikhaya Bay materials have been unloaded for the continuation of restoration work in the aircraft hangar and on the objects of the ecological path being created.
The head of the Park expedition, deputy director of the national park for tourism and environmental education, Andrey Kunnikov, said that, despite the difficult ice situation, the park employees completed all the tasks.
The second point of work was the Heiss Island of Franz Josef Land.
The expedition group visited the staff of the Krenkel meteorological station and conducted a survey of all existing objects of the former observatory near the Cosmic Lake (Kosmitcheskoye). Field work was also carried out on Hayes Island within the framework of the second stage of the “Clean Arctic” complex scientific project carried out by the Russian Arctic National Park with the support of PJSC “Rosneft”.
Scientists-geologists conducted aerovisual observations to record the state of the territory, previously cleared of accumulated environmental damage and took soil samples in the studied areas.
Operator Maksim Pervakov remained at the park's strongpoint, along with a team of inspectors. During a month and a half of his life on the edge of Novaya Zemlya, he will shoot material for two documentaries. One of which is devoted to the study of polar bears in the territory of the national park, the other will be about the employees of the Russian Arctic in the field, the press service of the park said.
During the entire expedition, the park staff monitored the marine fauna in the Barents Sea and in a special protected natural area. Inspectors of the Russian Arctic recorded encounters with two polar bears on Heiss Island and Cape Zhelaniya, as well as with a group of Atlantic walruses.
“Russian Arctic” is the northernmost and largest specially protected natural area in Russia.
