At the IV annual international conference “Sustainable Tourism: Global Challenges and Russian Perspective” in Sochi, representatives of the Sochi National Park FSBI, the Kavkaz State Natural Biosphere Reserve named after K.Kh.Shaposhnikov, the mountain resort "Rosa Khutor» and Vladimir Potanin’s holding company «Interros» signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation.
The document provides for joint work to ensure good neighborliness and safety for tourists and wild animals in recreational areas, including scientific research, field observations, biotechnical activities, raising awareness among tourists, shaping the introduction of new standards of responsibility for businesses operating on the territory, etc.
"The development of tourism in our country makes the issue of organizing a civilized good-neighborliness between man and the animal world topical. Our today's agreement is precisely aimed at creating such a system that, on the one hand, would help the reserves to solve their scientific tasks, and on the other, would allow to make the rest at the leading Russian resorts - the same "Rosa Khutor" - even more comfortable for tourists, and safe for animals. This for us, as major investors in the tourism industry, is responsible investment and responsible environmental management", said the «Interros" Deputy General Director, Olga Voytovich.
This project may become the first in Russia that will combine science and business, and will allow, on the one hand, to study animals, and, on the other hand, to ensure control over the movement of large animals in the resort area of the Sochi mountain cluster.
"Today we receive messages from tourists as saying they saw wild animals while riding the cable car. Of course, this is a great experience for people. Our task is to establish good-neighborliness between humans and animals. We hope that after the agreement is signed, the work will be done, which we will share with our colleagues all over the country ", said the General Director of the "Rosa Khutor» resort, Alexander Belokobylsky.
Within the framework of the project, it is planned to carry out accounting and a number of technical measures to track the movement of animals both in the territory of the Caucasian Reserve and in areas adjacent to the mountain resorts of Sochi. Appropriate equipment for such monitoring is supposed to be installed in the Sochi National Park, as well as in the corresponding service of the mountain resort "Rosa Khutor».
«The «Rosa Khutor» resort has a very large experience in the field of tourism, we have vast knowledge in the field of science, nature protection. We have been doing this for almost a hundred years. It is necessary to conduct joint research on chamois, to make a record of bears with the help of special collars, in order to understand where they live, where they go. In this case, everything must be done alltogether. An information program for tourists is also needed,» said the head of the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve, Sergei Shevelev.
As a result, the mountain resort "Rosa Khutor" and its surroundings will be considered as an experimental platform for cooperation of experts from nature conservation and tourism structures in order to create a good-neighborliness and well-being environment for both people and wild animals.
"Everything that will be implemented within the framework of our memorandum will be useful for all the participants," said Mikhail Lapin, director of the Sochi National Park.
It should be noted that the signed memorandum is not the first project of interaction with reserves and nature conservation organizations for Vladimir Potanin's Interros company. When creating the Rosa Khutor resort, Interros, in cooperation with WWF in 2005, carried out a program for the reintroduction of the Persian leopard on the territory of the Caucasian Nature Reserve.
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