The coming 2020 is declared the World Year of Crane. As EcoTourism Expert became aware, such a decision was made by the International Crane Protection Fund, a group of cranes specialists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
As part of this action, environmental and awareness-raising events, scientific research, national, regional and international conferences will be held throughout Russia and abroad.
Measures to monitor cranes and increase their populations are also planned in the Moscow region, where these Red Book birds are under the care of scientists and volunteers. According to Dmitry Kurakin, the Minister of Ecology and Nature Management of the Moscow Region, in order to preserve the gray crane in the Moscow Region the region’s first natural park “Crane Land” will be launched. It will be created on the lands of Taldom and Sergiev Posad urban districts.
This will be the largest specially protected natural area of the Moscow Region: its planned area is about 75 thousand hectares. The park will include 11 existing protected areas, including the Crane Homeland Wildlife Refuge. For many years, there has been a lot of research and educational work under the auspices of the Russian Society for the Conservation and Study of Birds.
In addition to the “Crane Land”, the habitats of the gray crane were established during the examination of several more special protected areas near Moscow, such as “Dushonovsky swamps” in the Schelkovo district, “Dubravna” in Taldom, “Lakes Big and Small Sokolovo” and “Arinkinsky” in Lotoshin, “Sankovsky” in Klin and several others.
According to recent estimates by ornithologists, in total about 200 pairs of gray cranes constantly nest in the Moscow Region.
Special events will be held for the Year of Crane in many reserves of Russia. They are being prepared, in particular, on the other side of the country, in the Khabarovsk Territory in the Khingan Reserve with the Crane Reintroduction Station. There, the chicks of this bird are artificially raised and reintroduced to nature.
Various aspects related to the study and conservation of cranes will be discussed in 2020 at the International Scientific Conference “Cranes of the Palearctic: Biology, Protection, Management”, which will be held from September 29 to October 3 in Yerevan (Armenia). Its organizers are the Working Group on Cranes of Eurasia and the Union for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity of Germany (NABU).
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