Zapovednik is an established term on the territory of the former Soviet Union for a protected area which is kept "forever wild". It is the highest degree of environmental protection for the assigned areas, which are strictly protected and access to the public is restricted.
Overview
The literal English translation of zapovednik is "nature sanctuary" (like animal sanctuary); however, in practice, zapovedniks sometimes have to do with the protection of things other than nature and can incorporate historical-cultural, historical–archaeological, and other types of cultural or natural heritage. They also function as important sites for historical research and education and so are comparable to the Sites of Special Scientific Interest as found in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
The term zapovednik, which refers to the reserve, staff and infrastructure, was used in the former Soviet Union and is still in use in the Russian Federation and in some of the other former Soviet republics. Many reserves have areas with different degrees of protection; sometimes grazing is permitted to a certain extent.
Other types of protected areas include national nature parks, zakazniks (referring to "state game reserve" because a limited amount of hunting is allowed there), nature monuments (often individual trees, geological exposures, or other small areas), etc. Some zapovedniks are recognized as biosphere reserves (or sanctuaries).
In Russia there are 101 zapovedniks covering about , or about 1.4% of the country's total area. They include everything from isolated patches of steppe to large tracts of Siberia and the Arctic, and range in size from Galich'ya Gora at 2.31 km2 (570 acres) to the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve at . The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources oversees 99 of the zapovedniks. The exception is Il'menskiy, which is administered by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Galich'ya Gora, administered by Voronezh State University.
Theory of zapovednost'
The theoretical justification for the zapovedniks is known as zapovednost (заповедность) – meaning "the state of being protected in a zapovednik". It was developed in the 1890s and early 20th century, principally by the soil biologist Vasily Dokuchaev.
The fundamental idea of zapovednost''' is the exclusion of people and the prohibition of economic activity, the only exceptions being non-intrusive access allowed to scientists and rangers. Zapovedniks are intended to be parcels of untouched natural ecosystems that can be studied as standards with which to compare managed ecosystems, such as are created in agriculture and forestry. To this end, zapovedniks need to be large enough to be self-sufficient, with a complete range of trophic levels up to the top predators.
In 1910 the theory of zapovednost was taken a step forward by I. P. Borodin, who argued that zapovedniks should not be established piecemeal, but as a planned system of reserves including samples of all the main natural regions in the country.
In the 1940s Aldo Leopold understood the need for zapovednik-type reserves: "While even the largest wilderness areas become partially deranged, it required only a few wild acres for J. E. Weaver to discover why the prairie flora is more drought-resistant than the agronomic flora which has supplanted it." The answer was that the wild prairie had a much more complex, and more efficient, root system, and this could only have been discovered by studying the undisturbed natural ecosystem.
Of course it would be difficult, if not impossible, to establish a 'perfect' zapovednik today, entirely natural and self-sufficient, especially in view of downstream effects involving pollution and greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, many Russian zapovedniks are a good approximation to the ideal and have been operating as scientific institutions for many decades.
History
The first zapovedniks were set up in the steppe region of the Russian Empire in the 1890s. Some were equipped with research stations. Dokuchaev was the guiding spirit behind these early zapovedniks. Areas of steppe were chosen for the first zapovedniks because of the rapid disappearance of virgin steppe as it was ploughed up, and because it was thought that ploughing might be exacerbating the effects of drought; clearly, research was needed in order to understand the steppe and how it could be best exploited.