New Wildlife Reserve in Udora Will Help Unite Protected Natural Areas of the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk Region
The initiative related to the new complex landscape reserve in Udora district known as the Osa reserve (project title) was reported by Yury Pautov, director of the Silver Taiga Foundation for Sustainable Development, at the territorial conference for nomination of candidates for the V All-Russia Environmental Meeting held in the Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the RAS on 28 September, 2017.
The “project” title of the reserve is derived from the Osa river (the Vashka tributary) flowing along Udora district. The reserve is planned to be founded at the Verkhnyaya Vashka forestry at the border between the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk region. The foundation of this specially protected area has been in progress since 2004. Based on the results of the physical accounting of virgin natural areas at the Verkhne-Vashka intact area the most valuable from the environmental point of view part – its Core, located both in the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk Region – was found. In 2015, the Uftyuga-Ilesha landscape reserve was arranged in the Arkhangelsk part of the Core.
In 2016, the Silver Taiga Foundation organized an expedition to justify the environmental integrity and borderline of the new protected area in the Komi part of the Core of the Verkhne-Vashka Intact Forest Massif. Its participants were both the Foundation’s staff and the scientists of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the RAS, as well as environmental experts from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Arkhangelsk and Finland. The participants of the expedition walked over 250 km routes, found over 25 species of rare and endangered species of plants, fungi, and lichen from the Red Book of Russia and the Red Book of the Komi Republic. In addition, there you can find the habitat of the most southern population of the wild reindeer in the Russian North.
The design area of the reserve amounts to 74 thousand hectares. The area of the reserve to-be includes the famous Korabelnaya Chashcha described by the well-known Russian writer Mikhail Prishvin, and is adjacent to the existing Verkhne-Vashka and Uftyuga-Ilesha reserves.
The map of the Reserve
At present, almost the whole area planned for the reserve is leased by forest users. As Yury Pautov underlined in his report, the intact massif borders clear cutting areas both in Arkhangelsk region and in the Komi Republic. However, its most precious Core is still preserved.
“The reserve is valued as it unites the existing specially protected natural areas of the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk region into a huge cluster and allows conserving the Core of the intact area. Such huge intact taiga areas are most resistant to various natural disasters, such as fires, windfalls or climate change. In such areas you can find swamps, lichen communities, spruce and pine forests. Large areas are able to preserve their population and genetic diversity for a very long time”, the reporter noted.
In addition, the area concentrates model intact catchment areas and sources of such rivers as the Osa, Poch, Ilesha, Uftyuga flowing into the Vashka and Vychegda in the Komi Republic and into the Pinega in Arkhangelsk region.
The economic and environmental justification for the reserve prepared by the Silver Taiga was submitted to be approved to the Ministry of Industry of the Komi Republic and to the subordinate authority – Protected Areas Center. In November, public hearings are planned to be held in Udora district. Then, the documentation prepared is to pass through the state environmental assessment followed by development of the respective regulation. If the documents are approved, the Osa reserve will become the 24th protected area of Udora district.
The participants of the territorial conference for nomination of candidates for the V All-Russia Environmental Meeting
