Russia’s ecosystems play a key role in the regulation and conservation of biodiversity as well as in the support of ecosystem services that are important for the entire world. Russia has the largest land area in the world that has not been affected by human activity. The latter composes 60-65% of the entire country’s territory and is considerably larger than analogous territories in other world countries such as Brazil, Canada, Australia, USA, etc. Russia has almost all the types of ecosystems and species biodiversity that are found in the largest continental region of the planet, Northern Eurasia. Some of Russia’s ecosystems are unique, containing flora and fauna species which are globally important. The country’s protected areas compose approximately 9% of all protected areas in the world. Some of these have been included into the list of World Heritage Sights and have the status of biosphere reserves. Russia has the largest stores of forest resources and holds over 20% of total world forest-covered landmass. Russian forests are an important store of carbon, significantly impact the continental and global climate and influence Eurasian water-cycles. Russian ecosystems play a key role in regulating of the global carbon cycle. There is a substantial portion of world carbon storages located in the soil and vegetation of terrestrial ecosystems of Russia. A large portion of the carbon stores are long-term as they are located in soil, peat and permafrost. Vast amounts of carbon can be found in the Russian arctic shelf. Overall, Russia is a net-storage of carbon. Russia’s specificity, apart from its large territory (it is the largest country in the world) and the good condition of most of its ecosystems (65% of Russia’s territory is composed of virgin or healthy ecosystems), is the country’s federal political organization. The relative independence of Russia’s regions allows them to independently approach the problems of sustainable biodiversity use and to establish the optimal level of centralization in these spheres of activity. National targets: (a) by 2020 citizens of the country are informed that the conservation of biodiversity is a prerequisite for their wellbeing and economic prosperity; individuals and their social groups undertake concrete steps for further conservation of biodiversity; (b) by 2020, valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services incorporated into strategies, programs and planning processes for social economic development at the national and regional levels; (c) by the year 2020, the existing mechanism for the governmental support of those that use ecosystem services and biological resources and who cause damage to biodiversity, are improved with the goal of preventing negative impacts; positive stimuli aimed at the promotion of ecosystem services and sustainable uses of bioresources are developed; (d) by 2020 at the latest, the government, business community and participating members at all levels have taken measures or implemented plans with the purpose of achieving sustainable production and consumption while not allowing for the results of natural resource use to damage ecological sustainability; (e) by the year 2020 the rate of natural habitat loss, including those of forests and grass ecosystems, are cut by at least half and completely halted where it is necessary; the degradation and fragmentation of habitats is also significantly decreased; (f) by the year 2020, fishing within the exclusive economic zone, territorial waters and internal (including marine) waters of the Russian Federation is conducted in accordance with the principles of sustainability; all such activity is done within the framework on fishing and the conservation of biodiversity with the condition of minimizing the negative impact of fishing on aquatic bioresources (including rare and endangered species) and their habitat; there are measures taken for the prevention, containment and elimination of illegal, unregulated and undeclared fishing and for the regeneration of aquatic bioresources which have been damaged as result of anthropogenic and natural causes; (g) 3 national sub-targets: (1) by 2020 no less than 20% of all agricultural land are managed and used in accordance to biodiversity conservation goals; (2) by 2020 all waterbodies used for aquaculture must be managed in a sustainable manner that will ensure the minimization of the influence on biodiversity found in adjacent territories and in natural ecosystems; (3) by 2020 no less than 50% of exploited and protected forests shall be sustainably managed so as to ensure the conservation of biodiversity; (h) by 2020 to ensure the decrease of pollution emissions, including that of organic substances, into the environment by improving the appropriate legal framework of the Russian Federation; (i) by 2020, invasive alien species and methods of their introduction and spreading are identified and ranked; there are measures aimed at the elimination of all introduction and spreading activities of priority invasive alien species; (j) by 2020 Russia has minimized the anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems and implemented adaptive measures in regions which are especially vulnerable to climate change: the Arctic, subarctic, Far East, mountainous and steppe ecosystems; (k) to ensure, on a long-term basis, the conservation and recovery of rare and endangered animal, plant and fungi species in the interest of the Russian Federation’s stable development; (l) by 2020 the ecosystems which provide the most important services for ensuring the population’s life, health and well-being are identified and protected; and (m) by 2020 the recovery of forests and their stable accumulation of carbon has been ensured on 15% of all degraded agricultural lands; owing to increased efforts for conservation of existing forests, their carbon losses have been decreased by 17%.
Federación de Russia · 2014-01-01