New Russia No Friend to Wildlife

Every summer for 52 years, Yuri Tatarinov has seen the wonder of Siberian wildflowers blooming in the meadows near Lake Baikal. He has watched 10 bears at a time troop from the forest down to the shore. In the winter, he has seen the famed Barguzin sable forage for food in the snow.

Since he was a boy of 11, Tatarinov has lived in the Barguzin Nature Preserve, Russia’s oldest wilderness sanctuary. Following in his father’s footsteps, he worked his entire career as a guardian of the preserve.

But now, Russia’s economic crisis threatens to destroy his way of life and, he fears, his beloved bears and sables too. The preserve, founded by the last czar and protected by the Communists, faces the greatest threat in its eight decades from Russia’s transformation to a market economy. Crippled by a lack of money, the federal government plans to slash the Barguzin staff and close down the village of Dokhsha, which serves as the foresters’ home and headquarters.

“We’ve become embittered because we’ve tried to protect this area for so many years and now a decision has been made to liquidate the village,” laments the grizzled forester. “If the village is done away with, the preserve is finished.”

Indeed, as Russia embraces capitalism, its wilderness areas are under assault. Federal spending for preserves and national parks has fallen to less than one-twentieth of even the meager amount provided in Soviet days.

Parks have been forced to lay off rangers at a time when poachers--often well armed by regional wars--are multiplying. Brown bears, sables, wild goats, musk deer and other species that survived in Soviet protected zones face a growing threat from Russia’s newfound materialism.

Park officials also have proved powerless to halt small-scale building booms, as thousands of newly rich Russians take over prime lots, cut trees, build houses and put up fences on what was once pristine parkland.

In Pribaikalsky National Park--across Lake Baikal from the Barguzin preserve--officials have looked on helplessly as entrepreneurs have constructed lakeside homes and small hotels, fencing off public beaches to create private resorts.

“Private houses are cropping up like mushrooms after the rain,” said college psychologist Veronika Moshkarnyova, standing among logs felled to build houses in her longtime favorite redoubt of Pribaikalsky park. “People have started some major construction here.”

Since Barguzin was founded in 1916 to save the region’s prized sable from extinction, Russia has set aside nearly 2% of its territory in preserves and national parks--an area larger than New Mexico.

Most of that land is locked up in 95 preserves, which receive the highest level of wilderness protection under Russian law. Not even tourism and recreation are allowed; only scientific research and the maintenance of resident staff members and their families are permitted.

The first national park in Russia was not created until 1983, but preservationists since have made up for lost time, establishing 31 more. National parks are less restricted than the preserves, and tourism, camping, hiking and some residential uses are allowed.

The economic crisis that has gutted funding for preserves and parks also has left many Russians desperate for sources of income and food. Some have turned to raiding protected areas in search of meat, berries and herbs and of animal parts believed to have medicinal powers. Often, the poachers are better equipped than the underpaid rangers who must risk their lives to stop them.

“It’s not some grandmother going out to pick berries for her jam,” said Vsevolod B. Stepanitsky, chief of the state committee on the environment and national parks. “These are huge groups of people who have big businesses.”

National parks and preserves in the Caucasus region have seen a sharp jump in illegal hunting of deer, wild goats and other large animals by armed men who cross into Russia from territories torn by war.

Last month, security forces in the Kavkazsky Nature Preserve engaged in a shootout with poachers who had come from Abkhazia, a separatist republic that is seeking independence from Georgia. One poacher was killed, two were arrested, and three machine guns were seized.

“It has always been a serious problem in the North Caucasus,” Stepanitsky said. “But now, when very many people are unemployed and they have nothing to do, and there are lots of arms, poaching is at a very high level.”

At Pribaikalsky National Park, poachers drive onto frozen Lake Baikal in the middle of winter and gun down animals that have migrated to the shore. “Poachers, who are very well equipped, can kill animals without even getting out of their car,” said Zoya Y. Abdrashitova, the park’s deputy director. The poachers’ job is made even easier because Pribaikalsky lays off most rangers during the winter, since it has no money to pay them.

Since Pribaikalsky was founded in 1986 on the lake’s western edge, it has become so popular that many of Russia’s nouveaux riches want to build their homes and dachas there. Like those of two-thirds of the national parks, its borders were drawn to include existing villages, but authority over the settlements was given to local officials. In many cases, the officials have sold off some of the best parkland to wealthy Russians at bargain prices.

At Olkhon, a prime recreation spot, 15 shoreline hotels have popped up within the Pribaikalsky boundaries. Marring the landscape, the builders have constructed fences down to the water’s edge to create private beaches.

“The rich people have privatized everything, and they haven’t left any money for the protection of the environment,” protested Peter B. Abramenok, director of the park. “They are uncontrollable. They think they can run the world by paying money. They are like torpedoes.”

In Dokhsha, life has not changed all that much since the Barguzin preserve was created. Foresters and their families live in 46 houses separated from the lake by a large sloping meadow that is filled with hundreds of varieties of wildflowers in the summer--and buried under snow during the long winter.

The village’s 100 residents grow their own vegetables, keep milk cows and get supplies from a boat that arrives once every few days. A diesel generator that burns fuel shipped in at great expense produces only enough electricity for four hours a day. For heat, the villagers rely on firewood they cut from the forest.

“The lion’s share of our time goes to support ourselves,” said Barguzin Deputy Director Alexander A. Ananin.

The preserve has been one of the world’s most successful in large part because it is well protected by nature: Its territory of taiga extends 30 miles inland, where rugged mountains, snow and ice keep out intruders.

There are no roads to Dokhsha. It takes 10 hours by boat to reach the nearest town and 22 hours to get to Irkutsk, the closest city. Few outsiders make it here; the guest book that every visitor must sign has been in use for 10 years, and half its pages are still blank.

Of all the varieties of sable in Russia, the Barguzin is the most prized because of its dark pelt. When Czar Nicholas II established the preserve, there were only about 30 of the animals left. Now there are 1,200 sables--along with hundreds of other species of animals that are thriving in the protected territory.

At the moment, the biggest problem for Barguzin appears to be what to do with the humans. Since the government can no longer afford the $260,000 a year it costs to maintain the settlement, the resident staff will be moved out and replaced by workers who will come for short periods to study the animals or patrol the wilderness.

Officials say the move will reduce costs, bring the preserve’s researchers into closer contact with the scientific community and give workers a more normal Russian existence. “People like Dokhsha’s style of life,” said Stepanitsky in his Moscow office. “They live in the taiga. They enjoy life and get money for their work. But for us, it’s important that this settlement fulfill its function. It was not created for people to enjoy life in the taiga.”

Biologist Yevgeny M. Chernikin came to the village 33 years ago to study the sable. Now 69, he wants to stay near his research subjects a few more years to finish his work. He worries that with the staff reduced, poachers will have an easy time hunting animals along the preserve’s 60-mile shoreline.

“Anyone who wants will be able to get in a powerboat, come here, lay traps and kill animals without any controls,” he said. “The replacement workers will be selected carelessly. How will you be able to rely on these people? You might end up with naturalists who are poachers themselves.”

He also wonders how he will ever find another place to live. All his savings were wiped out during the restructuring of Russia’s economy. And unlike most other Russians, the Dokhsha workers were not granted apartments when housing was privatized.

Preserve officials have announced that it will be the employees’ burden to find housing within boating distance of the preserve if they wish to keep their jobs.

“I feel extremely depressed now,” the scientist said. “I can’t go anywhere. I don’t have the means to move. What else am I supposed to do?”

Some residents insist they will not be forced out. Tatarinov, who retired a few years ago expecting to live out his life in Dokhsha, said he will not leave the land where his mother and his son are buried.

“Nobody wants us anywhere else,” said the 63-year-old pensioner. “We don’t have a flat somewhere else. This is our place. This is our homeland.”

But park officials say they expect there will be no need to evict anyone. Without the fuel and other services provided by the government, no one will survive long in the winter.

“If the place is shut down, there will be no infrastructure--no electricity, regular boat service or first aid station,” Ananin said. “People will be left to their own devices and quickly go back to the Stone Age.”

Even so, Tatarinov refuses to give in to Russia’s changing times and abandon the wilderness and way of life he has known for so long. “All we want is to preserve the preserve,” he said.

“My heart sings when I see seven or 10 bears fishing on the shore of the lake. I feel so close to nature. We’re not planning to leave. The main thing we’re concerned with is that when we die, there won’t be anybody left to carry us to the cemetery.”