Highly protected. Inexpensive.
Why are protected areas guarded only by enthusiasts, and what does the Green Stone Eater have to do with it?
"No matter how much I try to brag, unfortunately, today is my last day of official work at the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve. The reason is simple: I can't live comfortably on the salary of a regular reserve employee (it's almost half the regional median), and I have almost no time for a part-time job while working conscientiously." — a former employee of the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve, one of the founders of the Kola Wildlife Conservation Center, wrote on his VK page Viktor Petrov.
The biologist has been working in the Kola Peninsula for over 20 years. Despite the interesting work at the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve, he didn't last long—just over two years. But he was satisfied: in his words, such experience was invaluable. Viktor Petrov explained to NeMoskva in simple terms how nature reserves and other ecosystems impact the lives of everyone, why it's necessary to quantify ecosystem services, and how to attract highly qualified specialists to work in nature reserves.
About gaga and enthusiasts
"The Kandalaksha Nature Reserve isn't a very large territory, it's just spread across several areas. It's located in two seas, the Barents and White, and encompasses more than 550 islands. It was established in 1932 as a wildlife refuge, then transformed into a nature reserve for the conservation of eider ducks. And I won't even say how many inspectors we have for this territory. We don't disclose that kind of information. There aren't enough heroes on that kind of salary."
The only salvation for many nature reserves is military retirees, who already have a pension they can live on, plus their salaries. Plus, most are convinced that there is a law, and it must be upheld. And those who have been working there for a long time can't imagine themselves outside this sphere. Some people literally feel reverence for these areas.
I've had this feeling about the Oksky Nature Reserve in the Ryazan Region and the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve since childhood. These are outstanding nature reserves. At the Oksky Nature Reserve, during the Soviet era, doctors of science worked as bird-keepers to gather data for scientific projects—that's how passionate they were about restoring the population of rare cranes. And you have to understand that this work isn't for everyone, only for those truly committed: you're away from home for days on end, and it's not safe. But if you've worked in the reserve for even a short time, the value of these territories is undeniable.
Gaga. Photo: V. Voshchikov
About myself and my career: from director to ordinary employee
— To clarify. The country has a federal system of specially protected natural areas (SPNAs)—nature reserves, national parks, and some wildlife refuges. There are also regional SPNA systems—nature reserves—and there are also scientific and public organizations that manage all of this. The concept of a protected area, or territorial nature conservation, is the designation of territories where economic activity is completely prohibited or restricted in order to preserve the ecosystem and ensure that this ecosystem continues to provide us with ecosystem services. These services are not well understood by the public, but they are crucial to our existence.
I've been involved in this work since I joined the Scientific Society of Students at the Gorky University Biology Department—it was just a childhood hobby, and all together, minus the army, it's been 36 years now. My first degree was in biology, my second in law. I got my second degree specifically for environmental work.
After university, he went to the Murmansk region, where he worked in various institutions, including the Murmansk region's ecology committee. He also spent a significant amount of time working for the Kola Wildlife Conservation Center, a public environmental organization.
Photo: V. Voshchikov, Gennady Malevich
I came to the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve two years ago. I heard about a director opening and applied. They hired me as acting director, and after a while they found a director, and I tried working as a regular employee for a while. It's a very useful experience, especially if you work in a management position for a while and then in a regular position! I got a job as a tourism development specialist.
Tourism in nature reserves is a rather narrow field because the regimes there are strict, but it's necessary because it's quite difficult to love and understand something you can't see. In this position, my salary dropped below 40 rubles, and I paid more than half for rent. In the northern climate, that's a pretty meager salary. And that's including all the northern bonuses. Young professionals have it even worse.
How can anyone survive on this money? Some people laugh: are they really supposed to poach for food? It turns out that everything is designed to give poachers the green light, so that inspectors accept rewards from these bad guys. This is a common problem with nature reserve systems. There's a federal system, and there's a regional one, where things are slightly better thanks to local bonuses, but only slightly. And imagine how an inspector can survive on a salary half the regional median, which is over 70 rubles. That means every second person they detain will earn twice as much as they do. Just imagine how dedicated you have to be to continue protecting a nature reserve, not just pocket a pay raise.
Photo: Kandalaksha Nature Reserve group on VK
About the salary increase that doesn't exist
It's possible to earn a surcharge legally, but not everywhere. It's clear that national parks and nature reserves are budgetary institutions that can earn extra-budgetary funds, for example, from excursions. But all protected areas are different: national parks, for example, have zoning, making it easier to develop tourism there. Nature reserves, on the other hand, face severe restrictions; after all, their primary and practically sole purpose is to protect nature, not to make money. Most protected areas simply cannot earn extra-budgetary funds.
Now I'll return to the public organization I founded. It has flexible hours, so there's the opportunity to earn extra money—basically, to earn some extra money in one place and then spend it back on environmental conservation.
On business in nature reserves and the conscience of employees
"We're used to thinking that if it's a protected area, it's permanent, and you can't touch it. But protected areas are very different; I repeat, they were created a hundred years ago, and the economy is still developing."
Imagine: they're cutting down a forest. They keep cutting, until there's no more easily accessible forest left. There's easily accessible forest nearby, but it's in a protected area. What should they do? Some people think they can remove it from the protected area, citing a fire. That's just one example. Or consider this: there are specific areas that are of great interest to businesses. It's precisely these examples, where business interest is evident, that pop up in the press. And if highly qualified specialists are receiving such salaries, they can easily justify the economic interests of the business.
The solution to the problems is obvious, and it doesn't even need to be justified. Let me return to what I've already said. A protected area inspector shouldn't earn less than the regional average salary; it should even be higher than the median, otherwise, their conscience will be the only thing holding them back from any kind of bad deals. Scientists should receive the same salary, because nature conservation should be done not only on the basis of emotion—ah, let's save the last butterfly, a great country must have great nature!—but also from a scientific perspective. Scientists shouldn't serve business interests just to make a living.
Nature provides ecosystem services to humans: clean water, clean air, and stable populations of rodents that destroy crops. Why are these rodents so rare? Because of the forest patches that contain predators that feed on them. If there's no forest patch, there will be rodents, and there will be no harvest.
Kandalaksha Nature Reserve. Photo: Artem Samsonov
On tree cutting and human life expectancy
"The reserve is located near Kandalaksha—a city of about 30,000 residents. They often don't understand and are indignant: why can we fish here but not here? Why can we build a dacha there but not here? The eider duck has been preserved, it's not extinct, so what else is the point of a reserve? To lift all restrictions so that people won't be subject to any restrictions. That's why I tried working in the economic tourism education department—telling people, making them understand that if we let things slide, we'll go back to killing off the eider duck and everything else. People are increasingly engaged in economic activity. They say we're dying out, but living creatures need more and more, and consumption is increasing."
Therefore, we need to not just ban them, but justify and explain that everything is being done in their best interests. Because many people don't realize these ecosystem services. For example, on the one hand, we can live without the eider duck. But we won't have light and warm clothing for Antarctic conditions, because it's insulated with eider down.
We must understand: if an ecosystem loses 20% of its species, it begins to collapse. And we lose the environment it created. Pests (though ecologists don't like that word) begin to invade, including gypsy moths, other insects, and pathogens. A well-known example is the ecological disaster that occurred in Africa's Sahel region in the 70s. Overgrazing by livestock led to the destruction of wild animals and much of the vegetation, the ecosystem lost some of its structure, and all this coincided with a drought, leading to famine. Some countries there have still not recovered. That's a distant example. I'll give a closer one.
When I was at university, my thesis was titled "Justification of the Required Proportion of Specially Protected Natural Areas." I compared more than 50 administrative districts in the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) region based on ecosystem preservation and indicators such as crop yields, human disease rates, and life expectancy. By comparing all these indicators, I was able to easily demonstrate that the less intact the ecosystems, the higher the disease rates and the shorter the life expectancy—at least by a few months.
My work isn't the most illustrious; there are more striking works, and it's a well-known fact, and officials know it, but... It's a deferred problem: once a forest is cut down, people won't immediately start dying prematurely. So, for example, a problem arises—a shortage of timber, minerals, jobs—there's an urgent need to build a factory. And everyone chooses to solve this urgent problem, receiving a deferred one in return.
Bar-tailed Godwit (photo by Artem Samsonov), Puffin (photo by Olga Pershina)
The same is true for urban ecosystems: the greener the city, the better it is to live in. Clearing is sometimes necessary—this applies to allergenic plants, or when laying vital utilities that can't be relocated. I don't want to generalize, but generally, clearing greenery in the city is only permissible in cases of extreme necessity.
About the rarest beast
— Something positive? Of course there is. Oh, we've had a remarkable animal here for years. It's the green stone eater (Litofagus viridis). A lot of students come to nature reserves for internships, including some who are either careless or inattentive. Noticing one such student, a teacher at the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve told him about this amazing animal: it's a seal that, to dive deeper, swallows stones, as if eating them. It also has a unique adaptation, like symbiotic algae, and it takes advantage of the algae's photosynthetic properties. That's why it's green. The student believed him, went to his supervisor, and asked if he could work on the green stone eater as part of his research. The teacher realized the student didn't get the joke, but he didn't try to dissuade him. He said it was such a rare animal that collecting material on it was practically impossible, so "you'd be better off focusing on the wild ones." The story dates back to the 1970s and is still alive.
On the price of "natural services" and government support
— What should we do about all this? We need to change people's minds so they understand the direct dependence of their lives on ecosystems. It would also be good to ensure that environmental services have an economic justification. So that there's a direct calculation. You cut down part of a forest—and don't just say that after some time, so many people will die prematurely, but so many people will die prematurely, so many people will die prematurely. So that these delayed losses have a ruble equivalent. For example, so that the losses that will be caused by the logging are transferred to those who will restore the ecosystem afterward or preserve other ecosystems. In other words, they won't just cut down a tract of forest; they'll destroy what was providing environmental services that we will no longer receive. And those services are worth so much. Only then will the cost of logging the tract be very high.
Photo: Dmitry Gornaev
I'll put it this way about the government's role in nature conservation. It's not that it doesn't care at all, but there are different ways to care. A person walking down a littered street, picking up two pieces of paper, can already say they care. Or they could solve the problem in some radical way: organize a cleanup day, hire street cleaners. There is concern, but it's not well-thought-out or targeted enough. Why? A lack of knowledge, a lack of the very science that needs to be developed through decent salaries. If we're talking, for example, about man-made accidents that cause enormous damage to ecosystems, they will always be there. And the most important thing is to have scientifically proven ways to address these accidents and restore ecosystems. What's more alarming is the lack of a system for preserving nature reserves and other protected areas, even though the system is a hundred years old. Well, we'll build and hope for the best—that's what we live for.
P.S. Anyone who wants to financially help the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve and its staff can do so. on oneoh from the pages official website.
Cover photo: Viktor Petrov (from personal archive)
