Russia

RUSSIA

The Green Belt of Fennoscandia

The Green Belt of Fennoscandia along the 1000 kilometer Finnish-Russian-Norwegian border is an exceptional series of well-preserved natural areas. As a single conservation zone, the area presents unique possibilities for the study of natural systems with minimal human impact, a possibility that has been virtually eliminated by extensive development in the rest of Europe.

There are a large number of intact Russian old-growth forest areas along the border with Finland and Norway, left untouched for nearly fifty years since it was considered a sensitive national security zone.
There has been great concern among environmentalists in Russia and around the world that with the opening up of the border area and the economic instability in Russia feeding the desires of regional officials for quick hard currency, the old-growth forests would be destroyed.

The nomination on the Russian side is to include five zapovedniks, six special purpose reserves and seven national parks and nature

zones. Pressure to log the most valuable areas of old-growth forests and to exclude those areas from conservation plans is strong. Local and regional governments are being tempted by multinational timber companies' offers to log and export the wood.

Short-sighted policies like this and the movement towards a capital-intensive forestry industry can only lead to a high-unemployment and low biodiversity future, as has proved the case in neighbouring Finland.

Greenpeace is working in cooperation with many local and regional organizations, the German Union for Nature Conservation and the Biodiversity Conservation Center of Russia to prepare the nomination. It is hoped that Finnish researchers under the direction of the Finnish Ministry of the Environment will soon present their own plan in joint meetings with the Russians. Hopes to include Norwegian natural sites are high, too, which would make the site UNESCO's first with territory in three countries, if the nomination proves successful.