The Gydan Nature Reserve or Gydansky Zapovednik is a state nature
reserve in the Tazovsky District of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous
District of the Tyumen Region of the Russian Federation. The
northernmost nature conservation complex in Western Siberia. The
total area is 898,174 hectares.
The boundaries of the reserve
include:
Javay
Peninsula (north of the 72nd parallel)
northern and northwestern
parts of the Mammoth Peninsula
Oleniy Peninsula
Yuratskaya Bay
coast
Oleniy, Shokalsky, Pestsovye, Damned and Rovny islands.
The northern border of the reserve runs approximately 73 ° 10
'N. sh., southern - 71 ° 40 's. lat., east - 79 ° 30 'east. d.,
western - 74 ° east. etc.
The reserve was formed on October 7, 1996,
in fact, began to work in 2001. Nikolai Alekseevich Golossenko was
appointed the first director of the reserve in 2001, who headed the
reserve until 2013. From 2013 to the present, the head of the
reserve is Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Berlinsky.
The idea of
organizing a nature reserve on the Gydan Peninsula grew out of the
concept of creating a unified Yamalo-Gydan nature reserve, discussed
in the late 1970s and 1980s. In June 1991, at a special
interdepartmental meeting of the Yamalo-Nenets District Council of
People's Deputies, it was decided to create two separate reserves
instead of one.
The first project of organizing both reserves
was carried out by the Eco-Service Research and Production Center of
St. Petersburg University under the leadership of BP Ivaschenko. The
project was significantly different from what happened in the end:
296.7 thousand hectares were declared absolutely protected (2
times more than now);
the total size of the reserve reached
8628.7 thousand hectares (10 times more than now);
the reserve
was planned as a biosphere reserve.
In September 1991, this
project was approved at a meeting of the district executive
committee, but the Ministry of Natural Resources of the RSFSR
rejected it due to strong resistance from oil and gas enterprises
and the dissatisfaction of local reindeer farms.
As a result,
it was possible to agree on the protected status of only the
northernmost territories of the Gydan Peninsula, which are not
subject to development in the foreseeable future. However, such a
stripped-down version of the reserve aroused sharp objections from
the scientific community, first of all - the Commission for Reserve
Management of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Council for
Northern Problems of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
But they were not listened to.
In 1995, the Central
Scientific Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and
Food of the Russian Federation drew up a second project for
organizing the reserve, which was approved by the Government of the
Russian Federation in October 1996.
878,174 hectares by order
of 1996.
The number of clusters is 5.
The protected
area of the reserve is 150 thousand hectares.
Positive
sides
The existence of the reserve even within its current
borders has great advantages:
extends to the west the
protected Arctic coasts and islands of the Kara Sea
contributes
to the preservation of the powerful East Atlantic flyway of water
and semi-aquatic birds flying along the northern shores of Eurasia.
Negative sides
Due to the fact that the area of the reserve
was cut 10 times, all the southern and typical tundras of the Gydan
Peninsula remained outside its borders, which made it extremely
unrepresentative and defective. In addition, the reserve did not
become a biosphere reserve, which also narrowed its possibilities.
In 1999, scientists E.V. Rogacheva and E.E. Syroechkovsky
declared even in one of their articles that the Gydan reserve simply
does not exist, and that what has been created is nothing more than
a harmful form.
It should be noted that, in addition to the
natural resources of the region, the granting of a reserve status to
the Gydan Peninsula is also important for the preservation of the
dying out ethnic populations of the Gydan Nenets and Enets.
In 2008, the public association “Yamal to Descendants!” Came up with
a new initiative to cut the reserve's territory, proposing to
withdraw the fishing trading posts of Mongatalyang and Matuy-Sale
from its structure, since they allegedly have no special
environmental significance.
In May 2008, the chairman of the
district Duma of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Sergei
Kharyuchi, proposed transforming the Gydansky reserve into a
wildlife sanctuary in the interests of reindeer farms.
The territory of the reserve is located in the Atlantic
region of the Arctic climatic zone. The average annual air
temperature is -10 ° C. The duration of the frost-free period ranges
from 55 to 70 days. Snow cover lasts about 240 days.
Continuous permafrost is widespread on the territory of the reserve.
The depth of the layer of seasonal thawing does not exceed 0.8-1.2
m.
There are 180 bird species registered
in the reserve. On its territory there are about 180 species of
vascular plants. The fauna of the reserve numbers from 44 to 62
species and subspecies of marine and freshwater fish.
The
youth of its fauna corresponds to the relative youth of the
territory of the north of Western Siberia: the oldest remains of the
mammoth fauna from here are less than 50 thousand years old
(Arkhipov, 1971; Kalyakin, 1995), and the latest remains of mammoths
from the Gydan Peninsula and adjacent territories are slightly less
than 10 thousand years (Arslanov et al., 1982; Lavrov, Sulerzhitsky,
1992). This means that mammoths survived here until the beginning of
the Holocene, during which the modern soil-vegetation cover and
fauna were formed (Kalyakin et al., 2000).
As a result of
research work, it has been established that at present 18 species of
mammals, 76 species of birds (50 species of them nest on the
territory of the reserve), 20 species of bony fish live on the
territory of the reserve and the adjacent water area.
Two species of mammals - polar bear and Atlantic walrus are
included in the Red Data Books of the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN-96) and Russia. On the territory of the
reserve, the calving of wild reindeer of the Yamal-Gydan population,
included in the Red Book of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, takes
place. The state of this population is assessed as critical.
The polar bear on the territory of the reserve is found both in
winter and in summer, on the islands of Shokalsky and Oleniy there
are dens of polar bears.
In coastal waters, beluga whales,
ringed seals, bearded seals (bearded seals) are common. Of the rare
species, the killer whale, met in 2002 near the western coast of
Shokalsky Island, should be noted.
A large number of
waterfowl and near-water birds nest and molt in the reserve. On
Shokalsky Island alone, 6-8 thousand white-fronted geese molt and
hatch.
Of the birds found in the reserve, the following are
included in the Red Book of Russia: white-billed loon, small
(tundra) swan, white-fronted goose, red-breasted goose, white-tailed
eagle, peregrine falcon, white gull. The Red Book of the
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug includes: barnacle goose, common
scooper. Of the rare species inhabited: Siberian eider, singa,
sandpiper, Asiatic snipe.
Common: black-throated and
red-throated loons, brent goose, comb eider, middle merganser,
pintail, long-tailed duck, tundra partridge, plover, turukhtan,
middle skuas, glaucous gulls, eastern black cuff, polar tern, some
species of passerines: Laplung plantain , East Siberian nightingale
(bluethroat).
The territory of the reserve is crossed by the
East Atlantic flyway of aquatic and semi-aquatic birds flying along
the northern shores of Eurasia.
Reptiles and amphibians do
not inhabit the reserve.
Of the bony fish, nelma, arctic
char, peled, wild boar, pyzhyan, Siberian vendace, grayling live in
the reservoirs of the reserve; in coastal waters the dominant
species is omul, common sculpin, polar flounder, polar cod, navaga,
pink salmon.
Currently, some species of mammals (brown bear),
birds (pintail, short-eared owl), fish (pike-perch, pike), plants
(polar willow, cloudberry), some species of mushrooms, the northern
border of the range of which, passed much further south.