Gydan Nature Reserve, Russia

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.

 

History of creation

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.

 

Nature

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.

 

Flora and fauna

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.