Our beautiful planet: the hidden land of fire and ice
For a century, Russia’s nature reserves - with the world’s
strictest wildlife protections - have been largely off-limits to
humans. One of them, Kronotsky, boasts geysers, active
volcanoes and 800 brown bears.
This year marks a century since the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas
II, formally approved a plan to close a vast swathe of Siberian
forest to the public - one of his final acts before the Russian
empire collapsed in the 1917 revolution.
The original aim was to prevent the extinction of a weasel-like
creature called the Siberian Sable, highly valued for its fur. But it
also founded a unique nature reserve system extending over an
area the size of France and rated by the UN as having the
world’s highest level of protection for wildlife.The rules governing these nature reserves, known as zapovedniki
in Russian, are so strict, and some are so remote, that very few
of Russia’s own population have ever been inside one.
Since their foundation, only scientists, rangers and students had
been allowed to visit these nature reserves, which
conservationists have strived hard to protect and study. But
government initiatives launched in 2011 mean many of these
nature reserves are opening to a limited number of visitors
Nature protection in these zapovedniki is stricter than for the
world’s national parks, such as Yellowstone in the US, where
hikers can roam, which have hundreds of kilometers of paved
roads.The geysers in Kronotsky Nature Reserve can be deadly
Kronotsky, in Russia’s remote far east, is one of these nature
reserves. It extends more than 10,000 sq km and is home to
Russia’s only geyser basin. A small valley, discovered in
1975, earned the name "death valley" after it was found
to regularly kill animals who perish from the high concentration
of poisonous gases, among hydrogen sulfide, rising from the
earthIt also boasts several volcanoes, both extinct and active. This,
combined with its harsh, icy climate, has earned it the nickname
the "Land of Fire and Ice."
The reserve also has around 800 brown bears, some weighing as
much as 650kg, making it one of the species' largest protected
populations in the world.
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