Revealing and mapping of nature management conflicts in the Northern Yakutia advanced development zone of the Russian Arctic
The Russian Federation Arctic Doctrine elaborated recently includes the strategy of socio-economic development of the Russian Arctic, enlargement of transport infrastructure, strengthening of nature protection, etc. till 2030. The accelerated socio-economic development of several “advanced development zones” was defined, Northern Yakutia being one of them. The strategy declared commitment to the postulates of sustainable development. This demanded revealing of different risks. Among the priorities — ecological and ethnic-cultural conflicts. Revealing and mapping of potential nature management conflicts was the goal of our research. Methodology was based on system and ecological-economic analysis elaborated earlier. Studies of the existing and planned nature management structure enabled to conclude that it will be preserved in general, but nature management intensity will increase greatly, its new areas will appear. Projects of the Northern Yakutia advanced development zone revive recreation nature management (cruises along the Lena). The potential areas of nature management have been matched to a landscape map in order to study ecosystems’ pools, regulatory and provisioning being the most demanded. Their territorial reference was given for perspective areas. A possibility of quasi-stationary ecological characteristics preservation for socio-economic development (“nature turn-over”) demands a quantitative assessment of competing ecosystems services pools at local (within the development area) and regional levels. The compiled map of potential nature management conflicts presents the basic spatial analytical information for elaboration of rational nature management.