National Geographic

THE BACKSTORYRUSSIA’S CENTURY-LONG APPROACH TO PROTECTING NATUREIS TO KEEP HUMANS OUT OF LARGE PARTS OF IT.``````A LITTLE-KNOWN LEGACY of Russia’stumultuous 20th century is a profusionof protected lands, some so remote andrestricted that few Russians have everset foot in them.In the final months before Nicho-las II, the last tsar, was forced to abdicatein 1917, he created the country’s firstzapovednik, or “strict nature reserve,”near Lake Baikal in Siberia. Nicholaswas soon executed by Bolshevik rev-olutionaries. He never knew that hisreserve had succeeded in saving theBarguzin sable, long prized by theimperial family for its fur, which wasnicknamed “soft gold.”In the United States the first nationalparks had been conceived as “plea-suring grounds” for the people. EarlyRussian conservationists, such asGrigory Kozhevnikov, had differentdreams. They wanted to keep Russia’snew reserves from its people, as pristinelabs of primordial nature. “No needto remove anything, to add anything,``````to improve anything,” Kozhevnikovargued. “One should leave nature toitself and observe the results.”Today, countless environmental bat-tles (and a few environmental disasters)later, Russia has 174 million acres offederally protected lands. They include85 million acres in 105 zapo vedniks,which meet the highest protectionstandards of the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature, categoryIa—“... where human visitation, useand impacts are strictly controlled andlimited.” No other country has as muchhighly protected land.Sergey Gorshkov has been photo-graphing these wilds for nearly twodecades, capturing rare volcanic erup-tions, intimate moments with wildlifeunused to humans, the seasonal thawof untouched Arctic waterways. Hiswork is a timely reminder of the beau-tiful results we observe when we heedKozhevnikov’s plea and leave naturealone. —EVE CONANTPROOFDark clouds gather over icebergs off Franz Josef Land, in the Russian Arctic National Park.