Permanent Environmental Protection Commission

In the second half of the 19th century, the need to step up nature conservation activities on a national scale became clear in the Russian Empire. During this period, events occurred that were important from the point of view of a sharp acceleration of economic development: the abolition of serfdom, as well as the rapid expansion and emergence of farm agriculture caused by the reforms of P.A. Stolypin, the resettlement of a significant part of the people, the development of a qualitatively new industrial production using a large amount of energy and fossil resources. The consequences associated with intensive deforestation in the European part of the country, increased soil erosion in the steppe regions due to the expansion of agricultural areas, excessive hunting for fur-bearing and other commercial animals, the income from which accounted for a significant part of national income, became noticeable. At the turn of the 19th century, three approaches to environmental protection were formed: utilitarian, romantic (cultural, aesthetic, ethical, including sacred), and scientific. Prominent representatives of the cultural and aesthetic approach and followers of its creator, H. Conwentz, were I.P. Borodin, A.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, and V.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. The utilitarian approach, which still dominates to this day, was introduced by A.A. Silantyev, V.V. Dietz, N.Y. Zograf, N.M. Kulagin, A.A. Byalynitsky-Birul, N.A. Smirnov, which was reflected in the formulations of the first law on protected areas of 1916 and the tasks of the environmental protection "sable" expeditions in the early twentieth century. The scientific approach was promoted by N.I. Kuznetsov, G.A. Kozhevnikov, G.F. Morozov, I.V. Novopokrovsky, M.I. Golenkin, V.N. Sukachev.

In 1888, a new Forest Charter was adopted, which defined a new concept for that time about protected forests with a special use regime. Such forests were considered to be those "whose unconditional conservation is necessary for the state or public benefit." In the protective forests, continuous logging and grazing of livestock were prohibited, but harvesting of dead wood was allowed. Article 796 of the charter recognized the following forests as protected: restraining loose sands, protecting the banks of navigable rivers, channels and water sources from cliffs, erosion and damage by ice drift, as well as forests growing on mountains and steep slopes. The instructions to the charter, developed in 1889, identified three categories of forests, and any logging was prohibited in forests of the third category. In the "Amendments" to this instruction in 1901, a special section "On water protection forests" was introduced, preserving the upper reaches and sources of rivers and their tributaries. In addition, the Forest Charter identified cedar forests, parks, and groves around settlements, soil-protecting forests, mountain, coastal protection and other plantings as protected (quoted from Reimers and Shtilmark, 1978, p. 27).

Despite the appearance of this important law related to the use and protection of natural resources, it should be noted that in the mid-1890s the scientific community of Russia was not yet ready to adopt a scientific approach to environmental protection. But at the turn of the century, the discussion of the problems of conserving natural resources and the most picturesque and interesting corners of Russia's nature intensified. Many scientific societies began to address the issue of nature conservation: in 1905 at a meeting of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow. One of the main reports was devoted to nature conservation. In 1907, an Acclimatization Congress in Moscow developed a program for the preservation of natural monuments. In 1908, the Baltic Historical Congress devoted a special session to discussing the same problem. In 1909 the All-Russian Hunting Congress recognized the need to take measures to protect nature. In 1909, the general meeting of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society discussed the need to protect the nature of Russia.

G.A. Kozhevnikov

In 1903, for the first time in the history of environmental protection in Russia, a scientific environmental protection approach (thirteen years after its inception) was proposed by Grigory Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov, a Moscow zoologist and a member of the IRGO (Vainer, 1991), a full-time professor at Moscow State University and director of the Zoological Museum (Works..., 1935; Mazurmovich, 1960). It should be said that Kozhevnikov was no stranger to environmental protection. He had already become familiar with American national parks (in particular, he visited the Blue Hills Reservation in Boston), and being in Germany in 1907 he saw the work of H. Conwentz on the organization of the protection of isolated natural territories (Kozhevnikov, 1909). Although Grigory Aleksandrovich reasonably noted that the impression of German parks can be deceptive, since from a scientific point of view the forests have lost their former complexity and naturalness, the composition of the biota had been simplified, and many artificially introduced species had appeared. He urged to avoid such consequences. Kozhevnikov considered it possible to achieve an understanding of the "biological balance prevailing in nature" (Kozhevnikov, 1911, 1999).

In 1905, the Imperial Russian Society for the Acclimatization of Animals and Plants celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a meeting. As president of the society, Kozhevnikov devoted his keynote address to nature conservation issues. In the report, he referred to the idea of creating such reserves, the most important organizational feature of which was the inviolability regime, when there should be no hunting, logging, haymaking, fruit picking, as well as crops. "Nothing needs to be eliminated, added, improved. We must leave nature to itself and observe the results" (Kozhevnikov, 1909, p. 9). Nature reserves were not conceived as places of pilgrimage for tourists. Kozhevnikov sought to stop or minimize the impact on nature reserves of their environment. He was afraid of impacts from human settlements and cultivated plant species located geographically close to reserves, and advocated that reserves occupied significant territories and be surrounded by extensive buffer zones, which was in stark contrast to the ideas of creating hunting reserves, where the ecological balance was disrupted in order to increase the number of selected "useful" species. According to Kozhevnikov, in nature reserves "any measures that violate the natural conditions of the struggle for existence ... are unacceptable" (Kozhevnikov, 1909, p. 8). He even objected to the term "reserve" in such cases.

However, such progressive views on conservation were often opposed by the prospect that reserves would serve as a haven for predators, agricultural pests, and other "harmful" species, which inevitably led to Kozhevnikov's plans being surrounded in controversy. The first objections were raised at the same meeting. Nikolai Yuryevich Zograf and Nikolai Mikhailovich Kulagin, prominent representatives of the utilitarian approach, pointed out that in protected areas "there may be a danger for local residents living nearby, since pests can multiply in huge numbers and ... cause great damage by spreading from protected areas to crops" (Journal ..., 1909, p. 28).

At the II All-Russian Hunting Congress in 1909, a discussion arose again in connection with an emotional discussion of the proposed hunting law, which provided for the preservation of permits for year-round shooting of a large number of predators and other "harmful" animals (Works ..., 1911, pp. 46-55, 243-248). Kozhevnikov received significant support for his ideas, but at the same time, utilitarian-minded opponents (A.A. Silantyev, V.V. Dietz, and others who chaired the meeting) approved by 32 votes to 16 a resolution supporting the former extermination of leopards, snow leopards, tigers, and wolves.

By the way, currently the range of the first three species has narrowed to insignificant areas, these species are included in the Red Books of various levels. As for the wolf, the old order of "year-round extermination" with the payment of special bonuses continues to operate to this day. Environmentalists advocate well-thought-out regulation of wolf numbers, abandoning the unjustified strategy of "indiscriminate hunting”, but hunting scientists continue to insist on supporting administrative and state measures in this matter.

Kozhevnikov opposed his opponents with the idea that there are no "useful" and "harmful" living beings – they are all equally important for maintaining natural balance, and "this natural balance is a very important factor in the life of nature" (Kozhevnikov, 1911, p. 373), and "the only fully proven reason for the extermination of a species is man who, through his interference in the life of nature, upsets its balance" (ibid., p. 374). Regarding possible outbreaks of agricultural pests, Kozhevnikov replied ironically that it was not natural territories but cultivated lands that provided favorable conditions for such reproduction (Works ..., 1909, p. 28).

Kozhevnikov's program for creating a network of ecological reserves has had an impact on the development of biology and resource management in Russia. The reserves were supposed to serve as models, or standards, of "healthy" nature.

At the XII Congress of Naturalists in 1909, Kozhevnikov presented his proposals for the third time, and his plans were approved by leading Russian biologists (Journal ..., 1910). Among the remarkable scientists who supported these proposals were the founder of forest biocenology, G.F. Morozov, the largest forest scientist I.V. Novopokrovsky, and M.I. Golenkin. The same idea was soon actively developed by the future academician and classic of biogeocenology Vladimir Nikolaevich Sukachev in his work "On the Protection of the Nature of Zhiguli", where one of the first programs of scientific research in the reserve was given (Sukachev, 1914). It became clear that natural objects and ecological communities have a much higher ability to adapt than agricultural crops, which humans replace them with. The desirability of creating nature reserves for scientific purposes was supported by representatives of the aesthetic and ethical field and prominent scientists I.P. Borodin, A.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. On December 11 (24), 1913, the eldest son of the famous geographer, an outstanding zoologist (entomologist) who paid much attention to the problems of nature conservation, Andrey Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky published an article "On Nature Reserves" in the newspaper “Novoe Vremya”. In it he argued that reserves should provide a broad and meaningful picture of natural harmony and demonstrate the properties of natural communities in balance.

I.P. Borodin

Ivan Parfenevich Borodin, in his report at the XII Congress of Naturalists and Doctors in 1910, emphasized: "... the formation of steppe protected areas seems to me the most urgent. Steppe issues are our purely Russian issues, but it is the steppe, the virgin steppe, that we risk losing first of all" (Borodin, 1910, 1914). In the same year, in an article published in the “Works of the Yuriev Botanical Garden”, I.P. Borodin proposed the creation of a special body responsible for the formation of nature reserves and natural monuments: "In this regard, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society has undoubted advantages. Bringing together representatives of very different specialties, it is at the same time widely branched across Russia.… In view of this, it could be suggested to form in the Imp. Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg a ‘central environmental protection committee’ with the participation of representatives of various interested departments, in particular the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture, the Main Directorate of the Estates, and the Imp. Academy of Sciences, Imp. Free Economic Society, Imp. St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, the Forestry Society, etc. ... Ideally, of course, it would be desirable to form environmental protection committees in each of our governorates, under the chairmanship of the governor himself. For the latter, in all fairness, it would not hurt to know the natural sights of the governorate entrusted to him, and, in fact, the loss any item from its ... natural inventory is his moral responsibility " (Works ..., 1910).

The idea to create a commission under the IRGO belonged to G.F. Morozov and was positively received by Borodin (Boreyko, 1998). Kozhevnikov and Borodin proposed a kind of program for the creation of nature reserves for Russia. They warned that any delay in the organization of nature reserves could be disastrous, taking into account the rapid expansion of agriculture and resettlement caused by the reforms of P.A. Stolypin. The threat to the wild steppes was pointed out by A.A. Silantyev (1913).

It is not surprising that the first private initiatives to protect unaltered natural areas were concentrated in the steppe regions. Dokuchaev played an important role in reaching an agreement on the transfer of the Derkulskaya steppe to the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists as a protected area. In 1898, an outstanding ecologist Józef Konrad Paczoski convinced the enlightened landowner Friedrich von Falz-Fein to allocate and make 500 hectares of wild steppe in his estate Askania-Nova in the lower reaches of the Dnieper River. A similar initiative was soon shown by Prince Karamzin (660 hectares of steppe in the Samara Governorate), Count Pototsky in the Pilyavin state in the Volyn Governorate, Countess Panina (two plots in the Valuysky District of the Voronezh Governorate), the Don Polytechnic Institute (a plot of steppe near Persiyanovka in the region of the Don Host), the Kochubey estate near Dykanka near Poltava, as well as Count Sheremetyevo "The Forest on Vorskla". For several years, protected areas of nature appeared in different geographical areas: in the Baltic States, the Vaika Nature Reserve in 1911, and Moricsala in 1912, in the Caucasus there are relict groves of Eldar and Pitsunda pines, as well as the Lagodekhi Gorge in 1912, which really began to operate only in the 1930s (Borodin, 1910; Malyshev, 1928; Belousova, 1960; Borisov, 1971; Shtilmark, 1996).

Public environmental protection organizations began to appear. In 1910, the first Russian Society for Nature Conservation was established in the village of Khortytsa, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, inhabited by German colonists. In the next few years, similar societies appeared in other governorate, as well as in the capitals.

One of the most significant achievements in environmental protection on the eve of the First World War was the implementation of the project proposed by I.P. Borodin to create a central environmental protection agency under the auspices of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, the Permanent Environmental Protection Commission.

In 1909, at the general meeting of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (IRGS), Academician I.P. Borodin's report on the need to protect Russia's nature was heard out, after which it was decided to establish an environmental protection commission in the society. On March 5, 1912, this commission was transformed into a permanent one, and the IRGS’s Council approved the regulations on the Permanent Environmental Protection Commission. In addition to the members of the geographical society, the commission included representatives from the Academy of Sciences and ministries and departments involved in the study and use of natural resources, which ultimately ensured the exchange of views between the bureaucrats and environmental activists. The interdepartmental, debating nature of the commission was predetermined by the presence in it of such government departments as mining and forestry, which were considered "natural enemies" of the environmental movement, and the Academy of Sciences was one of the "friendly departments".

The following is the text of the Commission Regulations and its composition at the time of its formation (just 32 commission members in total).

Approved by the Council of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society on March 5, 1912.

Regulations on the Permanent Environmental Protection Commission of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

1. A special Permanent Environmental Protection Commission is established in the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

2. The purpose of the Commission is to arouse the interest of the general public and the Government in the protection of natural monuments in Russia and to effectively preserve the integrity of individual sites and entire areas that are botanically, zoo-geographically, geologically, physically, geographically important; to protect certain species of plants, animals, etc.

3. In order to carry out its task, the Commission enters into relations with various departments, institutions, and individuals and develops measures that can best serve the purpose, as well as promotes the formation of local groups and maintains relations with them.

4. The Commission consists of the Chairman of the Department of Physical Geography, his Assistant, and the Secretary of the Society, nine representatives of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society elected by the latest Council for four years, and representatives of various scientific Societies and government agencies, whose participation will be considered desirable and whose appointment will be followed by the consent of these institutions.

5. The Commission has the right to increase the number of its members by its own election, as well as to invite knowledgeable persons to participate in the work, not only from among the Members of the Society, but also outsiders who use an advisory voice in meetings.

6. The Commission elects from among its members every four years a Chairman and a Secretary from among the Members of the Society.

7. Communications on the affairs of the Commission are conducted either on behalf of the Chairman of the Commission or on behalf of the Vice-Chairman of the Society, as appropriate (Lesnoy Zhurnal, 1913, p. 752).

The composition of the Environmental Protection Commission in February 1913

Bureau members:

Prince Masalsky V.I., Rauner S. Yu., Semenov-Tyan-Shansky A.P.

Members of the Commission:

⦁ Representatives from the IRGS:

Bogdanovich K.I., member of the Council of the IRGS, professor at the Mining Institute

Bush N.A., full member of the IRGS, Senior Botanist at the Imp. Academies of Sciences

Voeikov A.I., Honorary Member and member of the Council of the IRGS, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at the Imperial Saint Petersburg University

Dubyansky V.A., full member of the IRGS, Conservator at the Imperial St. Petersburg Botanical Garden (Secretary of the Commission)

Ermolov A.S., Honorary Member of the IRGS, State Secretary, Member of the State Council (Chairman of the Commission)

Kozhevnikov G.A., full member of the IRGS, professor of Zoology at the Imperial Moscow University

Kuznetsov N.I., full member of the IRGS, professor of Botany at the Imperial Yuriev University

Prince Masalsky V.I., full member of the IRGS, Managing Director of the Land Improvement Department

Semenov-Tyan-Shansky A.P., full member of the IRGS, Vice-President of the Russian Entomological Society, Chairman of the Biogeographic Commission of the IRGS

Shokalsky Yu.M., Chairman of the Department of Physical Geography of the IRGS

Semenov-Tyan-Shansky V.P., assistant to the Chairman of the Department of Physical Geography of the IRGS

Dostoevsky A.A., secretary of the IRGS

⦁ Representatives from the Imperial Academy of Sciences:

Borodin I.P., full member of the IRGS, Academician, Director of the Botanical Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (Comrade Chairman of the Commission)

Nasonov N.V., Academician, Director of The Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences

Chernyshev F.N., full member of the IRGS, Academician, Director of the Geological Committee

⦁ From the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

Lykoshin A.I., Senator, Comrade of The Minister of Internal Affairs

Bruneman Yu.V., full member of the IRGS, Senior Editor of the Central Statistics Committee

Kraft I.I., full member of the IRGS, Governor of the Yakutsk Region

Litvinov Ya.Ya., Head of the Zemstvo Department Of The Ministry Of Internal Affairs

⦁ From the Ministry of Public Education:

Shevyakov V.T., Comrade of the Minister of Public Education

Inostrantsev A.A., Distinguished Professor of Geology at the Imperial Saint Petersburg University, Member of the Council of the Minister of National Education

Palechek N.O., Head of the Department of Scientific Institutions and Higher Educational Institutions of the Department of Public Education

⦁ From the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture:

Count Ignatiev P.N., full member of the IRGS, Master of the Horse, Comrade of the Chief Administrator of Land Management and Agriculture

Rauner S.Yu., full member of the IRGS, Vice-Inspector of the Forestry Corps, Comrade Chairman of the Hydrological Committee

⦁ From the Mining Department of the Ministry of Trade and Industry:

Khovansky Ya.I., member of the Mining Council

⦁ From the Imperial St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists:

Deryugin K.M., full member of the IRGS, Secretary of the Imperial St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, privatdozent of Zoology at the Imperial Siberian University

Sukachev V.N., full member of the IRGS, junior botanist at the Imperial Academy of Sciences

⦁ From the Russian Entomological Society:

Shevyrev I.Ya., Head of the Entomological Laboratory of the Forest Department

⦁ From the Botanical and Geographical Commission of the Imperial Free Economic Society:

Vysotsky G.N., full member of the IRGS, Member of the Forestry Commission

⦁ From the Forest Society:

Morozov G.F., full member of the IRGS, professor of Forestry, Imperial Forestry Institute

⦁ By election by the Environmental Protection Commission of the IRGS:

Zvegintsov A.I., full member of the IRGS, member of the State Duma

Falz-Fein F.E., founder of the Askania-Nova Nature Reserve (Lesnoy Zhurnal, 1913, pp. 753-754).

The chairman of the commission was the Minister of Agriculture A.S. Ermolov, and I.P. Borodin became his comrade (deputy) and its de facto head.

By November 1913, the commission additionally included:

⦁ From the Orthodox Faith Department

Polyansky I.I., Permanent Member of the Educational Committee of the Holy Synod;

⦁ From the Imperial St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists

Karakash N.I., full member of the IRGS, privatdozent of Geology at the Imperial Saint Petersburg University.;

⦁ By election by the Environmental Protection Commission

Countess Panina S.V., founder of the Virgin Steppe Reserve in the Voronezh Governorate;

Naumov A.N., member of the State Council;

Golovnin D.N., professor at the Moscow Agricultural Institute (Lesnoy Zhurnal, 1914, pp. 728-730).

Later, L.S. Berg, M.I. Golenkin, P.K. Kozlov, V.N. Makarov, I.V. Novopokrovsky, and V.I. Taliev, who later played a significant role in environmental protection, were accepted into the commission (Reimers and Shtilmark, 1978; Boreyko, 1998).

In 1913, the Environmental Protection Commission under the IRGS addressed its departments and sub-departments with a circular letter in which it asked for assistance in preserving "natural monuments." Regional offices of the commission have begun to be established at the relevant offices of the IRGS. In particular, in 1914, at the initiative of the Environmental Protection Commission at the Orenburg Department of the IRGS, work began on the organization of a steppe reserve in the Kostanay District of the Turgai Region. In the same year, the Resettlement Department allocated 5,000 dessiatines of steppe lands to the local IRGS department "for conversion to a nature reserve." The implementation of this project was disrupted by the outbreak of the First World War (Chibilev et al., 2010).

The Permanent Environmental Protection Commission of the IRGS initiated the creation of the first law on nature reserves (1916). The following are excerpts from this law (Solovyov, 1920, p. 286):

On the establishment of rules on hunting reserves

"The Minister of Agriculture is given the right to form reserves on the lands of the treasury's sole possession for the conservation and reproduction of hunting and commercial animals and birds, on the following grounds:

1) The boundaries of reserves are established by the Minister of Agriculture and the reserves allocated within these boundaries are announced to the public by publishing in the Collection of Laws and Government Orders.

Note: In the general governorates of Amur and Irkutsk, the boundaries of nature reserves are established by agreement with the subject Governor-Generals.

2) Hunting of any kind of animals and birds is prohibited within the boundaries of designated reserves (art. 1)" (Collection of Laws and Government Orders dated October 30, 1916, Decree No. 304, sec. one, art. 2396).

Top-level scientists, concerned about the fate of national wealth, submitted to the State Duma a draft general law on the protection of nature in Russia a few days before the October Revolution of 1917.

On the instructions of the commission, G.A. Kozhevnikov and V.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky developed in 1917 the first draft of a network of reserves for the entire territory of Russia "On typical areas in which it is necessary to organize reserves like American national parks". It should be noted that later, under Soviet rule, nature reserves were created "from above" and in previously defined locations, so the project was completed by almost 80% by the end of the 1970s (Reimers and Shtilmark, 1978).

G.A. Kozhevnikov and I.P. Borodin represented Russia at the First Conference on Global Nature Conservation, held in Bern in 1913. In his speech at the congress, Borodin stressed: "Russia, which occupies a sixth of the globe, is fully aware of its responsibilities towards nature and humanity." In another report, he concluded: "No matter how many protected areas our neighbors have set up, they are not able to replace our future reserves. Spread over a vast expanse in two parts of the world, we are the owners of unique treasures of nature. These are the same unique things as paintings by, for example, Raphael – it is easy to destroy them, but there is no way to recreate them" (Borodin, 1913, 1915).

The main purpose of the Commission was to preserve intact little-modified and valuable natural areas in need of protection and study. On the recommendation of the Commission and on the basis of the "Project for the survey of the sable regions of Russia in 1913-1915" developed by A.A. Silantyev (head of the St. Petersburg School of Huntsmanship), with the allocation of territories where this craft was of great importance to the local population, and where the local departments of the Ministry of Agriculture designated reserves: Verkhotursky District of Perm Governorate; Berezovsky and Turinsky Districts of Tobolsk Governorate; Barguzinsky District of Irkutsk Governorate; Minusinsky, Kansky and Nizhneudinsky Districts of Yenisei Governorate (Egorov, 1990). A.A. Silantyev considered the main task of the expeditions to develop projects for the first state reserves to save sables and preserve nature. In 1913, the Hunting Department of the Ministry of Agriculture held several meetings on this issue with the participation of prominent zoologists A.A. Byalynitsky-Birul, N.A. Smirnov, and others, who clarified the locations of future sable expeditions (Kamchatka was additionally scheduled for exploration) and their programs (Shtilmark, 2000). In addition, on the initiative of the head of the Department of Fishery and Hunting of the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture of the Department of Agriculture, V.K. Brazhnikov, an expedition was initiated in 1912 to create a reserve in the Volga Delta (Zhitkov, 1914). Proposals to reserve areas for the protection of sable in the Pechora taiga, Western Sayan, and other regions of Russia were considered.

The first project in Russia to be completed was the organization of the Matveevskaya Parma State Sable Reserve at the sources of the Kolva and Lozva Rivers in the Northern Urals in 1912, carried out by Valerian Ivanovich Belousov, a student at the Imperial Forestry Institute (Belousov, 1915).

The largest expeditions were the Sayan, Baikal, and Kamchatka ones. In 1914, Dmitry Konstantinovich Solovyov led an expedition to the Sayan Reserve, whose lands, in accordance with the Forest Charter, were removed "from public use" in accordance with the Mandatory Decree of the Irkutsk Governor-General dated 28.05.1915, 1.5 years before the creation of the Barguzin Reserve (Solovyov, 1920, p. 294; Ivanov et al., 2008). The results of the expedition are reflected in the published report "Sayan commercial hunting area and sable hunting in it" (1920).

N.A. Smirnov was appointed head of the Barguzin Expedition in 1914, but due to illness, he was replaced at the last moment by Georgy Georgievich Doppelmeyer. Based on the results of this expedition, the report "Sable hunting on the northeastern coast of Lake Baikal" (1926) was published.

Sergei Vasilyevich Kerzelli, who had previously worked as a veterinarian in the Arkhangelsk Governorate, a specialist in reindeer husbandry, later participated in the creation of the Committee of the North, the Arctic Institute, and became director of the Research Institute of Reindeer Husbandry, was appointed head of the Kamchatka Expedition in 1916. The report of the Kamchatka Expedition was not published, but, according to D.K. Solovyov, the expedition's economist, N.K. Lavrov, independently published a short essay "Fur trade in the Far East" in Tokyo in 1923 (Ladygin, Artyukhin, 2007).

It should be noted that, despite the high efficiency of these expeditions, after the adoption of the 1916 decree "On the establishment of rules on hunting reserves", the Ministry of Agriculture submitted only the Barguzin Sable Reserve (Doppelmeyer, 1926).:

The Minister of Agriculture, on December 29, 1916, presented to the Governing Senate the establishment of the Barguzinsky Hunting Reserve located along the northeastern coast of Lake Baikal, Trans-Baikal region, Barguzinsky District (Collection of Laws and Government Orders dated January 20, 1917, No. 18, art. 107).

In total, thanks to the efforts of the members of the Permanent Environmental Protection Commission of the IRGS, before the revolution there were three state reserves in Russia: Sayansky, Barguzinsky, and Kedrovaya Pad, of which only Barguzinsky was officially legalized (Doppelmeyer, 1926). It was not possible to fully reverse the utilitarian approach that was dominant at that time.

In early 1918, the Environmental Protection Commission of the Russian Geographical Society published a brochure by a prominent worker of the nature conservation business of that time, D.K. Solovyov, "Types of organizations contributing to nature conservation" (Solovyov, 1918). D.K. Solovyov's project provided for a significant variety of forms of protected natural territories – at least 28 types of such organizations, including various nature reserves, farms, scientific and educational institutions, as well as "foreign reserves" for the preservation of unique indigenous peoples and their habitat in Siberia, the North, and the Far East. The work has caused scientific controversy over the classification of protected areas, but has generally contributed to the development of conservation.

Due to the reorganization of the Russian Geographical Society after 1917, and since 1930, due to the actual cessation of the activities of its regional branches, as well as the collapse of the Environmental Protection Commission itself, the influence of the RGS on the formation of a network of protected areas in the USSR was reduced to zero (Tishkov et al., 2010).

Nevertheless, all subsequent programs and plans for the development of protected natural areas during the Soviet period and in post-perestroika Russia were significantly influenced by the work of the Permanent Environmental Protection Commission of the IRGS. Its work influenced the proposals of F.F. Schillinger, who initiated the creation of the All-Russian Organization for Nature Conservation, which temporarily functionally replaced the commission (Shtilmark, Avakov, 1977); V.N. Makarov (Works ... 1930; Makarov, 1935), who led the environmental movement during its darkest Stalinist years; the Commission for Nature Reserves of the USSR’s Academy of Sciences, which developed in the 1950s a draft geographical network of the country's reserves, including about 100 sites (Lavrenko et al., 1958), based on the new perspective plan of the USSR reserves, published in 1974 (Bannikov et al. others, 1974), as well as a more detailed plan for 1979 (Zykov, Nukhimovskaya, 1979).

All later plans always took into account the ideas expressed earlier, and the people involved in the commission continued to implement the program of organizing a network of protected areas and teach new specialists the basic principles of environmental protection. As a result, the following state reserves were created shortly after the revolution: Penza, which later became part of Sredne-Volzhsky (1919), Astrakhan (1919), Askania-Nova (1919), Ilmensky (1920), Koncha-Zaspa (1921), Crimean (1923), Kanevsky (1923), Voronezh (1923), Kavkazsky (1924), Berezinsky (1925), Gek-Gelsky (1925), Forest on Vorksle (1925), Galichya Gora (1925), Pitsundsky (1926), Zaaminsky (1926), Zhigulevsky (later called Sredne-Volzhsky (1927), etc.

Immediately after the October events, the Decree on Land was adopted. In 1919, the circular letter of the Central Forestry Department of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture was approved, indicating the unacceptability of logging in especially valuable forests and in the "area of future national parks and natural monuments" (Shaposhnikov, Borisov, 1958, p. 95). In the same year, a special department of nature protection was established at the People's Commissariat of Education, which gradually united all the reserves. In 1921, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the protection of natural monuments, gardens, and parks" was adopted, which laid the foundations for the classification of protected areas. In 1925, the State Committee for Nature Protection was established under the Chief Science Officer of the People's Commissariat of Education, and Academician N.M. Kulagin became its chairman (Reimers, Shtilmark, 1978).

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Chibilev, Vice-President of the Russian Geographical Society, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Steppe Institute of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, proposed in 2010 at the 14th anniversary congress of the Society to recreate the environmental protection commission (Tishkov et al., 2010). A number of congress participants supported this initiative. In 2011, on the eve of its centenary, the Environmental Protection Commission was re-established.